Graduate programs expand
Graduate degree programs at the University of Indianapolis are offered in a variety of disciplines and are expanding with the recent addition of new programs.
UIndy currently offers 34 master’s programs and six doctoral programs. Last academic school year, 433 graduate degrees were awarded and according to fall enrollment numbers, there are 1,180 graduate students across all the disciplines this year.
“When we talk about our graduate programs, the little byline there is ‘Opportunities and Excellence,’ and I really think that captures what we’re doing at the university and says a lot about what we want to do,” said Associate Provost and Dean of the Graduate School John McIlvried.
The newest graduate programs include an M.S.N. in Neonatal Nurse Practitioner, an M.S. in Sport Management and a Doctor of Nursing Practice. The School for Adult Learning also has proposed a master’s in Strategic Leadership and Design that is now awaiting approval from the faculty, which will be decided at a meeting in April. The Sport Management program was proposed last fall and officially approved in December.
Its first class of students will enter the program in August. The focus of the program is to prepare students to become practitioners in the intercollegiate athletic environment in areas such as fundraising, compliance, marketing and event management.
“As we go on and as we continue to gain momentum and more people become aware of our program, our hope is it [the program] will become a very competitive situation where we are dealing with a lot of applicants fighting for very few spots,” said Assistant Professor of Kinesiology Michael Diacin. “And I think we can get there.”
McIlvried said that many of the programs at UIndy are competitive and that areas with a lot of job opportunities are seeing an increase in the number of applications, such as in the health sciences.
According to research conducted by McIlvried, M.S. and M.A. degrees earn 33 percent more income than B.S. and B.A. degrees. Ph. D graduates earn 79 percent more than B.S. and B.A. graduates. Also, the unemployment rate is lower for people with graduate degrees.
“Clearly a grad degree is an inroad to getting better jobs and higher pay,” McIlvried said.
The Graduate School at UIndy serves three primary functions, which are leadership, management and support. These will be integrated into the new Sport Management program, as the students will have personal mentors to support them and will be gaining a lot of applied learning experiences.
“Hands-on learning is not something we just throw around as a meaningless catch phrase,” Diacin said. “We really will do that.”
Diacin feels that Indianapolis is a great location for the new program.
“I think we [UIndy] are uniquely positioned in this environment because we have so many things we can draw from, other universities within a 20-minute drive, several intercollegiate conference offices here in town—we have the NCAA in town,” Diacin said. “Nobody else, other than an Indianapolis school, can say, ‘We have the NCAA headquarters 15 minutes away,’ so I’d say we have unparalleled access to these professional resources and it’s also convenient. Nobody else can really claim the convenience to these resources that we have.”
Both McIlvried and Diacin contend that graduate programs are beneficial and that UIndy’s programs in particular really shine.
“Another benefit of going through the graduate education process is the intensive experience they [students] are going to gain as a result of being in the program,” Diacin said. “It’s hard to provide that type of intensive experience at the undergraduate level, because it’s more of a general focus within the undergrad environment. That’s why getting into a graduate study in this field, college athletics, but also for many across the board fields [is beneficial]. ”
More information about any UIndy graduate programs can be found at www.uindy.edu/graduate-admissions.
