New Majors

Unless otherwise noted, all new programs are pending approval by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC).

The major in Healthcare Administration via executive distance learning offers courses designed to increase knowledge and enhance professional performance for students currently employed in the health professions. The primary focus of the curriculum is middle-to senior-level management. Principal areas of study include health and disease; sociological, economic, legal, and political forces which affect health care; and management organizational behaviors including such specializations as financial management, human resource management, planning, marketing, and data generation and analysis.

Status: APPROVED

Start Date: Fall 2018

Academic Home: School of Health Administration

This program will provide an avenue for registered nurses (RNs) with an associate’s degree in nursing (ADN) to complete a baccalaureate degree in nursing (BSN). The program will advance the registered nurses’ knowledge, skills and attributes in leadership, management, research, ethics, health policy, healthcare information technology and community and population health to prepare them for the needs of care of the 21^st century.

Status: APPROVED

Start Date: Fall 2018

Academic Home: School of Nursing

The RRT-to-BSRC online completion program will provide degree advancement for entry-level associate degree respiratory care graduates from across the state and country through additional knowledge, skills, and attributes in leadership, management, education, research, and/or critical care necessary to meet advancing professional goals. Completion of the Bachelor of Science in Respiratory Care (BSRC) degree at Texas State University through an online delivery format will prepare therapists for practice as advanced degree respiratory therapists and provide significant opportunities for jobs requiring an advanced degree for the working therapist. The online delivery format will provide degree advancement without the need to geographically relocate or leave work, residence, or family.

Status: APPROVED

Start Date: Fall 2018

Academic Home: Department of Respiratory Care

Integrative degrees in agriculture address educational needs that recent decades of environmental, social, global, and agricultural production developments (for example genetic engineering, international trade policy, precision agriculture technology) have ushered in, thus creating an era of agriculture that requires education to be integrative. The integrated approach to agricultural sciences combines research and education concerning land use strategies, crop and animal production, distribution, sales, economics, policy, and the environment. Basically, integrated agricultural science bridges the gaps between sub-disciplines of agricultural sciences.

Based on a multidisciplinary approach, the proposed program will expose students to the breadth of agriculture and provide opportunities for them to integrate what they learn in different courses. These graduates will have a 21^st century expertise with theoretical and practical skills necessary to analyze, optimize, and implement complex agro-systems. Each student’s degree will culminate in either thesis-based research or in a professional paper (non-thesis).

Status: APPROVED

Start Date: Fall 2018

Academic Home: Department of Agriculture

This hybrid post-professional master’s degree program will prepare post-baccalaureate nurses and post-master’s prepared nurses to practice in psychiatric mental health practitioner roles in a variety of health care institutions. Participants seeking career advancement opportunities through graduate education for nurse practitioner positions specializing in psychiatry and mental health will be prepared to effectively translate innovative practice models and expertly direct the delivery of psychiatric, mental, and behavioral health care across organizational models. Graduates of the MSN-PMHNP program will be prepared to skillfully translate research and utilize evidenced-based practice knowledge to direct individual and population health care with a focus on mental and behavioral health.

Status: APPROVED

Start Date: Spring 2019

Academic Home: St. David's School of Nursing

The founders of the Society for Applied Anthropology selected the name "Applied Anthropology" to signify the application of the principles and approaches of anthropology to the interdisciplinary identification and solution of human problems. The proposed applied anthropology PhD program incorporates intercultural communication, interdisciplinary understanding, research design, grant writing, project management, ethics and professional conduct, methods of data collection, and the use of theory in the interpretation of data toward the solution of real-world problems.

The proposed program will be the first of its kind in the state of Texas and one out of a total of three such programs in the nation. In addition, Texas State has two unique laboratories that are crucial to the success of such a program. The Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State (FACTS) includes a 26-acre outdoor human decomposition facility; two laboratories equipped for imaging, scanning, histomorphometry, osteometry, digitizing, autopsy, and skeletal maceration; a 250+ skeletal collection; and a willed-body donation program, which accepts an average of 70 donated bodies per year and has more than 300 individuals currently self-registered as “living donors.”

The Center for Archaeological Studies (CAS) is one of the few university-based CRM facilities in the state and nation, and will help prepare PhD students for compliance-based CRM archaeology careers. CAS has a completely equipped laboratory and typically conducts 8-15 archaeological investigations per year. The center’s curation facility is one of 11 facilities certified by the Texas Historical Commission, and is therefore charged with museum-standard care and management of archeological and skeletal collections obtained under a Texas Antiquities Permit. The curation facility at CAS was designed to meet the rigorous requirements of federal regulation and as such can hold federal collections. This achievement, acquired only by Texas State investing significantly into the curatorial facility, provides students with opportunities to learn collection management and curation procedures.

Status: APPROVED

Start Date: Fall 2018

Academic Home: Department of Anthropology

The main objective of the program is to ensure that graduates can use appropriate data analysis methods and cutting-edge information technologies to derive actionable business intelligence. In a survey by KPMG, 99% of surveyed executives indicated that the skills for managing and analyzing big data sets to derive actionable insights is important for developing sound business strategy (Gershkoff, 2015). This requires employees with advanced knowledge of data management technologies to manage big data sets and apply appropriate analytical techniques to analyze these data sets.

The proposed program will provide students with integrated knowledge of information technology and data analysis methods to effectively manage and analyze data to support data-driven decision-making. The curriculum of the proposed program will provide students with the technical skills required for the DSA jobs. This includes both information systems and data analytics skills such as data management, structured query language, R and Python programming, descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytics, machine learning, statistical computing, big data analysis, and data visualization.

Status: APPROVED

Start Date: Spring 2019

Academic Home: Department of Information Systems & Analytics

Texas State will be the first university in the region to offer a M.S. degree with a major in Marketing Research and Analysis and only the second university in Texas to have a master’s degree that focuses on marketing research. Job opportunities for graduates of the proposed program include market research analysts, marketing managers and survey researchers.

The proposed program will be a specialized program that helps to fill the disconnect between marketing practice and marketing education. As technology advances and data collection becomes the primary source for managerial decisions, a need has evolved for a managerial workforce with advanced degrees in marketing to be able to make effective use of this vast amount of data coming into the organization. These marketing research and analysis functions are a critical part of modern marketing in organizations. Effective organizations are making decisions based on facts and these facts are gleaned from analysis of incoming data. More and more organizations are using marketing analytics and digital marketing. There is an unmet need for marketing professionals who can interpret and relate that data to marketing decisions as well as make marketing decisions in an increasingly digital marketplace.

Status: APPROVED

Start Date: Spring 2019

Academic Home: Department of Marketing

The proposed program requires completion of 126 semester credit hours. Compelling academic reasons exist for requiring more than 120 hours for the baccalaureate degree. In addition to the general education core curriculum, mathematics and sciences, and general engineering topics required for ABET accreditation; the program will prepare CE students to design and manage “smart infrastructure” systems. Concepts and curricular components related to TEI are embedded throughout the curriculum, extending longitudinally from the first-year introductory courses through senior-level electives. The program is designed to comply with broad ABET accreditation requirements, to develop graduates with highly marketable skills and CE competencies, to prepare graduates for professional licensure, and to create a framework for interdisciplinary research and economic development. Most CE programs across the country have a well-established traditional curriculum conceived and implemented long before TEI concepts existed. However, a new program such as that proposed at Texas State, with fewer constraints and less programmatic inertia, can be structured to address both traditional CE principles and the next generation concepts this degree envisages.

Status: APPROVED

Start Date: Fall 2019

Academic Home: Ingram School of Engineering