2015-16 Academic Catalog
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Academic Catalog 2015-2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS The Maria Mission ................................................................................2 Maria’s Core Values ..............................................................................3 Evolution of a College ...................................................................... 4-5 Goals and Learning Objectives ...........................................................6 2015 - 2016 Academic Calendar ..........................................................7 Accreditation and Membership ..........................................................8 Academic Regulations ................................................................... 9-27 Educational Expenses .................................................................. 28-31 Financial Aid and Scholarships .................................................... 32-38 Financial Aid Programs ................................................................ 40-43 Procedure for Appealing Local Financial Assistance ......................44 Scholarships .................................................................................. 46-47 Admission Information ................................................................. 48-61 Programs Offered ...............................................................................62 Bachelor’s Degree Programs ....................................................... 63-75 Associate Degree Programs ........................................................ 76-92 Professional Certificate Programs .............................................. 94-98 Course Descriptions ................................................................... 99-158 The Board of Trustees ......................................................................160 Board Emeriti ....................................................................................160 Offices of Administration ......................................................... 161-163 Faculty ....................................................................................... 163-167 Notes ......................................................................................... 168-169 Index ..................................................................................................170 A Message From The President Dear Students, Welcome to Maria College! As Maria College president it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to our fine institution – a college known for excellence throughout the Capital Region. As you may know, Maria College offers programs on three levels – baccalaureate degrees, associate degrees and certificate programs. 2015-2016 will be a landmark year for our college, as we introduce three new baccalaureate degrees (liberal arts - with concentrations in communications and government, healthcare management, and health and occupational sciences) and begin our plan to expand the footprint of the college to meet the needs of our growing student population. Maria College was founded by the Sisters of Mercy over 50 years ago, and they continue as our sponsors today. As a Catholic college, we are proud of our sponsorship, and the Mercy belief in “service to others” is an important aspect of our mission and community life. I am often asked, with so many colleges and universities to choose from, what separates Maria College from the rest. The answer is simply three words: Affordability, Access and Opportunity. As Maria College offers one of the lowest tuitions of any four-year private college in the United States, our affordability is highly attractive to families and returning students. Access, because our college goes out of its way to provide flexible scheduling – offering classes during the day, evening, weekends, and online. And as a College of Opportunity, our programs are high demand, relevant offerings that prepare students for meaningful lives and careers. I wish you great future success as you begin your journey at Maria College. Your years at Maria are years you will remember the rest of your life. Sincerely, Dr. Lea Johnson, President Service to others… The Maria Mission The mission of Maria College is to instill in our graduates a respect for the dignity of each person and the ability to transform learned skills into caring service. The ideal of “service to others” is rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition and the ideals of the Sisters of Mercy, who founded and sponsor the College. The intent of the College is to provide educational programs with high academic standards, convenient scheduling and formats for students of any age who may benefit from small classes and a warm, encouraging environment. Maria’s Core Values SERVICE We… ~ seek to translate learned skills into competent ~ use our personal and professional gifts for life and caring service. enhancement. ~ cultivate awareness and a sensitive response ~ deepen and assimilate more conscious to persons in need, particularly the poor and practices of peace, justice and nonviolence. disenfranchised. SCHOLARSHIP We… ~ strive for academic excellence. ~ develop intellectual curiosity and the practice ~ nurture a reverence for learning. of critical thinking. ~ maintain high standards of scholarship and ~ recognize education as an ongoing process. academic integrity. COMMUNITY We… ~ advocate the fostering of meaningful ~ seek out possibilities of creative relationships. connections. ~ stand in solidarity with others, both in ~ create opportunities for communication and suffering and in celebration. communion. ~ are hospitable to all persons, lifestyles and ~ manifest values of complementarity, ideas. collaboration and interdependence. ~ develop a global perspective. INTEGRITY We… ~ seek to develop congruence in word and deed. ~ strive for honesty in all spheres of life an ~ take responsibility for our own choices. work. ~ are mindful of the connectedness of body, ~ are impeccable with our word. mind, soul and spirit. RESPECT We… ~reverence the dignity of all persons and the ~ increase our awareness of the sacredness beauty of creation. of the earth and work more effectively ~practice reverence. toward the sustainability of life and the dignity of all persons. ~maintain a spirit of openness to persons, ideas and new ways of thinking and being. COMPASSION We… ~respond to suffering with sensitivity and ~ are kind and considerate. loving care. ~ seek to forgive rather than harbor ~learn to observe with the eyes and ears of the grudges. heart. ~ are not judgmental. ~reach out to others in need. 3 Evolution Of A College In 1958, the Religious Sisters of Mercy founded Maria as a Sister Formation and Liberal Arts college with a student body of 52. Today we serve just over 1,000 students, men and women, who attend our day, evening and weekend classes, and are enrolled in our online course offerings. From its founding, the mission of the College has been to educate for service — service to the greater Capital Region and to the communities in which its graduates live and work. Although Maria was established to educate the Sisters of Mercy, the vision soon broadened with the College’s first degree program with enrollment open to the community: Early Childhood Education. All degree programs were opened to coeducational enrollment in 1971, and today male enrollment accounts for more than 20% of Maria’s student body. To demonstrate its conviction that the opportunity to learn should be made available to the serious student, Maria established innovative flexible scheduling formats. These formats serve those who want to learn — from recent high school graduates and those seeking to advance or change careers, to older students returning to school — and whose personal schedules have excluded them from further education. In 1971, the College established an active Evening Division, which offers degrees in a three-year sequence. In 1981, Maria created the first Weekend College in northeastern New York, with classes every other weekend. The Weekend College, which makes it possible to earn an associate degree in a two-year time frame, best serves the needs of the mature student who must coordinate family and career responsibilities with educational opportunity. The Learning Resource Center, which was created in 1982 and has become a major support service for Maria students, has two goals. The first is to provide tutorials for development/remediation in math computation and concepts, study skills and language arts; the second is to provide the general student body with supplemental learning materials. The center’s resources include computers and audiovisual equipment, and it is staffed and available to students in all programs. THE CAMPUS The College’s intimate campus helps create an academic atmosphere that embraces both the timeless and the contemporary: timeless because of the commitment to humanities-based learning, and contemporary because of the modern environment in which these classic convictions of the human spirit are nurtured. Maria’s main building was constructed in 1959 and today houses classrooms, computer and information processing laboratories, multimedia and learning resource centers, administrative and faculty offices, and a working library with more than 60,000 volumes and on- and off-campus Internet access. 4 The cloistered convent of a Dominican order that abutted the campus was purchased from the Catholic Diocese of Albany in 1970 to house Maria’s health care programs. In 1984, the convent was transformed into a state-of-the-art allied health facility. The