UAFS pushes plan for master’s degree

University aims to launch program in 2016

The University of Arkansas at Fort Smith plans to seek permission from the state this week to begin offering its first-ever master’s degree.

If it succeeds in a yearlong process to change its role and scope, the young university would start the degree program by summer 2016.

“We’re the last ones to have graduate programs,” university Provost Ray Wallace said. “We’re the newest people on the block.”

All of the state’s nine other four-year public universities and its medical school already offer master’s programs, said Brandi Hinkle,spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.

It was only a decade ago that the university awarded its first bachelor’s diplomas to students, at the end of the 2002-03 school year. A year earlier, the former Westark College had reached university status and merged with the University of Arkansas System.

It’s time to move to the next level, Wallace said, as employers and students have demonstrated interest in a master of science in healthcare administration. No such program exists within 50 miles of the Fort Smith campus, according to its pitch to the UA board of trustees.

The most-similar examples of existing degrees the Fort Smith campus found in Arkansas were a master of public administration at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, a master of science in health sciences at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ master of public health and master of health services administration.

The Fort Smith campus plans to offer the master’s in health-care administration in a completely online format.

“This is a unique program in that students must possess an earned bachelor’s degree in nursing, healthcare administration, or other relat-lated healthcare field from an accredited regional institution with at least a 3.0 GPA,” the proposal said. “Although students with an earned bachelor degree in business administration do not hold licensure in a healthcare field, applications from this discipline will be considered as well.”GAINING APPROVAL

UA System President Donald R. Bobbitt backed the Fort Smith campus’ proposal when it successfully gained approval from UA trustees in May.

Factors he cited included the proposed degree’s unique blending of health care and business, strong existing undergraduate programs in those areas, expected demand for new health-care providers and the fact that the course will be offered on the Internet.

“If this program required them to build a new building, we probably wouldn’t even be having this conversation,” Bobbitt said.

In early June, the university announced its College of Business had earned accreditation by the international Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, the system president noted.

The university is seeking to move into graduate programs just as the state is about to embark on its “performance funding” initiative.

Beginning July 1, part of the higher-education funding formula will take into account measures such as a school’s graduation rates, diplomas awarded and graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.

The university’s comparatively low graduation rates - only 25 percent of its total baccalaureate-seekers graduate within six years and just 10 percent of associate’s degree candidates finish within three years - don’t leave Bobbitt concerned that the school could be taking on too much.

“If I thought they were shifting resources from other programs that serve first-time, full-time freshmen, that would be a nonstarter,” he said. And graduation rates in its nursing programs are higher than its overall rates, he added.

The Fort Smith campus originally pitched a second master’s degree program as well - a master of science degree in nursing with a nursing-education specialty, records show.

Ben Beaumont, a UA System spokesman, said Bobbitt and Vice President for Academic Affairs Michael Moore advised university leaders to drop their pursuit of the master’s in nursing proposal.

“Since it’s a new thing for the institution, you want the institution to gain some experience first,” Bobbitt said. “So my thought was: Do one and do it well.”

He noted that an aging baby-boomer population is expected to dramatically increase patient rolls at the same time the demographic is retiring out of the healthcare field.

This outlook, combined with UA System officials’ talks with hospitals and other health-care employers in the Fort Smith area, made the master’s in health-care administration the chosen proposal.

“This one was unique, and there seemed to be some demand, not just in this part of the state, but elsewhere in Arkansas and the nation after the national health-care law takes effect,” Bobbitt said.

‘ROLE AND SCOPE’ PROCESS

The last time Arkansas universities received authority to begin offering master’s programs was in the early 1990s, Hinkle said. That was when the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia and the University of Arkansas at Monticello got the goahead, she said.

The other state schools offering programs up to the master’s degree level are Arkansas Tech University in Russellville and Henderson State University in Arkadelphia.

Two years ago, UAPB - the state’s historically black,1890s-era land-grant school and a university since 1972 - became a doctoral-granting university, joining UAMS, the University of Arkansas campuses in Fayetteville and Little Rock, ASU-Jonesboro and UCA.

The Department of Higher Education requires that universities apply for a “role and scope” change any time they request a new level of degree-offering capability.

The department’s associate director for Academic Affairs, Cynthia J. Moten, said the process of transforming a university into one offering higher-level programs typically takes a minimum of a year.

It involves external peer reviewers from similar schools outside Arkansas as well as several stages of review by department staff and its governing body, the Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

The Arkansas Legislature set up the role-and-scope process under Arkansas Code Annotated 6-61-207.

Moten noted that “unnecessary duplication” had been the state’s main concern over the years because multiple degree programs are sometimes approved when demand is high, and the programs are placed strategically around the state to ensure access.

“Graduate programs are very expensive,” she said, and the state wants to be a good steward of investments by taxpayers and students. By design, their enrollments are lower and faculty interaction more intense, which in turn reduces revenue potential and consumes more resources compared with undergraduate programs.

The state’s process also provides time for public comment from Arkansas residents and other higher-education schools in the state.

UA RAISES CONCERNS

The university received some written feedback from other universities and colleges, records show, after it sent notification in March that it planned to seek the two master’s degree proposals.

Several schools backed the Fort Smith campus.

“Northark supports UAFS’ proposal and wishes them well,” Gwen Gresham, executive vice president of learning at North Arkansas College in Harrison, wrote on March 19, joining supporting voices that included SAU, Ozarka College in Melbourne, Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville and two UA System community colleges.

But UA-Fayetteville lodged objections, particularly to the master’s of science in nursing.

“We are concerned about a duplication of efforts and, therefore, a question of adequate resources,” UA-Fayetteville Provost Sharon Gaber responded to Wallace, saying she had first consulted her university’s School of Nursing.

Among concerns in the response was that UAFS lacked qualified faculty and would have to aggressively recruit, most likely raiding UA faculty.

Wallace responded that the comments about UAFS faculty credentials were “confused at best” and that the university would recruit nationally.

The university plans to submit its notice to the Department of Higher Education this week for the new master’s program and roleand-scope change and expects it to be considered at the Coordinating Board’s July 26 meeting, Wallace said.

The campus also will work with the regional accreditor - the Higher Learning Commission, one of two affiliates of the North Central Association - to seek its blessing on the new master’s program.

“It’s a long, drawn-out process, but it should be,” Wallace said. “It’s like anything else: You want to do it right.”

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 15 on 06/23/2013

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