September 26, 2016
Ellie Colpitts
After working four years to get a degree, many students consider graduate school to help advance their careers.
On Sept. 8, the Colorado University Board of Regents approved to support five new graduate certificates for UCCS.
These gainful employment certificates include national security intelligence, homeland security and emergency management leadership, local government management, grant writing, management and program evaluation and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner.
Any student can take a gainful employment certificate and be eligible for financial aid, which is why they require further government approval, according to Kelli Klebe, dean of the Graduate School.
“Most of the classes you take toward a gainful employment certificate are transferable into a degree program,” said Klebe.
The certificate approval process can be lengthy, according to Klebe. First, the certificate must be proposed by the department or college, and go to the graduate executive committee, which contains much of the university’s faculty members.
After that, the certificate goes to the chancellor for approval before a campus committee that then takes it to get approved for financial aid from the state. From there it goes to these regents that ultimately approve or deny the certificate.
These certificates were the first to go through this process and will now go to the Colorado Commissioner of Higher Education to be listed as official programs, granting them state funding.
“These certificates help students to realize that they can be successful. So that is a meaningful way that these meet both the needs of the workforce and helps programs generate students,” said Klebe.
Students can obtain different types of certificates. Professional development certificates are offered to the public, while course of study certificates are offered only on campus, according to Klebe.