UC Spreads Expertise Through Criminal Justice's
Distance Learning Master's Program

Expertise from the UC's criminal justice faculty is branching out to police and corrections officials from coast-to-coast, thanks to a new distance learning Master's degree program that started this quarter in the division.

"We have a unique mission with our Master's level program," says Frank Cullen, UC Distinguished Research Professor and the division's director of distance learning. "We are a research-oriented program, and part of our mission is to use that research to affect policies and practices in the real world. What we want to do is produce research that can lead to more effective policing and more effective corrections."

The program already has 22 students in just its first quarter of existence, and they hail from across the country, from the state of Washington to Florida. The average age among the group is 38, and all of them are involved in criminal justice careers. "There are literally hundreds of thousands of practitioners out there involved in shift work and working odd hours. This new program allows them to get their degree from one of the best programs in the country," says Ed Latessa, head of the criminal justice division with UC's College of Education.

Latessa, who travels extensively to workshops around the country, reports that brochures for the program are snatched up almost as quickly as he puts them on the table. "We run out of brochures and then people track me down," he says. "I was up at a conference in Columbus and had 20 probation chiefs wanting to talk about the program."

UC's criminal justice division is one of the highest rated in the nation. In an academic survey two years ago, the division was rated No. 2 nationally in an analysis published in the Journal of Criminal Justice Education. The program ties into the strong overall research environment at UC, ranked in July as one of the top 20 public research universities nationally in the annual report of the Lombardi Program on Measuring University Performance.

The program mirrors the traditional on-campus Master's program offered by the division. Students participate via the web-based Blackboard service, where lecture material is presented as written or graphical material. Blackboard also allows for online discussion among students and faculty. In addition, facilitators from the on-campus graduate student population are assigned to small groups of the students, and work with them throughout the two-year course of study. Invaluable technical support on technology issues has come from Jeff Gordon, UC professor of teacher education, and Jim Rauch, the e-learning project technology coordinator in the College of Education.

The criminal justice division has paired with Compass Knowledge, a Florida-based company that handles the program's marketing. It is the first public-private contractual arrangement for distance learning among Ohio's universities. "We found a company that does what faculty don't do well, to market the brand or market the degree," Cullen says. "It shows the willingness of the University of Cincinnati to think outside of the box, to understand that distance learning is not the same as recruiting for programs on campus."

The division found strong support from the provostal and dean's office level down through unanimous support from the faculty, who have all agreed to teach one course in the new program. The faculty's strong support is based on their belief that they can deliver high-quality graduate education through distance learning and, in doing so, help shape criminal justices practice nationwide.

That's a great model for the rest of the university, says Kristi Nelson, UC's vice provost for academic planning. "The provost's office is interested in pursuing distance learning programs university-wide where it is appropriate, where there is a market for it and where we can make inroads into that market," she says. "With the criminal justice program so highly ranked, it was an excellent choice for this kind of program."

Cullen describes himself as skeptical of distance learning, until he read a Chronicle of Higher Education article about initiatives at a number of Ivy League and major research universities to move into the field. "There are risks involved, but it was clear this was a learning medium that wasn't going away," he says. "It would always exist. One of the things that would determine success in this field was who was going to get into the market soonest."

"Anybody who thinks the students of today aren't going to tune into the convenience of the Internet for learning is mistaken," adds Latessa.

Kristie Blevins, assistant director of distance learning, says that 28 more students have already sent in applications for the winter quarter. Through the first five weeks of the program, "the current students are all doing pretty well, for the most part," she says. "From the e-mails I've received, the students say that they are very excited and pleased with the experience so far."

The goal is to add 20-25 new students in each of the four quarters when the program is offered each year, for a total enrollment in the program of around 200 after two years. New students can come into the program at any point, and will take all 16 courses as they are offered over the next 24-month period.

"This program can be incredibly valuable," Latessa says. "People all around the country can benefit from it. They don't all have access to higher education programs of this kind in their state, but every state is filled with people working in these areas."