In addition to two new majors, two concentrations, a certification and a 3+2 program, announced earlier this year, Elizabethtown College Faculty Assembly has approved a Department of Sociology and Anthropology major in criminal justice, and, from the Department of Business majors in finance and financial economics, a minor in finance, and two concentrations—a self-designed international business concentration and an entrepreneurship and family business concentration.
The Sociology and Anthropology Department’s criminal justice major starts in fall 2018, combining the College’s full-time faculty with professionals in the field, to deliver the knowledge and skills needed to be a qualified law enforcement, corrections or probation/parole officer, in addition to other occupations in the field such as victims advocate and social services provider.
“With headlines, today, suggesting that our criminal justice system is broken, indicated by movements like Black (and Police) Lives Matter, along with the prison privatization and its mass incarceration, Elizabethtown College is improving our society by creating a high-quality criminal justice major,” said Robert Wheelersburg, professor of anthropology. “The criminal justice major connects Elizabethtown College to its Brethren heritage, through its focus on nonviolence, ethics, human dignity and social justice.”
The criminal justice major connects Elizabethtown College to its Brethren heritage, through its focus on nonviolence, ethics, human dignity and social justice.”
The new majors in finance and financial economics, available in fall 2018, provide opportunities in advanced quantitative skills, preparing students for a variety of careers in business, but especially in banking, finance and the public sector, as well as graduate study in economics, finance and business.
A similarly focused finance minor, composed of 24 credits including principals of accounting and corporate finance among others, also is available in the fall. The minor is intended to provide more choice to students in other majors who hold an interest in finance.
“The finance major at Elizabethtown College is at the forefront of undergraduate finance education,” said Emma Neuhauser, associate professor of finance. “Students majoring in finance obtain advanced skills in financial analysis and valuation, investments and asset allocation, security trading, banking and risk management.” Additionally, through extensive practical training in statistical analysis applications, financial databases, as well as communication and presentation skills, finance graduates are well prepared to work with higher-level multinational corporate managers, marketing and accounting professionals, and other clienteles who rely on finance expertise to enhance profitable decision making.
The College’s new family business and entrepreneurship concentration is designed to provide an additional opportunity for international business students who are interested in starting their own business or working with start-ups. Increasingly, innovators and entrepreneurs come from all different countries and have access to global talents. They take advantage of technological advancements to market their products/ideas worldwide. “We have seen great interest in social entrepreneurship where our graduates could use their entrepreneurial skills to address some of the global social challenges,” said Hossein Varamini, Elizabethtown College’s Turnbull-Jamieson Professor of Finance and International Business.
“Some of our students prefer to complete an individualized concentration related to their fields of interest. Since we offer only a few concentrations, we wanted to provide more opportunities for the students to propose a self-designed concentration” such as “Sustainability and Social Impact of Business” or “Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics” or “Social Enterprises,” “Data Analytics,” etc., he said.
Anyone interested in proposing a self-designed concentration in international business needs to consult with his/her academic advisor and prepare a cohesive plan of rigorous study which must be consistent with the guidelines and be approved by the faculty in the Department of Business.