Criminal Justice — Master of Arts

This 32-credit program is designed especially for individuals looking to combine their academic and professional experience in the areas of criminal justice, social justice, and/or community justice in a way that suits their career plans. These individuals already have the skills needed to study and lead and have proven themselves in their chosen fields. This program provides students with the knowledge and skills to understand and assess organizations and evidence-based policies for the purpose of contributing to the development of a more effective, efficient, and innovative criminal justice system. The program also provides students with applied learning, the ability to pursue further education at the doctoral level, and an excellent opportunity for networking with other criminal justice professionals.

Students will complete the program over 20 months, taking two courses per semester for five consecutive semesters. In the fifth and final semester, students taking the major paper pathway will complete one course and write and defend a major paper. Students taking the thesis pathway will normally be expected to complete the writing of, and orally defend, their thesis in the fifth semester. It is normally expected that students completing a thesis will have completed a substantial amount of work on their thesis prior to entering into the fifth and final semester, or that they will extend their involvement in the program beyond the five-semester model.