Graduate Study at UMass Boston
Graduate study is becoming a way of life for more and more people in the United States and internationally. Career shifts and rapidly changing technologies require professionals to update their expertise or to prepare for new directions through graduate education. People at the beginning of their careers require an understanding not only of their disciplines but also of the people with whom they will be working and the new global community that is emerging.
At UMass Boston, the members of a talented, flexible faculty are responsive to the ways in which society and work place are evolving. They provide graduate students with teaching and supervision that is distinctive in quality, range, and perspectives, through certificate and master’s level study in more than fifty areas and thirteen doctoral programs. The faculty here are among the most accomplished scholars in their fields. Their research, writing, and consultantships have earned them national and international reputations. Yet they are also widely known for their commitment to their classes and students. They constitute a unique graduate teaching faculty.
Many of UMass Boston’s faculty members are associated not only with academic programs, but also with a range of institutes and centers at the university whose focus is on applied research and public service. These institutes and centers make important contributions to the greater Boston community’s knowledge and understanding of crucial social issues. Graduate students in turn can share in these affiliations, which afford exceptional opportunities to acquire research and field experience that is both valuable in its own right and career-enhancing as well.
One of the most pressing challenges to public policy makers in urban America is the need for government to respond effectively and positively to the explosion of new immigration and ethnic diversity. Many doctoral students in clinical psychology, education, gerontology, nursing, and public policy are making significant contributions to this and related issues in their dissertation research, often supported by faculty, staff, and resources in institutes and centers.
In another example of synergy, the Urban Harbors Institute, which focuses on such issues as water quality, port planning, and harbor management, sponsors both doctoral- and master’s- level research undertaken by students in the environmental sciences.
The relationship between graduate programs and the institutes and centers is one of the distinctive features and strengths of UMass Boston.
Office of Graduate Studies
Under the leadership of the Dean of Graduate Studies, this office oversees all graduate work at the university. In collaboration with the university’s Graduate Studies Committee, the Office of Graduate Studies exercises overall review and supervision of graduate programs, and provides guidance for the development of new programs, as well as for the maintenance of academic standards within existing programs. At UMass Boston, graduate education is supported cooperatively and in accordance with the highest national professional standards by the university’s College of Liberal Arts, College of Science and Mathematics, Graduate College of Education, College of Management, College of Nursing, John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies and College of Public and Community Service. Intercampus programs provide students the opportunity to benefit from faculty expertise on multiple campuses of the University of Massachusetts system. In addition, graduate students have opportunities to participate in activities sponsored by the nine campus-wide institutes.