Master of Arts in Criminal Justice Virtual Information Session

Kind of fun too.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us.

We're going to everyone just a moment to get their sound turned on and get things started and we will dive in in just a moment. Thank you again for attending.

Alright.

Great. We're gonna get started. Thank you so much for attending. My name is Jen Redwansky. I'm the Associate Director for Graduate Admissions here at Stockton University. And I am joined by my colleague Christine Tartaro, who is the program chair for their Master of Arts in Criminal Justice program. And today we want to share just a little bit more information about this program. And so for those of you who are joining us live, welcome. For those of you who may be watching this pre recorded, thank you for taking the time to do so as well. Just a couple of housekeeping items before we dive in.

First and foremost, want you to know that this is being recorded, but umm, we do have a chat feature on the side for those of you joining us live. You're more than welcome to put questions in the chat. However, we do recommend that you wait till the end of the session in order to drop those questions in because more than likely we will get to those questions, uh, throughout the presentation. If we don't though, please, please drop those questions in and we'd love to answer those for you live. If you are watching this pre recorded, we will also share with both you and the live audience our contact information.

To share any questions or to ask any questions that you have through e-mail, phone, or you can even stop by the graduate admissions office. If you're using the chat, though, I do also ask that you don't put any personal information in the chat. We're happy to talk to you on a one-on-one basis with any personal information, but general questions. We would love for you to put in that chat feature if anything comes up. So without further ado, Doctor Tartaro, I'm going to turn things over to you. Thank you so much for joining us today.

OK, thanks for having me. So welcome everyone, and thank you for being here. I want to talk to you about the Master of Arts and Criminal Justice program from Stockton University. And this is my assistant, Todd, who apparently has decided that he is going to help. So please excuse him. I'm obviously working from home today. It might snow. So I figured I would just stay here. So anyway, I love this program. I'm actually, I was the founding director. I've been in it for the entire 18 years now.

And we're super proud of it. So the way we have our program broken down is that we have 3 tracks. We have forensic psychology, Homeland Security and then justice studies. And I will go over the requirements for each of those 3 tracks in a minute. So degree requirements, we are a 36 credit program, which is 12/3 credit classes. And this is 24, I mean 24 credits or eight classes of core and then the remaining are electives and.

Let me go over the core classes. I think this is what really sets us apart from all the other criminal justice masters programs in the area. We have I, I would challenge and say that we have the strongest core out of anybody. And the reason why is because I've never seen another program that has a core that covers the full criminal justice system. So we do.

The the foundational courses of crime, data analysis, research and evaluation, and criminological theory. Those are things that you need.

Some people think, oh, I want to be in policing, I want to be in corrections. I don't need those things. You absolutely do because the basis for how we make decisions and policy decisions in all those areas is in those courses. So you need to understand that and those help you figure out what works and what does not. Then we've got law enforcement, policing, judicial process, corrections and victimology. So we cover the full range of the the whole process of the criminal justice system, including.

Not forgetting the victims, which is something I don't see in a lot of programs. And then finally we have our capstone, which is CJ policy and planning. That is something that just is accumulation of everything you've learned in the program along with the group project where you work with an actual criminal justice agency on a real policy problem. So let's get into then the different tracks that we have. The first one is forensic psychology. And what we have here is we have two required courses. So you get.

A good foundation, forensic and legal psychology and then forensic psychopathology. And then you have to take at least one of these electives, whether it's drugs, crime in the criminal justice system, criminal psychology, or advanced topics in forensic psychology. And then you have the opportunity to then take a second one of those aforementioned forensic psychoactives. Or you can do an open elective which gives you the freedom to take a course from another track in.

MACG program or even with permission of the the Ground chair, you can go and take a course in one of our other masters programs here like education, business, crime, data analytics or social work.

Oh, we also have a, umm, a Holocaust and genocide studies program that some students like to take an occasional class in that we also have possibilities of independent studies and we have internship opportunities as well.

