Page 46 - Academic Report FINAL VERSION WEB

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS
Department of Political Science
In the 2018-19 academic year, the political science
department continued to grow and to sponsor civic
participation on campus.
This past academic year saw the introduction of
the new Bachelor of Science degree in political sci-
ence, which was approved by the Board of Regents
to begin in fall 2018. A number of current MGA stu-
dents were recruited to form the nucleus of the new
program along with new and transfer students. The
major was concentrated on the Cochran campus to
help build enrollment and retention of students there,
as well as to offer additional elective options for stu-
dents in other majors. We expect the first cohort of
political science majors to graduate in spring 2020,
with larger cohorts to follow.
We also made changes to the minor in political
science to make this program more appealing to stu-
dents in other humanities and social science majors,
who will now be more able to take advantage of the
minor due to the redesign of most majors to allow
students to take more upper division elective hours
outside their field. We hope redesigning the minor
will help increase enrollment in 2000-level and up-
per-division courses in political science.
The program also took a more active role in the
USG’s European Union Studies program, with one
faculty member, Dr. Christopher Lawrence, serving
Department of Psychology &
Criminal Justice
The 2018-19 academic year for the Department of
Psychology and Criminal Justice can be summed up
in five words: growth, innovation, retention, recruit-
ment and scholarship.
The department continues to grow its number of
majors each year, with over 700 total psychology and
criminal justice majors.
Innovation, retention and recruitment are linked in
several ways. For our programs, innovation is relat-
ed to accessibility. The B.S. in psychology is now of-
fered and available for the first time in its entirety on is always looking for new internship opportunities co-
both the Cochran and Macon campuses. This effort
will help recruitment and retention. Also on that front,
both the psychology and criminal justice degrees are
now available fully online as part of the “MGA Direct”
initiative. The two B.S. degree programs have been
reshaped to be maximally flexible for students to
choose elective courses, making the programs friend-
ly to transfer students from other institutions and to
students interested in pursuing a minor in another
field.
At MGA, academics are the foundation of our
42 mga.edu | finding greatness
as part of the organizing committee for the annual
student conference that was held at Georgia College
in March 2019. Dr. Lawrence and historian Dr. Javan
Frazier taught courses for the program in the 2018-19
academic year.
Within the MGA community, the political science
program continued its civic engagement work as part
of the American Democracy Project and the ALL IN
Campus Democracy Challenge, under the guidance
of Dr. Julie Lester and Dr. John Hall, with contributions
from students, the library, marketing and communica-
tions, and other academic departments as well. The
focus of this work last academic year was on promot-
ing student interest in and engagement with the 2018
congressional and statewide elections, particularly by
encouraging voter registration and turnout.
Prof. Grace Adams-Square also continued her in-
volvement in supporting the veteran population, both
within the university and in the broader community,
including her organization of a Veteran’s Day event
on the Dublin campus and regular newsletters on vet-
erans’ issues.
Finally, starting in March 2019 we began prepa-
rations for the establishment of a new department
housing the political science program within the
School of Education and Behavioral Sciences as part
of the broader MGA reorganization creating collab-
orative opportunities between political science and
other disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences.
mission. Our students must leave our institution fully
prepared to face the challenges of their field in the
real world. To that end, the department started a new
internship program/course elective for psychology
majors.
The department has developed new internship
partnerships with Goalpoint Behavior Group (former-
ly Milestones Behavior Group of Georgia), which pro-
vides students with opportunities to get supervised
hours using applied behavior analysis techniques for
children on the autism spectrum, and we have new
internship opportunities with Navicent Health. While
these new endeavors are stellar, Dr. Amanda Chase,
who serves as our psychology internship coordinator,
ordinated to individual students’ needs and desires.
The department has seen increased growth in and
success of our undergraduate teaching assistant pro-
gram over the last year, supervised and coordinated
by Courtney Stavely, lecturer in psychology. This past
year, an average of seven students worked as teach-
ing assistants each semester. The effectiveness and
usefulness of the undergraduate TA program is now
being assessed by student surveys and evaluations
of the undergraduate TAs in a study piloted by Dr.
James Collins, professor of psychology.