Slippery Rock University’s criminology and criminal justice program was recently ranked in the Top 50 Best Value Criminal Justice Programs of 2016 by Value Colleges.
According to Value Colleges’ website, “The department of criminology and criminal justice offers a bachelor of arts degree, from a group of scholars and experts who have ambitions to make Slippery Rock one of the premiere criminal justice schools in the northeast.”
Patrick Harvey, chair of the criminology and criminal justice department at SRU, agrees with the testimony on the website.
“I think it’s the level of commitment and even diversity that we exhibit within our department in terms of faculty expertise, faculty interests and research, not just demographic diversity, although I think we have a good share of that too,” Harvey said. “We are a group of professionals that bring a passion to what we do, and I think what we do is exciting and we exhibit that in our classrooms.”
Harvey explained that the department brings in real world expertise.
Harvey continued to explain how SRU was able to maintain some of the part-time faculty that brings in this experience even in times of budget crisis.
“I think it’s a direct reflection of the hard work that our [faculty] does here,” Harvey said.
Tessa Haneline, senior criminal justice major, said it is “pretty cool” that the program ranked nationally.
“It makes our money worth the degree,” she said. “Multi-disciplinary studies are forcing us to look at different perspectives of the criminal justice system.”
Tom Webster, senior criminal justice major, said he is grateful to be in a position that allows for such fantastic educational advancement.
“I like that the university employs professors that have field experience,” Webster explained. “These professors are able to convey useful information and ideas that students will be able to use for the rest of their careers.”
Carrie Sealey-Morris, editor of Value Colleges, stated that there were over 500 different programs in the initial list which then was narrowed down to 50.
“Programs were then ranked by our formula mainly using these three metrics,” Sealey-Morris said. “Payscale’s 2016 college salary report, U.S. News and World Report’s 2016 Criminal Justice rankings, and tuition rates as reported by each individual college.”
Harvey is very proud to be the chair of a department with such advances.
