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Miami University's regional campuses in Hamilton and Middletown will launch a new four-year degree program - the Bachelor of Integrative Studies (BIS) - beginning this fall. Eric Fingerhut, chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, approved the BIS Tuesday, July 22.
"We're really excited about it. This provides an opportunity for students to finish their degrees in their own community," said Daniel Hall, Miami Hamilton campus dean.
"By offering an array of alternatives in both applied and liberal studies, students can find a program that fits their interests and prior education and prepares them to meet the demands of the 21st Century workforce," Hall said. "For the student, it's about making connections that create fusion and synergy through integrative learning."
Offering the BIS at Miami Hamilton and Miami Middletown is in line with a statewide initiative to provide more convenient and affordable access to higher education for all citizens of Ohio, according to Kelly Cowan, Miami Middletown campus dean.
"We're trying to remove the barrier of distance to opportunities for higher education in Southwest Ohio," Cowan said. "Many of our students are place-bound with jobs and families of their own. They can't move just to be closer to classes."
The BIS builds on an associate's degree, or on the first two years of most college programs. It offers seven primary concentrations - of five courses each - in applied and liberal studies. Concentrations include applied sociology; contemporary American experience; environmental studies; families, gender, and society; information technology; organizational leadership, and understanding media and visual culture.
Program requirements include courses with intercultural perspectives and 21st Century literacies, tied together by integrative seminars which guide the students in linking different areas of study and different patterns of thinking.
Hall and Cowan said that as the BIS degree was being developed over the last nine months, academic advisers on both campuses continued to have conversations with potential students who emphasized their need to complete a bachelor's degree in order to get a promotion, a raise, or other advancement.
Both deans commended the BIS Task Force for working so hard to bring the new degree offering to fruition in time for the 2008-09 academic year. The task force was led jointly by Lee Sanders, senior associate dean for academic affairs at Miami Hamilton, and Jeff Sommers, associate dean for academic affairs at Miami Middletown.
Additionally, both of Miami's regional campuses have signed partnership agreements with Cincinnati State Technical and Community College and Sinclair Community College's Courseview Campus in Mason. These agreements are expected to eliminate even more barriers to higher education and to create convenient pathways to help students achieve their educational goals.
The "two-plus-two" model being advanced through the collaborative effort will make it easier for students to transfer credits between the institutions, with most upper-division courses being taught at Miami's regional campuses.
"New four-year baccalaureate offerings on Miami's regional campuses, in tandem with appropriate two-plus-two articulation agreements we continue to explore with community colleges, will go a long way to ensure access and opportunity in Ohio," Hall said. "It will certainly contribute to the governor's goal of 230,000 new college graduates in Ohio over the next 10 years."
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