The MPA program requires 36 credits: 27 core and 9 elective. The Sociology major requires 33 credits: 18 core and 15 elective. UWO’s graduate school policy allows up to 15 graduate credits to count towards both an undergraduate and graduate program.

How? Sociology students admitted into the 4+1 program would proceed as outlined below to complete their Bachelor’s degree and enter the MPA program having earned 15 credits (by completing 5 courses) towards an MPA degree as an undergraduate. They would then take one post-undergraduate summer class and have 18 credits remaining (6 courses) to complete as a graduate student over the course of one academic year.

Undergraduate Sociology students (majors or minors) interested in and eligible for the 4+1 program will declare the Public Administration emphasis. Like our three existing emphases, the Public Administration emphasis is an optional way for our majors and minors to package electives into a thematic/career-oriented area, while not adding any credits to degree. It is described below.

Public Administration Emphasis. For Sociology students aspiring to leadership roles in the public or non-profit sectors, this emphasis is the pathway to an accelerated Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Master’s degree in Public Administration in as little as five years. It is designed for students interested in careers in general public administration, nonprofit management and leadership, health agency administration, or fire and emergency administration and management. Interested students apply to the Graduate Studies office to be admitted as special MPA students and also complete a short application with SPA to join the 4+1 program. You will need to meet the same GPA requirements as other students applying to graduate school at UWO, given that participation will entail taking graduate-level courses.

To be admitted into the dual degree pathway, all students must have completed at least 80 total undergraduate hours and hold at least a cumulative 2.75 UWO GPA at the time of application. Sociology majors will need to have at least 24 sociology credits completed or in progress and at least a cumulative 3.0 GPA in their sociology courses. Non-sociology majors will need to be a declared sociology minor and have completed at least 6 sociology credits – including the required intro-level course and one upper-level elective – and earned at least a cumulative 3.0 GPA in their sociology courses at the time of application. [1]

Students meeting the admission requirements (above) will generally apply for the program in the spring semester of their third year at UWO. A preliminary plan of study will be approved by the Sociology coordinator and MPA coordinator and then the student can begin enrolling in the program curriculum as outlined below. Note that per UWO policy, students taking both graduate and undergraduate courses at the same time are allowed to enroll in a maximum total of 12 hours of coursework per semester, unless an exception is approved by the program directors.

[1] Because it is more in-depth, minors will be advised to take SOC 203 – Foundations of Sociology instead of the standard required course for the minor (SOC 101 – Introductory Sociology), and a curriculum modification will be completed in this regard.

To complete the emphasis, undergraduate Sociology majors or minors will successfully complete two (2) of the below electives.

The student will also take two (2) of the following MPA courses(Sociology students can enroll after being approved as “special students”):

Finally, the student will complete an internship with a public or nonprofit organization and the SOC 467 – Internship course, generally for three credits. [3]

[3] If students elect to take more than 12 credits of electives for the emphasis, they may choose to do an internship for 1 or 2 credits, as long as they complete a total of 15 credits for the emphasis. They may also choose to do the internship for between 4-8 credits (or multiple internships for up to a total of 8 credits) if they wish to get credit for more work and/or choose to allocate more of their 120 total credits to internship experiences, but in such a case only 3 of those internship credits could apply to the 15 needed for the emphasis.

Sociology and Public Administration recently merged to create the new Department of Sociology & Public Administration (SPA). We did this proactively because PA had decided that it preferred to be part of a department with a strong undergraduate program so it could focus on managing its large and successful Master of Public Administration (MPA) program; because we recognized the complementarity of our fields and their emphases on identifying root causes of and potential solutions to social issues and the overlap in training and outward facing work amongst faculty in both programs; to increase efficiency by combining administrative functions; and to pursue joint initiatives that build upon our strengths for the benefit of our students, the campus overall, and communities in the region.

Creating a 4+1 program is our first major joint initiative as a merged department. A 4+1 refers to a dual degree program that allows undergraduate students to start graduate-level work while pursuing their undergraduate degree (the “4” component), allowing them to complete a Master’s degree in an accelerated fashion (the “+1”). In this case, high-achieving Sociology students (majors and minors) at UWO can begin taking MPA classes while completing their undergraduate education and then have the possibility of finishing the MPA program in as little as one additional year. This is the only such program in Wisconsin and one of the only in the entire Midwest.

Dr. Paul Van Auken, Chair, UWO Department of Sociology & Public Administration; vanaukep@uwosh.edu

Dr. Michael Ford, UWO MPA Program Director; fordm@uwosh.edu