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The purpose of this degree is to provide students with an opportunity for graduate-level education and a specific degree in criminal justice. This degree will meet the educational needs of several types of students: (1) existing and prospective criminal justice agency personnel wishing to advance their knowledge and credentials in criminal justice, (2) students wishing to prepare for doctoral level work, (3) students wishing to prepare for community college teaching, and (4) students seeking more knowledge of crime and criminal justice.
Admission Requirements
A. A minimum total score of 1000 (Verbal plus Quantitative) on the General Test of the GRE. Students who satisfy all requirements except the GRE score may be provisionally admitted under the condition that they obtain a grade of "B" or higher on a prescribed set of graduate courses approved by the program coordinator.
B. A minimum grade point average of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale on the last 60 hours of upper-division coursework.
C. A minimum gpa of 3.0 on at least 12 hours of undergraduate and/or graduate coursework in the social sciences, preferably in criminal justice.
D. A minimum grade of "C" in an upper-division social science research methods course.
E. Consideration is also given to one or more of the following: the applicant’s demonstrated
commitment to his or her chosen field of study, socioeconomic background, first generation college graduate, multilingual proficiency, geographic region of residence, and level of responsibility in other matters including extracurricular activities, employment, community service, and family responsibilities.
Transfer of Credits
A student may transfer from approved institutions a maximum of nine semester hours of graduate work in which a grade of "B" or better has been earned. All transfer work is subject to approval by the graduate advisor.
Degree Requirements
The Master of Science in Criminal Justice is a 36-hour degree. Students may choose the thesis option or the non-thesis option. The thesis option is oriented to those students who wish to pursue a doctorate and who will need to present a thesis as part of the admission criteria for their doctoral program. Students pursuing a terminal master's may be better served by the non-thesis option.
B. Elective courses--3-6 hours
C. Thesis Option--6 hours
A. All students must achieve a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 on all work applied to the degree.
B. Thesis students must submit a standard master's quality thesis acceptable to a committee comprised of three faculty members, two of whom must be criminal justice faculty. Thesis students will also give an oral defense of their thesis to faculty and students.
C. Non-thesis students must pass a final written comprehensive examination covering all course work applied to the degree.
Time Limitation
In addition to the university's requirements for admission to graduate study, the requirements for admission to the criminal justice program are as follows:
A. Required courses--27 hours
Graduation Requirements
CRIJ 5302 Judicial Policy and Social Process
CRIJ 5303 Contemporary Criminological Theory
CRIJ 5307 Criminal Justice Policy
CRIJ 5309 Seminar in Criminal Justice Administration
CRIJ 5336 Administrative Ethics
CRIJ 5396 Research Methods
CRIJ 5397 Advanced Social Science Analysis
CRIJ 5310 Topics in Criminal Justice
Thesis Option-3 hours of electives from the list below
Non Thesis Option--9 hours of electives from the following list:
CRIJ 5301 Concepts of Law and Justice
CRIJ 5310 Topics in Criminal Justice
CRIJ 5399 Independent Study
PADM 5330 Survey of Public Administration
PADM 5332 Public Budgeting and Finance
PADM 5337 Administrative Law
A maximum of 6 hours of graduate courses from Economics, Psychology, Sociology or Political Science, as approved by advisor
CRIJ 5394 Thesis
CRIJ 5395 Thesis
Degree requirements for graduate programs at UT Tyler must be completed with a six-year period. This includes transfer credit.