Students at Lyndon State College will have two new majors to choose from beginning next year.
At the start of the fall 2011 semester, two new majors will be available to students enrolled at LSC. These majors include criminal justice (which was implemented as a minor in the fall of 2009) and sports management. Sports management was previously a concentration under the exercise science major, but now will be its own major.
There is a process for new degree programs to be implemented that is followed by all the Vermont State Colleges. First, the new degree program has to be approved by the Faculty Assembly and the college’s president. Next, the proposal undergoes a three-step approval process by the Council of Presidents, made up of all VSC presidents and the Chancellor.
The first step is referred to as “early alert,” and at this level, all the presidents have the chance to consider the degree program proposal. Step two includes a preliminary proposal form, known as policy 102, where an abstract of the program is reviewed by the Council of Presidents and Board of Trustee Committee called the Education, Personnel, and Student Life committee, or EPSL. If approved at this level, a final proposal that outlines in greater detail things like costs, faculty, student audience, etc., is presented. Once approved at this level by the entire Board of Trustees and EPSL committee, the new program can be implemented.
Criminal justice has been completely approved, and sports management has been approved at the second level with the Council of Presidents, with the final decision expected in April.
Professor Janet Bennion of the social sciences department is thrilled to offer Criminal Justice as a new major in her department.
“We should be expanding the options, not decreasing them,” Bennion said. “We should be addressing all areas of student needs with our programs.”
The criminal justice program will have courses that feature some real-life experts from the field, including Vermont attorney David Sleigh, and Superior Court judge Walter Morris. Some of the criminal justice classes will be online, but most will be held in a classroom.
Other changes in the degree offerings at LSC include the consolidation of concentrations and closings of some majors. Currently, LSC has two concentrations in accounting, and after this year, the plan is to eliminate them, and there will solely be a major in accounting. Similarly, the concentrations in mathematics will collapse, making available one major in mathematics. The small business management program will also be closing.
“There are other things under consideration,” said Dean of Student and Academic Affairs, Donna Dalton.
Global studies will also be unavailable as a major for students entering LSC in the fall of 2011, but instead they will have the option to enroll as a social science major with a concentration in global studies.
“Nobody has to worry,” said Bennion, since anyone enrolled in a closing major or concentration will be able to continue with that major until the graduate, with all the required courses available to them.
“We’re in interesting times as a public higher education system,” said Dalton. “We aren’t in the times where state appropriation continues to get larger and larger. We have to look at our offerings and ask ‘what do we absolutely have to have, and what can we live without?'”
Dalton recalls the last time a program was closed was three years ago, when an associate’s program in GIS was discontinued.
“It’s always easier to add than to close,” she said. LSC has been adding one or two programs, bachelor degrees or associate degrees, every year for the past five years according to Dalton.
For every credit that Lyndon professors don’t have to teach, the college saves around $1,300. In some cases, that number is higher or lower.
“That’s real money,” Dalton said.