Elizabethtown College has been working to introduce new majors and minors to the academics program. As of this semester, new majors such as data science and chemistry laboratory science are available for students to enroll in. By fall 2018, students should expect to see new programs such as finance and financial economy, early childhood education with a special education focus, biomedical engineering, civil engineering and criminal justice. These changes should go into effect over the summer and add new classes and opportunities to the College’s course catalog.
Within the past several years, the College has worked with a company called Hanover Research to survey students and faculty and understand what programs should be added to the school. Researchers and the College responded to direction from department heads, faculty members, and the curriculums of the academic departments. Many programs are designed to work closely with the classes already available at Etown and are intended to work with the strengths of the departments they fall into.
The changes Etown will see in terms of the course catalog and faculty will be small at first. Many programs are working on the strengths of the departments and incorporating existing classes. Department staff will slowly be introducing new classes over the next semester. For more information, see the Academics page of the Etown website or see the course catalog on Jayweb.
Expert Corner: written by Dr. Brain Newsome, Dean of Curriculum and Assessments
Dr. Brian Newsome was able to see the planning and the thought process behind introducing the new majors.
“Incoming students, faculty and department chairs had a lot of insight into the new programs. A lot of them were aware of the directions students wanted to take and what prospective students looked for in a school,” Newsome said.
Elizabethtown currently has over 90 majors and minors, many within the broader fields of liberal arts, sciences and business. What does the addition of a few more majors offer?
“The new majors offer training for really up-and-coming fields and this will give a lot of students – as well as the school – a competitive edge in the job market and in academic settings,” Newsome said.
