Longwood will no longer be offering the Master of Science degree of sociology with a concentration of criminal justice due to a recent decision by the university’s faculty senate.
Kathy Charleston, the assistant dean of the College of Graduate and Professional Studies, said “…it certainly was with great sadness that the department and the College of Graduate and Professional Studies had to come to this conclusion and make this decision…”
The program was created more than 20 years ago and provided a broader knowledge in the field for those in need of excelling to the next level of education. It was a concern that many students on campus may not have been aware of the program due to the fact that the graduate program took place offsite in Lynchburg, Virginia at the Central Virginia Criminal Justice Academy.
The program once was filled with 45 students and currently only has seven enrolled. Students currently enrolled in the program will be able to graduate with the degree, but no more students will be admitted to the degree program. “…technically it won’t be submitted to storage until the last currently enrolled student has graduated…” said Charleston.
The remaining seven students still enrolled in the program are set to graduate in May leaving the program completely abolished at that point.
As the number of undergraduates in the program continues to rise, the number of graduate students is decreasing, a situation which Charleston claims is from a lack of recruitment by the university.
“…we haven’t been recruiting hard for that master’s degree, so we don’t have a large number of students in the program that need to finish…” said Charleston.
The main reason Charleston feels the program was dropped is that “…the two undergraduate majors have had such significant increases in the number of students majoring in those two undergraduate majors that they don’t have enough faculty in the department to accommodate all of the undergraduate majors and offer a graduate program…”
Charleston says the elimination of the program should not impact the school in any financial way. Rather, the impact will solely be in terms of human resources. “…the faculty in that department will not be able to spread themselves over graduate course offerings as well as meeting all the needs of their undergraduate majors,” said Charleston.
Charleston says there is “always a chance” of the program coming back to the university, and that there are no other current plans for dropping any other graduate programs at this time.