For Homeland Security, it's set up the same way in that we have two foundational required track courses. First one is fundamentals and theory of Emergency Management and the second one is Homeland Security policy. Then from there you have to take one of the Homeland Security electives, whether that be cyber crime, borders and displacement, terrorism or geographic analysis and profiling. And then you can either take a second one of the homoactives or you can take.

A forensic psychology elective that I just talked about or something else?

Finally, Justice Studies is our most flexible track. It simply means that you have to take 4 electives in the MACJ program. You can take one in another program with permission of the the grad chair and you get to take any combination of electives. It's my personal favorite because.

I look at the the, the different curriculums and I think a couple of things from Homeland Security are exciting. I think a couple of things for forensic psych are exciting. I like, I'm intrigued by some of the other programs at the university so.

I like that that flexibility, so that is also there.

For additional MACJ electives, I already mentioned these. We have an independent study. We have an advanced independent study that is something that is expected to end in a publication with a faculty member. And then we have a fantastic internship program. We have relationships with dozens of agencies in the area and that's something that a lot of our students like to take advantage of.

Now I do want to say from the get go that.

We do not have full funding for graduate students here, so we do have graduate assistantships that can help offset some of the costs of going here. I I enjoy working with the graduate assistants. I have one right now. The students get experience while getting paid and they work with faculty members on research projects.

They.

Generally allow you unless there's something where you have to physically be here. For the most part, you're allowed to work remotely. Right now. I have one grad student who really is working very remotely with me right now, and another one though we're collecting data and she is handling the appointments with people so she is in the computer labs on the appointment dates to monitor people taking the survey. You get an office, well not in your own office, but you get workspace in G2O5 with your own desk.

And usually it's about 3 hours of work for every credit of tuition that we waive for you as part of the graduate assistantship. And then we expect that at the end of the semester, you'll participate in our graduate research symposium where you get to show off what you've been doing with the faculty member this whole semester. The eligibility is that you have to be matriculated in the program and have at least a 3.5 GPA in our program and.

Application deadlines if you want to be considered for.

A graduate assistantship is the end of March for fall admissions or the end of October for spring admissions.

I mentioned our internship program earlier. Now we don't want you going out and doing an internship for graduate credit until you have completed half of the graduate program. We want to make sure that you have that solid educational foundation 1st and then we can we can set you up with with an agency. So you have to have a minimum of a 3.0 GPA at the grad level to do a graduate internship and you work alongside the internship coordinator to set up the.

Everything that needs to be done to get the your replacement and then work with the internship coordinator on assignments. Umm as needed.

So in terms of classes in MACJ and how they're different versus undergrad, well, we have obviously fewer classes offered. There's only 12 classes to graduate where it's 60 something I believe at the undergraduate level. So you need fewer classes, but we also require that you take fewer credits than grad at Stockton.

At the undergrad level, you were allowed to take up to 20 credits a semester. And in the masters program for criminal justice, you're only allowed to take up to 9A semester. And the reason why is, is because of the big difference in the workload and the rigor of undergrad classes versus grad. So these classes tend to be smaller, they're capped at 20, which allows us to have good conversations and.

Really dig deep into the readings. As we like to say, there's there's really no place to hide in an MACJ class because there's fewer people.

And we like it that way because we want everyone to be engaged. The classes tend to meet once a week for about 3 hours. Now we do have some hybrid situations where for example, I teach hybrid classes where my classes tend to meet in person every other week for three hours and then the off week is asynchronous. Online, we have another faculty member who has her class meet every week, but they meet in person for about an hour and a half and then the rest.

That is asynchronous online as well. I want to be clear, attendance is mandatory at the grad level. There really is none of that, you know, being able to get away with not coming and then still passing the class. A lot of our our classes have some pretty strict attendance requirements because you were supposed to be a full participant in the class as opposed to just kind of sitting there and absorbing everything. And you can expect feedback and turn around time of about two weeks for your assignments for faculty members.

Some are faster, some are are closer to the two week mark, but we we take pride in getting new feedback so you know where you stand.

