Undecided about your major? Well, the Board of Trustees has approved two new undergraduate majors and a new graduate program for the 2012-2013 school year.

Graphic design, previously available as a minor, will now be an available as Bachelor of Arts degree. Criminal justice will also be a new major option, in addition to a graduate psychology program.

Graphic design

According to Andrea Eis, associate professor and the chair of the art and art history department, a lot of the development of the graphic design major was due to Lynn Galbreath Fausone, adjunct assistant professor in the art and art history department. Fausone will be the director of the graphic design program.

“She was the one who first brought up the idea, and should get the major credit for this being approved,” Eis said. “We needed her dedication and hard work, as well as her professional knowledge and expertise in design, to move it forward.”

The department approved the graphic design major in fall 2009. However, like all proposed majors, it had to go through an extensive approval process.

First the proposed degree program must be researched and a proposal must be written. Then it is written, it must be approved by the department, university-wide committees, the University Senate and the BOT.

“Probably the hardest issue really was the length of time it took, when we knew that students were ready and excited to get started,” Eis said.

For more information about the graphic design major, visit oakland.edu/art-history

Criminal justice 

A criminal justice Bachelor of Arts degree was also approved at the BOT meeting. The new degree will be a part of the department of sociology, anthropology and social work.

According to the criminal justice major proposal, which was prepared by professors of criminal justice Amanda Burgess-Proctor and Jay Meehan, the degree will contribute to OU’s 2020 strategic plan. The new degree will have national partnerships with the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and the Center for Homeland Defense and Security in Monterey, Calif.

Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Virinder Moudgil believes the new program is an important step for both OU and other criminal justice programs.

“We believe that the criminal justice program at OU will soon be recognized as a model program nationwide due to the fact that it will include specialization tracks in a number of areas that are quite new,” he said.

The new program will allow students to specialize in law enforcement, courts, corrections and treatment, juvenile justice, information security and assurance or homeland security. Courses will utilize both the Anton/ Frankel Center in Mount Clemens and OU’s main campus.

For more information about the criminal justice degree, visit oakland.edu/socan

Psychology graduate program 

In addition to the new undergraduate programs, graduate students will now be able to apply to a masters or doctoral program in psychology.

Doctoral candidates will be able to continue their education in one of two broad concentrations: biological and basic processes or social and behavioral processes.

“We also have a heavy course load of statistics and research design so that students are going to be incredibly well prepared in terms of getting jobs in either academia or the private sector, or for that matter, in the research industry,” said Todd Shackelford, the chair of and a professor in the psychology department.

Like undergraduate degrees, graduate programs must be approved by a variety of groups, in similar fashion, until they have finally discussed at the President’s Council of State Universities in Michigan.

Although the program has not been completely approved, Shackelford has received 150 informal applications from 38 states and six different countries for only a handful prospective spots.

For more information about the psychology graduate degree programs, visit oakland.edu/psychology/grad

Contact Senior Reporter Sarah Hunton  via email at [email protected]