Students now have more options when building their degrees

by Amber B. Carter

Rider has spiced up its curriculum by adding several majors, minors and certifications.

“The program development in The College of Liberal Arts, Education and Sciences (CLAES) is designed to prepare students in careers and citizenship for the 21 century,” said Dr. Barry Truchil, acting dean of CLAES.

There is now a program in European and Latin American studies. A new minor in Italian has been added to the existing language minors in Spanish, French, German and Russian. In addition to the Italian minor, the Foreign Language Department has hired a full-time faculty member to teach Chinese and Advanced Chinese.

Students have already taken advantage of the new graphic design track, under the communication major. Graphic design will combine art and communication to help students prepare to work with corporate logos and Web design.
The College of Business Administration (CBA) is waiting on approval by the state for a global supply chain management major for the fall 2009 semester.

“How [does] that product that has parts made in China, somewhere in South America and all these different parts of the world, wind up on your shelves in front of you?” asked Dr. Larry M. Newman, dean of CBA. “There are a lot of
components to that and that’s what this major is about.”

CBA is offering a minor in sports and society that is available to all students. The interdisciplinary minor pulls courses from CBA and CLAES.

CBA is also now offering certification in fraud and forensics.

According to Newman, this program is designed to identify fraud using business techniques. Many accounting and corporation firms have to use these techniques to be sure that their firms aren’t engaging in fraudulent activities. Rider now has the specialization to train people for those positions.

The College of Continuing Studies (CCS) has added two new evening majors: psychology, and journalism with a public relations track. In collaboration with CBA, Rider now offers certifications to alumni who did not graduate, but find themselves needing business skills in the workplace.

“We created business plus and business basics certificates that can help give business skills to students who didn’t have an opportunity to learn them,” said Boris Vilic, dean of CCS. “These certifications can also help prepare them for graduate school.”

CCS is also increasing the number of online courses. These courses have filled to capacity almost every summer.

“We’re working on giving our students even more opportunity to take credit courses during the summer when they may have to work or go home,” Vilic said.

The Westminster College of the Arts (WCA) is also adding programs with the new major in arts administration.

“It is for students who have an interest in the arts, whether they’re musicians or interested in drama or just the arts in general,” said Robert Annis, WCA dean. “This is for individuals who don’t want to be performers, who don’t want to be on the stage all the time, but maybe want to manage an opera company or work for a recording company in those types of areas.”

The music and theater tracks have been approved, and the art and dance tracks are pending approval. All tracks have links to CBA.

There is also an approved general track for individuals who are not dancers or actors, but interested in the arts.

“Overall, a number of these programs take advantage of the strengths of our various colleges,” said Dr. Donald Steven, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs.