Mansfield University of Pennsylvania
Developing Tomorrow's Leaders
Criminal Justice Administration

Graduate School

SO YOU’RE INTERESTED IN GRADUATE SCHOOL

Attending graduate school has always been a big decision, but in today’s market it is many times viewed as a professional necessity – even in criminal justice agencies. Fortunately, today there are many opportunities for full-time professionals and individuals wanting to pursue a graduate degree in criminal justice, sometimes referred to as Administration of Justice; Law, Crime & Society, Criminology, and so on.

You can enroll as a full-time student, attend classes in the evenings while working full-time, and if you are structured enough, enroll as an online student either full-time or part-time. As of this writing (Summer 2009) there are several recent Mansfield University criminal justice majors attending graduate school, and in some of the most prestigious universities in the nation. Currently we have students enrolled full-time at Florida State, Penn State – Harrisburg, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Troy University (Troy, Alabama).

Fortunately, there are many graduate schools to choose from, even in Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, nationally ranked Indiana University of Pennsylvania offers the Ph.D. in criminology, while Penn State (University Park) offers the Ph.D. in Law, Crime & Justice within their Sociology Department. Temple University also offers a Ph.D. in criminal justice. Then there is the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), St. Joseph’s University ((Philadelphia), West Chester University (West Chester), Mercyhurst College (Erie), Marywood University (Scranton), Villanova University (Villanova), Shippensburg University (Shippensburg), and Penn State – Harrisburg (Middletown).

For a more complete national listing, please go to http://www.gradschools.com and do a search there.

For students who want to seriously prepare for graduate study, it is highly recommended that they take a research methods and a statistics course. It is highly unlikely that the Department of Criminal Justice will be offering our own CJA 4405: Research Methods in Criminal Justice course any longer, so I encourage you to take other research methods course in its place. Research methods is research methods is research methods. Students who are contemplating taking a research methods course should contact Dr. Thornsley beforehand as he is willing to allow you to use another research methods course under a different prefix to be used to satisfy one of the Department’s upper division electives.

Research methods can be acquired from taking either:

  1. PSY 2206: Research Methods I
    OR
  2. SOC 3307: Social Research I

Follow-up courses are available by taking:

  1. PSY 3306: Research Methods II
    OR
  2. SOC 3308: Social Research II

PSY 2206 has a prerequisite of PSY 1101 or PSY 1151 while PSY 3306 requires PSY 1101 and PSY 2206. PSY 2206 is offered in the Fall semesters while PSY 3306 is offered during the Spring.

SOC 3307 has no prerequisite, and is offered in the Fall semesters of even-numbered years and is taught by Dr. Purk; SOC 3308 is only offered in the Spring semesters of even-numbered years, and is taught by Dr. Madigan.

For statistics, students should take MA 1125 – Introductory Statistics and maybe even (3) MA 1125 – Inferential Statistics & Probability.

Suggested Readings:

Student Success & Failure in a Graduate Criminology/Criminal Justice Program, by Robert C. Lightfoot and William G. Doerner. American College of Criminal Justice, Volume 33, Number 1, Spring 2008, pages 113-129 (Available at North Hall Library.)

Graduate Schools in Criminal Justice; A State-By-State Guide. Found at http://www.apsu.edu/oconnort/jusgrad.htm.

Association of Doctoral Programs in Criminology & Criminal Justice. Found at http://www.adpccj.com.

 
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