The attraction of a five-year undergraduate/graduate degree program will serve to increase participation and enrollment from students in other related departments and programs such as Environmental Studies, Biology, Geology, Geography, Political Science, Economics, and Public Policy who seek a master’s degree that provides an applied field-based experience in cultural and environmental resource management. These experiential opportunities will support CWU’s ability to train and develop the necessary skills for an industry facing a workforce deficit where hands-on experiences are required to engage in the meaningful work of resource preservation and management. This streamlined degree opportunity will promote degree completion by saving resident graduate students more than $10,000 annually and non-resident students more than $24,000 annually in tuition costs. This applied project degree option, which has evolved from the existing thesis-based degree simultaneously improves access to earning a master’s degree in the CERM field while providing greater access to a living-wage career. The program can serve as an example of a skills and knowledge-focused degree completion alternative that acknowledges the needs of working professionals within the industry and undergraduate students seeking an applied experience that better prepares them for a career.
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