College of Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina 29424
Overview
Since its founding in 1770, the College of Charleston has been committed to offering a strong liberal arts education. The College is currently developing proposals for new programs in arts management and historic preservation.
Last year, there were more than 1,700 graduate students and 10,000 undergraduate students at the College of Charleston. The student population represents all fifty states and American possessions and sixty-five other countries.
The Location and Community
The College is located in beautiful, historic downtown Charleston, a community founded on the Atlantic coast more than 300 years ago. While steeped in the history and traditions of the Lowcountry, the Charleston tri-county area is a major urban center of South Carolina. The cultural life of the city includes symphony, dance, and museums. Charleston hosts the Spoleto Festival, U.S.A.; the MOJA Arts Festival; the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition; the famous Cooper River Bridge Run; and a state-of-the-art aquarium. Popular entertainers perform regularly throughout the area, and the College's School of the Arts offers more than 150 performances, lectures, and exhibits during the year. The region's subtropical climate makes outdoor activities enjoyable throughout the year. There are beaches, resorts, parks, and wildlife refuges within easy driving distance of the city. Hiking, sailing, kayaking, and golfing are a few of the available activities, along with exploring old plantations and other historic sites.
Programs of Study and Degree Requirements
The College of Charleston offers sixteen master's-level programs with the following five degrees: Master of Arts (M.A.), Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.), Master of Education (M.Ed.), Master of Public Administration (M.P.A.), and Master of Science (M.S.). These degrees are offered in the general program areas of accountancy, bilingual legal interpreting, computer and information sciences, education, English, environmental studies, history, marine biology, mathematics, and public administration. In addition, the College offers four certificate programs, two in English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) one in bilingual legal interpreting, and one in applied mathematics.
The School of Business and Economics offers the M.S. in accountancy. The School of Education offers the M.A.T. and M.Ed. in early childhood education, elementary education, languages (M.Ed. only), and special education. The School of Humanities and Social Sciences offers the M.A. in bilingual legal interpreting, computer and information sciences, English, and history and the M.P.A. The School of Sciences and Mathematics offers the M.S. in marine biology and mathematics and jointly offers two interdisciplinary degrees: the M.Ed. in science and mathematics (for teachers) with the School of Education and the M.S. in environmental studies with the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
The Master's Certificate in Organizational and Corporate Communication at the College of Charleston is a new postbaccalaureate program that requires 12 hours of graduate course work in communication and is offered at the Lowcountry Graduate Center near the Charleston airport. This certificate program attracts midcareer communication professionals and graduates of undergraduate communication programs. It also prepares students who wish to transfer their College of Charleston course work to a regular master's program at another institution (or a future master's program in communication at the College of Charleston, if such is approved at a later time).
Facilities & Resources
General research at the College of Charleston is supported by the main library on campus, which houses books, periodicals, government documents, microtexts, and special collections in all subject areas that support the curriculum. In addition, the Marine Resources Library at Fort Johnson houses extensive holdings of the College of Charleston, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, and NOAA's Fisheries Science Center. Also, through an agreement with other local institutions, students have access to the collections of four other local schools. There are several computing centers on campus that serve students seven days a week. These centers offer a wide range of services, including technical assistance, general Internet connectivity, e-mail, and text and graphics scanning.
Marine biology students study, attend classes, and conduct research at the Grice Marine Laboratory at Fort Johnson on the Charleston harbor. In addition to the facilities of the Grice Laboratory, students have the opportunity to utilize the other facilities at Fort Johnson, such as those supported by NOAA and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. The College is a member of Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), a consortium of colleges and universities that help students and faculty members gain access to federal research facilities throughout the country.
Expenses and Aid
Students should contact the Graduate School Office for tuition and fee information.
Financial Aid:
The College uses the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to award all federal- and state-sponsored financial aid programs offered through the School. Graduate students are eligible for direct federal loans through the Office of Financial Assistance and Veterans Affairs. The College's graduate programs also offer assistantships and other fellowships and awards. Information on these is usually specific to each program.
Housing/Living Expenses:
Other than dormitory space available at Grice Marine Laboratory, graduate students must make arrangements for their own accommodations in Charleston. The Residence Life Office offers an accommodations guide, and there are rental properties close to the downtown campus. Depending upon the number of students sharing a living space and the type of housing, costs range upward from $400 per month, exclusive of utilities.
How to Apply / Application
Individuals interested in applying should thoroughly acquaint themselves with the application deadlines for the program in which they are interested. These deadlines are found in the Graduate Catalog, which can be found at the Web site listed below, or by e-mailing the Graduate School Office to request a printed packet. The application fee is $45 for all programs except bilingual legal interpreting, which has a $50 application fee. Students may also apply online at the Graduate School's Web site, listed below.
International Students
Any applicant who is a non-U.S. citizen wishing to attend the Graduate School of the College of Charleston as a degree or non-degree seeking student is considered an international applicant. All international applicants are required to submit a completed Certificate of Finance form. A Credential Evaluation Service, approved by the Graduate School of the College of Charleston, must evaluate all transcripts from international institutions.
