Academic Programs: Statements of Mission and Goals

Last Updated: February 2007

Marietta College is committed to offering programs of in-depth study that prepare students for both challenging careers and admission to well-respected graduate and professional schools. Marietta College offers majors, minors and other academic programs in those select areas that are consistent with the mission of the College and where it has the expertise and resources to meet or exceed baselines of excellence.

Undergraduate Programs

Leadership

Mission

The McDonough Leadership Program, housed in the McDonough Center at Marietta College, helps students gain a deeper understanding of leadership, practice their leadership skills, and in the process grow as engaged leaders on campus, in the local community, and beyond.

Goals

These goals relate to the learning outcomes expected from the McDonough Scholars. They cover three main areas: knowledge of the leadership field, application of leadership skills, and engaged leadership.

The McDonough Scholars will be familiar with major concepts in the Leadership Studies literature.
The McDonough Scholars will be able to utilize leadership skills in the workplace and community at large.
The McDonough Scholars will become engaged leaders during their College years and beyond.

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Mass Media

Mission

Prepare students to contribute to the field as students, upon graduation and in the future.
Students will excel in various forms of media. These may include radio, television, newspapers, magazines, online media, advertising and public relations.

Goals

Students will gain real-world experience during their education.
Alumni working in the field will share their experiences with our students.
Students will be proficient at communicating orally (speaking), verbally (writing) and visually.
Students will be exposed to the techniques and practices of the print media, the broadcast media, and the advertising and public relations fields.

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Mathematics and Computer Science

Mission

The Primary mission of the department is to help students acquire mathematical and computational literacy and problem solving skills identified by faculty in the various programs that use mathematics and computer science as well as to meet the objectives of the Quantitative Reasoning portion of the general education curriculum. The mission for the major programs with respect to mathematics and computer science is to provide the special mathematical, computational, and information systems skills needed by students who major/minor in our department for careers that use mathematics and computer science, for graduate work in mathematics, computer science and related fields, and for teaching at the secondary and college levels.

Goals

Note: Because our department is the result of a recent merger of two related but separate programs (Mathematics and Computer Science) our goals and objectives are addressed separately here.

Mathematics Program

To the extent possible, all majors and minors will achieve a solid foundation in three important branches of mathematics: analysis, algebra, and statistics and attain a sufficient level of mathematical maturity to be able to explain mathematical proofs created by others and create their own mathematical proofs, be able to solve mathematical problems, be able to express solutions to problems in a mathematically correct manner, be able to relate ideas from various branches of mathematics to one another.

Computer Science Program

The mission of the computer science program is to

Prepare its majors to become leaders in finding integrated solutions to the complex problems facing users in the computer industry. A key ingredient is personnel capable of engaging in multi-disciplinary team approaches to critical thinking and problem solving. For some students this will involve pursuit of graduate programs, for others employment after graduation.
Prepare non-majors to become productive and creative users of the software tools appropriate to their disciplines.
Provide technical resource support for college-wide computing functions.
Provide service to the area community through technical consulting and educational services for area business and industry.

Common Goals for majors in the Computer Science Programs

Given the specifications for a software application, design the appropriate internal and external data structures, then design, implement, and test the algorithms which represent and transform the data structures necessary to solve the problem.
Work within a group programming environment to utilize the object oriented paradigm and sound software engineering principles, such as using cohesive, independently compiled modules with appropriate abstract data types and user interfaces, in the system development cycle.
Communicate technical information clearly and concisely in oral and written forms.
Understand client/server and enterprise computing strategies and their important relationships to database design, application programming, data communications, and networking.
Use analytical and technical skills for identifying, studying, and solving complex system problems.
Design and implement algorithms using a variety of software development tools based on a solid understanding of the architecture of the tools.

Additional Goals for Majors in Computer Science

Design and implement major components of computer systems, such as hardware architectures, language translators, multi-tasking kernels and graphical user interfaces.
Utilize appropriate formal methods to model and analyze algorithms, programming languages, tasks, digital circuits, bus architectures and other aspects of computer systems. Apply the various stages of the system development life cycle to the creation of medium and large-scale system-level software.

Additional Goals for Majors in Computer Information Systems

Understand the technical and human aspects of change.
Understand the goals, functions, and operations of typical business organizations.
Successfully work with users of information systems in the development of specifications for solutions to information management problems.
Function successfully in all stages of the system development life cycle.