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Graduate and professional education

School of Information

In 1996, the School of Information introduced a new degree, the Master of Science in Information (http://www.si.umich.edu/academics/msioverview.htm). The School is a pioneer in the development and application of principles of information management in the education of professionals to lead in the information age. The new curriculum represents the broad range of perspectives and interests within the School that are forging a new body of theory, principles, and practices from the best of past and present scholarship in library and information science, computer science, the humanities, and the social sciences.

The Master of Science in Information introduces students to the foundations of the information disciplines in a new and integrated way and offers a variety of advanced courses that prepare students for existing or emergent specializations. Areas of specialization include Archives & Records Management, Human Computer Interaction, Information Economics, Management & Policy, Library and Information Services, and tailored, or self-designed specialization. This Master's program gives students venues in which to exercise their knowledge in several practical engagements. Students may earn the degree with or without a specialization. In preparation for more specialized study, students take courses that introduce and integrate fundamentals of library and information science, archives and social organization, computer science, and psychology and economics. These courses are team-taught by faculty from two underlying disciplines.

The Practical Engagement Program (PEP) is an integral part of the School of Information's professional master's program. Designed to integrate the application of knowledge and skills to specific problems outside the classroom, PEP both enables and requires students to combine what they have learned in the classroom with what they observe and experience in the "real world" of rapidly-changing information management.

Medical School: MD21

In 1990 the University of Michigan Medical School began a process of review that culminated two years later with the adoption of a completely new curriculum for the M.D. degree, MD21. The MD21 curriculum incorporates instruction in small groups, student centered exercises, multi-disciplinary conferences, early introduction to patients, and increased experience in ambulatory and primary care. Of particular note is the development of significant opportunities to participate in community based learning preceptorships as part of the curriculum.

Prior to 1993, most Medical School courses and curricula were under control of individual departments. Through this comprehensive reorganization, the Medical School curriculum underwent substantial changes. Rather than the traditional model of dividing coursework into two years of basic science courses followed by two years of clinical study, the new curriculum integrates basic science and clinical experiences throughout a medical student’s enrollment at the Medical School. Course work was re-organized into four areas, or components, with each component administered by a Director and an Assistant Director appointed by the Dean.

The curriculum in each component is determined by a Curriculum Policy Committee comprised of three basic science faculty, three clinical science faculty, three at-large faculty and four students. The Associate Dean for Medical Education chairs the Committee. Curricular changes are developed and implemented by the Component Planning Committee. Assessment and evaluation of these changes are undertaken by the Curriculum Evaluation Advisory Committee, which evaluates the effectiveness of the curriculum and the teaching faculty.

Michigan’s Medical School now more fully integrates basic science and clinical learning. The new curriculum offers an outstanding model that responds to the advances in research that have blurred traditional disciplinary boundaries in the health sciences, and by translating these advances into flexible and cross-disciplinary clinical medical training opportunities.

School of Social Work

Beginning in the fall of 1997, the faculty of the School of Social Work presented a new curriculum for MSW students that seeks to address the needs of the new century. Michigan’s new model integrates its studies to address both the setting and the intervention method in which students seek to develop professional practice. Most schools now organize their curricula either according to the setting in which students intend to work or according to the types of activities in which they intend to engage. Michigan students now have more in-depth knowledge of how to do particular types of social work that are adapted to particular types of setting.

In Social Work’s innovative programs, students combine a choice of method (interpersonal/clinical practice, community organization, management of human services, and social policy and evaluation) with a particular setting or population in which to practice (health care, mental health, children and youth, adults and elderly, and communities and social systems).

The new curriculum dovetails with the specialized research interests and expertise of the School of Social Work faculty. It provides students with flexibility in tailoring their professional training from among a wide choice of interventions and settings. These cross-linked specializations allow students to achieve both breadth and depth in their expertise so that one student, for instance, might do advanced clinical practice in geriatric settings, with special attention to the needs of the elderly, while another will similarly concentrate in clinical work with children and youth. Students sharing a common interest in a particular population or clinical setting, but pursuing competence in different intervention methods, take classes together and are able to share multiple perspectives and to enhance their understandings of each other’s approaches and methods.

Woven throughout this new curriculum is attention to four important themes of contemporary social work practice. Each course integrates issues of social change and social justice; multiculturalism and diversity; social work interventions addressing prevention, promotion, treatment, and rehabilitation; and utilization of behavioral and social science theory and research. Through this new curriculum, Social Work is preparing a new generation of social work professionals better equipped to address diverse and complex social problems.