The School of Architecture hopes to create more academic opportunities with changes to its graduate program.
“I am looking forward to the opportunities it’s going to bring for both our students in terms of education and also for our faculty members and the opportunity to expand their ideas and scholarship,” said Randy Seitsinger, professor and head of the School of Architecture.
Several years ago, Oklahoma State University approached the School of Architecture with concerns about its graduate program because of low enrollment in previous years. At the same time, the National Architecture Accrediting Board, which accredits professional degree programs in architecture in the United States, started asking all professional architecture schools to go to a graduate program.
Tom Spector, an architecture associate professor, said the pressure from these two directions forced the school to reconsider its graduate program.
The school formed a Professional Advisory Committee of architecture professors and school leaders to create a strategic plan based on what students and other faculty said they would like to get out of the graduate program.
Students and faculty are excited about the reintroduced graduate program. Chelsea Cuccio, a fourth-year architecture student at OSU, said she would have chosen to work toward a Master of Architecture if given the option. She also said she thinks employers would see a master’s degree as a benefit.
The graduate program is expected to be approved in time for next year’s incoming freshmen. The program is on hold until fully approved.
The School of Architecture offers a Bachelor of Architecture, which is a professional degree that consists of 10 semesters or five years. The graduate program will include a Master of Architecture, which is also a professional degree and consists of 11 semesters or five and a half years. During their last semester, students will finish a thesis component, a directed, individual research project. Spector said the thesis component is an important part of the master’s degree.
“Once you’ve learned how to generate your own questions and go about answering them, you’ll be able to do it again in the future when you don’t have anyone in charge of your work anymore,” Spector said.
The graduate program is similar to the program offered at Kansas State, Kansas and Texas Tech. However, Spector said the committee did not get any inspiration from other schools. It researched what other schools were doing and created a marketable proposal that was in line with university standards and expectations of architecture students and faculty.
One proposed requirement that will separate OSU’s architecture graduate program from others is work experience. A summer internship will be required in the graduate program. Spector said this requirement might seem a bit unusual, but faculty members are concerned that students have some sort of work experience before graduation.
Enrollment in the graduate program is expected to be 20 to 25 students to create a 1-12 ratio of students to faculty. To reach this enrollment goal, Seitsinger said the school needs to hire two faculty members. Faculty interested in teaching at the graduate level must obtain approval from the university’s graduate faculty committee through a presentation of their qualifications. Failure to obtain a certain number of graduate faculty will result in a limited enrollment number of students.
Students’ admission into the graduate program is heavily based on a university requirement of a 3.0 GPA and a portfolio of their works. OSU architecture students have an advantage over transfer students. After their third year in the undergraduate program, OSU students who meet the GPA requirements are guaranteed a spot in the graduate program. Students who transfer from other schools are not admitted after their third year and must meet the same criteria as OSU students after graduation.
Not only students and faculty in the architecture school will benefit from the graduate program. Seitsinger is looking forward to what the graduate program will bring to the university.
“Graduate programs are important in terms of prestige, money and all the other things they bring to the university,” Seitsinger said.
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