President Stephen Jordan announced his intention to Faculty Senate last week to seek approval from the Board of Trustees to pursue legislative authorization to add graduate programs at the master’s degree level to the College’s degree offerings.

Jordan made the announcement after consulting with the BOT’s Academic and Student Services Subcommittee. Both groups approve of the idea. Jordan will submit a proposal to the trustees at their Nov. 4 meeting.

It will be a lengthy process if the BOT allows the proposal to go forward. “Realistically, if everything goes smoothly, we’d be able to offer one or more graduate programs by fall of 2010,” Jordan says.

The decision as to which academic programs might be involved has not been made, but teacher education, criminal justice and social work are three that Jordan lists as having great potential for expansion into master’s programs.

“These are three of our premier programs that are important to the community that we serve,” Jordan says. “It would be a benefit to offer graduate programs to our students, most who come from and remain in the seven-county metro Denver area after graduation.” The final determination will be made through the legislative process, he adds.

The idea also dovetails with the College’s Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) initiative. Jordan believes that offering graduate degrees will make Metro State more attractive to Latino students, as the College works to essentially double its Latino student population–from 13 percent of the student body to 25 percent– over the next 10 years. (To read more about the HSI initiative, go to http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/hsi_twv5020608.shtml.)

The HSI Task Force included in its report the idea that graduate education will attract more faculty of color, considered a key component to enrolling and retaining students of color.

Another reason to offer graduate programs, Jordan says, is his intention to add 40 tenured and tenure-track faculty each year for the next seven years. “Having graduate programs will expand the overall pool of scholars interested in working for Metro State,” Jordan says, “and bolster our goal of preeminence.”