New Graduate Programs Open at School of Continuing Education

The School of Continuing Education has created two new masters of science programs, in information and archive management and actuarial science. Students can begin enrolling in these programs in fall 2006.

Information and archive management, created in conjunction with Librarian and Vice President for Information Services James Neal, will offer courses in records and archives management and database design, among others, and will be taught primarily by University library staff.

Courses in the actuarial science program will be conducted in large part by professors of the University's statistics department. Proposed by Daniel Rabinowitz, chair of the statistics department, actuarial science will include courses such as microeconomics, probability, and corporate finance.

"Actuarial science deals a lot with predicting and managing economic risk," said Frank Wolf, dean of the School of Continuing Education. "It's going to be very different from what we usually do." The school offers four other M.S. programs-strategic communications, technology management, fund-raising management, and landscape design.

Until 1995, the Schools of Continuing Education and General Studies were a single entity. Since then, General Studies has made its focus the undergraduate degree program, while Continuing Education has taken on the summer sessions, the summer program for high school students, and the American Language Program, among others.

Since the split, the School has experienced a 35 percent increase in enrollment, from 6,800 in the 1995-1996 school year to just under 8,300 in the current academic year.

According to Wolf, two additional programs in sports management and construction administration are currently under evaluation by a subcommittee of the University Senate Education Committee.

Sports management has been developed with the help of Athletic Director M. Dianne Murphy, while the school has worked closely with the civil engineering department of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences to create the construction administration program.

"The energy and planning for the school in the last few years has been targeted towards master's programs and applied professional education," said Wolf.

There are currently 283 graduate students enrolled in the various M.S. programs, the majority of whom are working towards a degree in strategic communications. Actuarial science is the only program that offers the option of full-time enrollment; most of the remaining programs are four or five semesters long.

Though its focus is on masters programs, the school also offers several post-baccalaureate courses and is in charge of the University's summer sessions.

In addition, several abroad programs are overseen by Continuing Education, including those in Reid Hall and the Berlin Consortium.

What's next for the School of Continuing Education? "At this point we're taking a breather," said Wolf.

"We've put together eight programs in four years, and I think it's prudent to stop there for now. The next two or three years will be primarily focused on the refinement and development of those eight programs," he said.