Who to Contact
Graduate School Office
College of Charleston
Suite 310, Randolph Hall
Charleston, South Carolina 29424
843-953-5614
Fax: 843-953-1434
E-mail: gradsch@cofc.edu
Graduate Programs
• Accountancy: The faculty research interests in the M.S. in accountancy program include accounting, business law, economics, finance, marketing, not-for-profit, systems, and taxation. Courses are offered in financial reporting and theory, information systems, tax research, auditing, organization behavior, managerial accounting, and policy.
• Bilingual Legal Interpreting: The faculty of the bilingual legal interpreting program is interested in legal interpretation and translation, language and culture, law and legal systems, Spanish, and Spanish education. A comprehensive, sequenced, and integrated series of courses is designed to provide students with the competencies, techniques, and research skills required of a professional legal interpreter.
• Computer and Information Sciences: Research interests among the faculty from both campuses are current and diverse. They include database, distributed computing, computational geometry, real-time 3-D perspective visualization, global optimization, human-computer interaction, networks, parallel algorithms, programming languages, software engineering, design theory, and artificial intelligence. The faculty has ties to various private industry and government organizations within the Charleston area.
• Early Childhood, Elementary, and Special Education: The faculty members in the programs in education focus their research on areas such as behavior disorders, early childhood education, elementary education, special education (behavior disorders, learning disabilities, and mental disabilities), and technology in education. Professors prepare M.A.T. degree candidates with no previous background in education to become certified teachers and help students who have completed all requirements for certification to seek the M.Ed. degree. The programs in early childhood and elementary education focus on the education of children from preschool to grade 8. The fundamental and specialized curricula in elementary education are designed to develop the competencies needed to teach the major academic areas of the elementary curriculum. The special education programs provide three areas of study within special education, emotional disabilities, learning disabilities, and mental disabilities. There is ample fieldwork built into the special education program to allow students to have experience working with exceptional children.
• Languages: Faculty members in the Division of Languages have a distinguished record of scholarly and pedagogical research and are involved at state and national levels of the language teaching profession. College of Charleston professors have for years prepared language majors to enter the profession as teachers, and programs in language at the College have been recognized as among the best in the Southeast. In February 2001, the language departments were recognized by the SC Commission on Higher Education with Commendations of Excellence for the undergraduate degree programs at the College.
• Science and Mathematics for Education: The faculty for this program is interdisciplinary and highly diverse, with research interests that include astronomy, biological sciences, chemistry (physical and analytical), curriculum development, education policy studies, education technology, elementary education, geology and mineralogy, marine biology, mathematics and mathematical modeling, mathematics education, middle and secondary science education, physics, and special education. The faculty helps certified teachers build science and mathematics concepts in K through 12 classrooms.
• English: The faculty research interests include African-American literature; American and British literature, including modern, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century literature; creative writing; English language; European fiction; poetry; Southern literature; and women's literature. Professors offer graduate-level instruction in British literature, American literature, and composition and rhetoric. An African-American concentration is also offered.
• Environmental Studies: Faculty research interests include astronomy, biological sciences, biostatistics, chemistry (physical and analytical), climatology, coastal plain stratigraphy, environmental politics, geology, groundwater modeling, hydrogeology, mineralogy, marine biology, molecular ecology, physics, population biology, policymaking, problem definition and political power, and public administration. The program's aim is to ensure that students are exposed to the complex, multidisciplinary arenas within which environmental issues are analyzed, understood, debated, and addressed.
• History: Faculty research interests in history include American, Native American, Latin American, modern Europe, modern Germany, military, intellectual, U.S. South, Far East, Russia, nineteenth-century, China, social, and cultural. The program offers students historical studies with concentrations in United States, European, Asian, African, and Latin American history. An African-American concentration is also offered.
• Marine Biology: Research areas include biological oceanography, marine environmental sciences, fisheries, aquaculture, marine ornithology, marine biomedical sciences, marine biotechnology, resource management, benthic ecology, evolutionary biology, and marine biodiversity. The program provides the knowledge and skills that allow students to either continue their education toward further graduate study or to pursue professional employment in the marine sciences field. Because of the broad scope of faculty interests and facilities, an extremely wide variety of research and training opportunities are available on the relatively unspoiled and biologically rich South Carolina coast.
• Mathematics: The faculty members have research interests in areas such as statistics, time series, number theory, numerical linear algebra and optimization, functional analysis, dynamical systems, nonlinear elasticity, topology, probability, math logic, logic/set theory, statistical quality control, and complex/real analysis. Professors help prepare students for professional opportunities in business, industry, and government that require training in the mathematical sciences at the graduate level. The program provides a good background for those who might eventually pursue a doctoral-level degree and provides an option for secondary school teachers to enhance their math skills. Students can enhance their skills in areas such as applied mathematics, algebra and discrete mathematics, computational mathematics, analysis, and probability and statistics.
• Public Administration: Areas of faculty research interest include organizational theory, state and local administration, public management, environmental politics, statistical methodology, intergovernmental relations, public policy process, budgetary process, administrative theory, administrative law, personnel, financial administration, and computer applications. The M.P.A. program concentrates on public administration and public policy, with a goal of preparing graduates for careers as professional public administrators. The program trains students to assume increasingly complex responsibilities at the local, state, and federal level and places a strong emphasis on developing skills for effective public management while remaining sensitive to the ethical roles and responsibilities of public administrators.