Now, how to apply to me, CJ, there's two different ways I'm going to go over. First, what's called traditional entry and traditional entry means that you are either somebody who's graduating from a school other than Stockton or that you are a Stockton graduate with AGPA lower than a 3.3.

So how we would apply for traditional entry is you need a minimum.

Undergraduate GPA of a 3.0 to be considered and you need certain prerequisites. And by the way, we set these up because over our 18 years of existence, we realize that these are the classes that set students up for success and really predict whether they are going to do well in our program. We need a CRIM 1100, which is Intro to Criminal Justice with the C or better.

And then we need to see a criminological theories class, or really some sort of social science theories class if somebody's coming from psych or sociology.

With AAC or better, a statistics class.

With AC or better as well. And I, I apologize that theory that I shouldn't have said theory there. That's supposed to be a research and evaluation course. We also do require theories, but we we require research and evaluation too.

So sorry, I got my my bullet points mixed up. And then forensic psych students, we want you to have psych 1100 with seer better. And actually I thought I added this to the slide but I don't see it.

For Homeland Security students, we want you to have a Homeland Security class with a SEA or better because we want to make sure you kind of understand what it is before you get into the class.

All right, so how to apply? We have an app. Well, Tara's going to talk about an application fee waiver in a little bit. Just hang on. For that, we do require an essay of every student and that the essay prompt is within our application. And for traditional entry, we require 3 letters of recommendation. Two of the three are highly, highly recommended to be from.

Faculty, I would suggest the third one either be from faculty or from a work supervisor. I'm going to be honest with you. I've seen ones where it's just a family friend or a, a, a sports coach and that really isn't those people can't really talk about the attributes that we're looking for. So I would be very careful how you choose your recommendations. We, if you, you have AGPA of 3.49 or below, we do require the the GR ES.

We want a copy of your resume too, and officials transcripts from your university. And in terms of international students, we do have a whole procedure on our website to explain because there's a transcript evaluation process that has to occur. But again, that information is on the website.

Now for direct entry, which I mentioned earlier, if you were a Stockton graduate from the psych or crim programs and you have a cumulative GPA of 3.3 or higher, you are likely going to be eligible for direct entry. So this is a kind of a fast track into our program. You don't need letters of recommendation, the application fee is waived, you don't need the GRE. So this is a much faster way to get in what we do need.

To see is intro to criminal justice with the greatest C or higher and research and evaluation and statistics with grades of B or higher on the first attempt. And then forensic psychology and Homeland Security students, we want to see that you've also had an undergraduate course in that topic before you also get into the program. So this is a, a much faster way. And I know a lot of our graduates take advantage of this. It's, it's really painless.

To go through. So that is all I have to say. So I'm going to now kick it over to Tara, not Tara. Oh my gosh, I said Tara. Tara's the head of our graduate admissions, but Jen is, is our marketing guru. I'm so sorry about that.

Don't worry, I'm, I'm not offended to be compared with my supervisor who's wonderful. So it's a good thing, uh, we're a good team. Umm, so now we'll take some a moment. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to drop those in the chat. We'd be happy to answer those live. Umm, I will share with you. Our contact information is here on the page. Umm, this is for graduate admissions. Our umm, e-mail address as long along with our phone number. Office is open 9:00 to 5:00 Monday through Friday and we have a full team of folks that would be very happy to assist you with any questions that you.

Again, if you're watching this pre recorded and you're working on your application or you have questions about the program itself, that's what we're here for and and we definitely don't mind assisting and again, any one of our teammates could can help with that.

With that being said, I'm checking in our chat. It does not look like we have any additional questions that are being typed in that space. So at this time, I do want to just direct you. The website link is there in the chat too for all to see. That will take you back to our website for this program. All of the things that were outlined by Doctor Tartaro are on there.

So information about the curriculum, information about the application, the link to apply is on that page as well and anything that you may need in addition to our contact information too. Alright, we hope you all have a wonderful day and thank you so much for taking the time to present with us. We appreciate it.

Thank you. My pleasure.

All right, take care everyone. Have a good one. Bye bye.