A number of new academic programs that pertain directly to Strategic Priority 3 were approved/implemented during the course of the time frame of the strategic plan, as detailed below. As mentioned above, IU East has been a very willing partner with the Office of Online Education in developing online collaborative programs—these are important opportunities for us, and we participate in all programs where we have appropriate faculty interest and expertise.
New Undergraduate Programs:
- B.A. in Spanish
- B.S. in Applied Health Sciences (collaborative online)
- B.A.S. (collaborative online)
- B.S. in Informatics (collaborative online); also 3 tracks in this degree: Business, Health Information Management, Legal Informatics
- BSBA (collaborative online—note that work on bringing this collaboration to fruition required a significant amount of work on the part of IU East faculty and administrators)
- B.A. in Sustainability Studies (collaborative online)
- B.S. in Data Science (collaborative online)
- B.A. in History (collaborative online)
- B.S. in Sociology (collaborative online)
New Graduate Programs:
- Family Nurse Practitioner concentration in the M.S.N. (partnership w/ IU Kokomo)
- M.A. in Teaching, Mathematics
- M.A. in Mental Health Counseling (partnership with IU Kokomo)
- Master of Liberal Studies (MLS) (collaborative online)
- M.A. in English (collaborative online)
- M.S. in Criminal Justice and Public Safety (collaborative online)
Collaborative Online Graduate Certificates (help support dual-credit high school teachers meet HLC requirements for graduate work):
- Biology
- Chemistry
- Communication Studies
- Composition Studies
- History
- Language & Literature
- Literature
- Mathematics
- Political Science
Additional Accomplishments
In addition to new academic programs, other accomplishments under this priority include the following:
- Strengthened our Career Services Office, where we added a full-time staff member and changed the lead position from “Career & Experiential Learning Coordinator” to Director of Career Services. To further promote the expanded services, this office will be physically moving to newly vacated space in Whitewater Lobby—a much more visible location for currently students as well as prospective students and community members. In addition, the office has evolved to offer new services such as job-shadowing experiences and site visits to area employers. Area employers are reporting that that they have recently hired their first IU East graduates and are very happy with them.
- Expanded and professionalized our police cadet program
- Strengthened our support for students attending post-graduate professional schools, including medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, physical therapy and law, and we are seeing more students enroll in these programs. In 2016, IU East, along with the other IU regional campuses, entered into an agreement with the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law to create the Indiana University Regional Law Scholars program. This competitive program offers a minimum of a renewable half-tuition scholarship, as well as guaranteed experiential learning opportunities or paid employment as a research assistant following completion of 31 law school credit hours. IU East has had several of our campus nominees successfully compete for this award.
- School of Education developed and implemented a “Transition to Teaching” program to help students with baccalaureate degrees who want to become teachers prepare to become licensed. Students in the program include the many new teachers who have been hired in Indiana schools under a special emergency license, a service that is much appreciated by our local school corporations. The program has seen strong enrollment growth, with student numbers now almost equal to enrollment in the traditional secondary education program.
- Strengthened our internalization efforts, with particular success in faculty-led international travel. The number of programs has increased, and we have added destinations and interdisciplinary collaborations. One example from 2017 was “Globalization in Context: China,” which included a trip to China led by two faculty members--one from the School of Humanities & Social Sciences, and the other from the School of Business & Economics.