The Missouri Southern Criminal Justice program recently made the switch from the department of health science to the school of arts and sciences.

Dr. Richard Miller, dean of the school of arts and science, said that the transition would not immediately impact the curriculum.

“Last semester there was still some discussion and debate about the possibility of Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences (KCUMB) bringing a medical and dental school to Southern,” Miller said.  “So, we were in a situation where the dean of public health safety and technology was getting ready to get stretched really thin on this because a lot of legwork had to be done.

“The feeling was that we probably needed to focus on the health science areas, so that allowed us to pull out the traditional tech areas like industrial engineering technology and computer information science,” Miller said.  “That left criminal justice still there, but it wasn’t health science.  The decision was to move it into a school that it was most aligned with. Normally what you see is criminal justice or criminology, and that would’ve been arts and sciences.”

The transition comes with the addition of two new faculty members, and a department chair Dr. Wesley Fox.

Miller said that the addition of Fox was intended to shore up offerings in graduate program studies in criminal justice.

“I think [the school] is looking at some things they would like to see,” Miller said. “ [The new faculty members] are both doctorate trained, and up to this point we didn’t have anyone in the department that was doctorate trained.”