FMU offers new programs, students demand satisfied

The FMU School of Business and School of Education began classes this semester with new programs and concentrations in response to student demand and regional opportunities.

The School of Education’s Master of Education in Teaching and Learning program will work with existing classes and others arriving in upcoming semesters. The School of Business now offers sports marketing and sports management tracks for business administration majors and information management and information technology tracks for the new healthcare informatics major.

Students of any discipline can apply to the Master of Education (M.Ed.) in Teaching and Learning program, which consists of 30 hours of graduate level coursework in education with a project toward the end.

Tracy E. Meetze-Holcombe, dean of the School of Education, said the inspiration for the program was to cast a broader net with a more general master’s program, allowing alternatives for certification.

“Up to this point, all of our graduate programs focused on a particular niche,” Meetze-Holcombe said. “This program will seek to address all learners in a more general context.  Additionally, this program will serve to work in tandem with candidates seeking alternative certification, as it embeds coursework required for licensure into the M.Ed.  In other words, candidates can get the hours required for licensure while working toward a Master of Education.”

Meetze-Holcombe also said students do not need to have teaching aspirations to apply.

“You do not have to be a teacher,” Meetze-Holcombe said. “You can be a major of any discipline looking to add on licensure through an alternative route and seek a Master of Education concomitantly.”

According to Hari Rajagopalan, dean of the School of Business, the new healthcare informatics major is made up of classes from management, management information systems and healthcare administration areas to give students the ability to work with data in the healthcare industry and use analytics that provides information people in the clinical field can use.   

Rajagopalan said the motivation for the healthcare informatics major is the demand in the region for an inter-disciplinary professional program that allows the graduates to work with the healthcare information systems with which hospitals are struggling.

“The healthcare field desperately needs people who can analyze, interpret, work with data and maintain digital systems,” Rajagopalan said. “These people should not only have knowledge of data analytics and management but also about the healthcare field.”

In addition to this new major, the department now offers sports marketing and sports management tracks, which are similar to the marketing and human resource management majors except that students take two extra classes at the athletics department to complete their sports track.

According to Rajagopalan, the School of Business has strengthened their offerings in the supply chain management and human resource management tracks.

For all of their majors and programs, Rajagopalan said students engage with internships and practicums specific to them.