The University provides qualified applicants the opportunity to pursue graduate degrees by offering master’s degree and certificate programs. The common goal of the graduate programs is to afford opportunities for ethics-based professional preparation in a variety of human endeavors. Graduate programs bring together faculty and students as a community of scholars with a common interest in creative work and advanced study.
It is the mission of Graduate Studies to prepare reflective practitioners. The graduate programs all involve learning and mastering the skills of reflective scholarship as the ability to understand and to reflect on the major theoretical and empirical data in a field of study; reflective learning as the ability to act while reflecting on one’s own ideas, analyses, values, personal and organizational interests, and the interests of others; and reflective practice as the ability to apply skills and perspectives in life, to reflect on the appropriateness of practices and to practice self-efficacy in application, both reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action of professional activities.
The goal of graduate education is to instill in the students an understanding of and capacity for scholarship, independent judgment, academic rigor, and intellectual honesty. It is the responsibility of faculty and students to work together in partnership to encourage freedom of inquiry demonstrate personal and professional integrity, and foster mutual respect.
These Core Learning Outcomes are integrated within each degree plan:
Reflective Scholarship
To understand the major theoretical perspectives in their field of study.
Reflective Learning
To apply major theoretical perspectives in their field of study to real-life cases and to reflect on these
applications.
Reflective Practice
To reflect and act on one’s own ideas, analyses, values, and personal and organizational interests in
relation to one’s field of study.
Quality graduate education depends upon the professional and ethical conduct of all parties. Members of the graduate faculty and graduate students have mutual responsibilities in the maintenance of academics standards and the creation of a high quality graduate program. Graduate students are viewed as professionals, not solely as students whose only interest is degree completion. Graduate students have made a career choice and are viewed as members of a profession that has obligations to our human community.
The Graduate Council and the Office of Graduate Studies oversee the graduate programs. The Graduate Council is comprised of faculty members who share responsibility for standards of admission, retention, graduation requirements, graduate degree curricular matters, approval of new graduate programs and all other matters of educational policy pertaining to graduate programs. Policy recommendations of the Council are forwarded to the Vice President for Academic Affairs for University review and action.