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Seven new degrees approved for seven IU campuses

Jun 14, 2019

The Indiana University Board of Trustees has approved six new graduate degrees and one new undergraduate degree across seven campuses, including a collaborative Master of Science in education technology for learning – offered by IU East, IUPUI, IU Kokomo, IU Southeast and IU South Bend – through IU Online.

A woman writes math problems on a clear screen
The new Master of Science in education technology for learning through IU Online will train teachers to use digital tools to improve student learning.Photo by Eric Rudd, IU Communications

The degree will prepare graduates to meet the urgent need for educators who can engage learners in 21st-century skills. Students in the program will follow a rigorous and innovative curriculum in which they learn to use digital tools to improve student learning.

IUPUI began offering education technology courses in 2009 as part of its education master’s degree program, and after consultation with school districts and teachers, it developed a proposal for a teacher-focused online degree that would complement three education technology-related credentials offered by IU Bloomington. The curriculum of the proposed collaborative degree, however, is not as specialized as the IU Bloomington curriculum, which prepares graduates to pursue careers as e-learning developers and instructional designers. Instead, the new degree will focus on preparing current teachers to improve their own teaching or become instructional technology coordinators.

Another online master’s degree for IU Northwest has been approved. The Master of Science in criminal justice and public safety will draw on the teaching resources of five IU campuses to provide working professionals with a high-quality online degree. It will appeal to individuals who seek to sharpen their skills and develop new strategies to the administration of justice and promotion of public safety. Graduates of the program will be well positioned to attain leadership roles in a variety of public and private organizations.

A woman packs masks at the Eskenazi Museum of Art
The Master of Arts in curatorship approved for IU Bloomington will be the only curatorial program at a public university in the country to focus on training curators of categories of objects other than art.Photo courtesy of the IU Eskenazi Museum of Art

Two more Master of Science degrees have been approved for the IU Bloomington campus: A Master of Science in genome, cell and developmental biology and a Master of Science in neuroscience. Both degrees will be offered by the College of Arts and Sciences and both will be available for students who opt to leave either program prior to the completion of a doctoral degree.

Another master’s degree approved for the Bloomington campus is a Master of Arts in curatorship, which will leverage existing scholarly strengths across a range of disciplines and academic units to offer intellectual and professional preparation to students seeking careers in the study, collection, care and display of material culture. It will be housed within the University Graduate School and composed of courses from the College of Arts and Sciences; the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering; and the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

While IUPUI offers a museum studies master’s degree, the program’s curatorial training is folded within a curriculum covering the full range of museum-related career opportunities. Only three programs in curatorial studies exist at American public universities, none of which focuses on training curators of categories of objects other than art.

A Bachelor of Science in data science at IU Bloomington has also been approved by the trustees. The 120-credit program will be jointly offered by the School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering in collaboration with the Departments of Statistics, Mathematics and Linguistics in the College of Arts and Sciences. Students will choose from five specialization tracks – foundational data science, data systems, network and applied data science, data sciences design, and biological and health data science– and will complete a two semester-long capstone project within that specialization area in their fourth year.

Luddy Hall
The Bachelor of Science in data science approved for IU Bloomington will be offered by the School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering.Photo by Eric Rudd, Indiana University

Data science has evolved as a broad, interdisciplinary field throughout academia and industry, and there is a demand for data science graduates who have sufficient knowledge in computing and statistics who can work with big data and manage data-driven projects. Graduates of this program will be prepared to pursue careers as data scientists, data analysts, quantitative developers, risk analytics leads, predictive modeling analysts, big data platform engineers and more.

Finally, a Ph.D. in musculoskeletal health sciences at the IU School of Medicine has been approved. The program is designed to build upon the strengths of the Indiana Center for Musculoskeletal Health, which was formally established in the IU School of Medicine in 2016. The program will further leverage excellent bone, joint and muscle biomedical research by creating a degree option that functions as a recruitment tool to attract the most competitive doctoral degree applicants with interests in this growing area of biomedical research.

The degrees approved by the trustees still await final approval by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.

Author

IU Newsroom

Marah Yankey

Deputy director for storytelling

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