MASTER OF SCIENCE IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE
FACULTY
Department Chair: Kimberly Tobin, Ph.D.
Department Coordinator: Betty Raymond
Department Office: 333 Western Avenue
Department Telephone: (413) 572-5309
Graduate Advisor: Judith McDonald, Ph.D.
Graduate Faculty: Victor Ascolillo, Ph.D., J.D.
William Cook, Ph.D.
Hamid R. Kusha, Ph.D.
Audrelee Dallam-Murphy, Ph.D.
L. Michael McCartney, Ph.D.
Judith McDonald, Ph.D.
Penny Martin, Ph.D.
Thomas Roscoe, Ph.D.
Stephen Smith, Ph.D.
Elizabeth Stassinos, Ph.D.
Kimberly Tobin, Ph.D.
Description of Program
The graduate program in Criminal Justice focuses on theoretical and applied issues in law enforcement, corrections, administration, and public law. Its goal is to further critical thinking about significant issues in crime and criminal justice. Offered at Framingham as well as Westfield, the program seeks to examine how the criminal justice system works. Judges, lawyers, managers, and criminal justice researchers supplement the faculty, bringing many practical considerations to the study of the discipline.
Graduate students are required to complete 33 graduate credit hours and a comprehensive examination or 27 graduate credit hours and a six-hour thesis. Some students may choose to satisfy the requirement for a culminating experience by completing the Addiction Studies Concentration, described below. For all three tracks, there are four required courses: Criminological Theory I, Research Methods, Administrative Theory of Criminal Justice, and Statistics. Each student is assigned an advisor who will assist in selecting courses and, if undertaking a thesis, a thesis advisor. Thesis advisors are members of the graduate faculty.
Admission Requirements
In order to be considered for admission to the program, a complete application must be presented for review, including:
1. Bachelor’s degree with a major or minor in any of the social sciences with a 2.7 GPA or a 3.0 for the last
two years of undergraduate studies, class ranking will also be considered;
2. Three professional or academic letters of reference;
3. An official GRE with a combined score of 950 on two sections or a MAT score of 45 or better;
4. A narrative statement about your professional goals, academic experience, factors which support your future
endeavors.
Applicants not fulfilling one or more of these requirements may be admitted to the program on a conditional basis by recommendation of the graduate committee, with the approval of the Dean. No application, however, will be reviewed until information on all requirements has been filed.
BS/MS track for high achieving students
1. Students with a GPA of 3.5 entering into their final semester or after completing their undergraduate degree would be considered for the program.
2. Students who are entering into their final semester at Westfield State College may be eligible to take two courses from graduate credit, assuming the 120 credits needed to complete their BS will be fulfilled independently of the MS coursework.
3. All students must apply for the program. They will be required to complete the entire application packet, WITH THE EXCEPTION of the standardized test requirement.