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Campus News

New Majors, New Minors, and More Online Programming Top the News for the Fall Semester

by Mike Thornhill, Director of Communications

Mars Hill University’s academic program has a bit of a new look, as the 2020-21 school year gets underway. There are three new majors now available to MHU students. • Fashion Marketing takes the major formerly known as Fashion and Interior Merchandising, and more recently as Apparel and Interior

Merchandising, in a direction that should better prepare students to work in the fashion industry. Students in the major will continue to do the hands-on work they’ve done in the labs and with the merchandising displays in Wall

Science Building. But they’ll also get a stronger emphasis on the business side of fashion, focusing on consumer buying behaviors, retail analytics, and other factors in fashion as a global economic and cultural force. • Biochemistry is a major that’s in high demand across the country, and is a great fit for Mars Hill. Students can use biochemistry as their launchpad into pharmacy or medical school, or as a platform to build a career in medical research, drug design, forensics, or environmental professions. And Mars Hill’s biochem graduates will have a leg up on their peers, thanks to a full year of research experience in the major. • The other new major comes at the master’s level, as the education department adds a

Master of Arts in Teaching. It’s designed for students who already have a bachelor’s degree but would like to seek teaching licensure. (It’s also Mars Hill’s second graduate education program, joining the Master of Education, which was the university’s first master’s degree program and launched in 2011.) Susan Stigall ’84, chair of Mars Hill’s education department, says the M.A.T. is ideal for people with bachelor’s degrees in biology, history, English, mathematics, business, theatre, or related fields. Although the program is a natural progression for current MHU undergraduate students to continue their education, she says it’s also a good fit for anyone interested in moving from another profession into teaching. As for the new minors: • Mars Hill is adding a minor in dance. It will require 24 credit hours in ballet, choreography, hip-hop, jazz, modern dance, and tap. Dance is a program in which prospective students have expressed interest, and is a natural fit for the theatre arts department (not to mention for the Bailey Mountain Cloggers). • Also new for this fall is a minor in data analytics. The interdisciplinary minor prepares students to manipulate, analyze and interpret data to solve problems involving large datasets such as those found in many natural and social science disciplines. “The core idea is to provide students a suite of skills that make them more employable,” says Robert Zinna, a Mars Hill biology professor and coordinator of the data analytics program. These skills can be applied to research in fields as varied as business, health care, sociology, economics and biology.

More Online Learning

The COVID-19 pandemic led Mars Hill and most other U.S. schools into some version of online learning this year. But that’s not new territory for MHU. The university has offered courses with a mix of in-person and online instruction for years. We have online certificate and licensure programs, and the Master of Arts in Criminal Justice was the first degree Mars Hill offered fully online. Now those are getting some company. The business management degree offered through Adult & Graduate Studies transitioned to a fully online model this summer. Business Professor Donna Parsons says students still will get the broad business education in accounting, economics, finance, operations, marketing, and organizational management for which the program is known. “The online business management program is designed for students who are balancing school with work and family,” she says. “I went back to school, myself, when I was 40, so I know that adult students like me need the flexibility offered by an online program to be able to manage all of the priorities in their lives.” Proposals for other new majors and minors already are being considered, and others will follow, as MHU’s faculty and administration continually explore the best ways to prepare our students for life in the “real world.”