Proposal for a Certificate Program in Radiological Physics
- Department: Biological, Chemical, and Physical Sciences
- Program: Health Physics
- Program Director: Andrew J. Howard and co-director to be named
Submitted 9 April 2003; revised 7 October 2003
1. Program Overview:
We propose a program for a Certificate in Radiological Physics, intended
for students who need augmentation of their knowledge of specific subjects
associated with Health Physics but who are not planning on completing IIT's
Masters in Health Physics (MHP) program.
2. Program Justification:
(a) Need for the program:
IIT has had a Masters in Health Physics (MHP) program since 1997,
and we have graduated over a dozen students from it.
There are currently about 44 students active in the program,
and we expect to admit another two dozen as of fall 2004.
Our program is the only health physics program in the
US that is taught primarily over the internet, so it is particularly popular
with students across the country for whom it is impractical to move to a
particular location in order to study health physics.
Currently the requirement for the MHP is 30 semester hours of course-work,
of which 21 hours are courses
specifically developed for this program in the physics department, plus 9
hours of courses in other departments. These non-physics courses draw from
other programs besides MHP. The MHP program is one of four progams
now receiving support from a Sloan Foundation grant to the BCPS Department
to strengthen Professional Science Masters (PSM) programs.
There are circumstances where the courses developed for this professional
masters program are useful to students who do not in fact need to earn a
master's degree.
In some vocational and educational contexts, there are students
who require the knowledge imparted in the MHP courses, but without the need
for a full-blown master's degree. We recognize a market, then, for a graduate
course of study less comprehensive than the full MHP program that would
nonetheless provide significant insight into problems in radiological or
health physics.
We believe that a program that draws from the 21 semester hours of physics
courses in the MHP offerings (the MHP "core courses") and requires the student
to take 12 semester hours drawn from those 21 would provide for these needs
and make pedagogical sense. We will, as is typical of programs like this,
provide oversight as to which 12 of the 21 semester hours the student will
enroll in.
This program is consistent with the requirements set forth in the
document, "Policies and Procedures for Graduate Certificate Programs."
(b) Relation to other programs
this program is a proper subset of the Masters in Health Physics program.
A student who completes the Certificate in Radiological Physics program
and decides to stay on to earn his or her MHP degree should be able to do so
with minimal difficulty.
Program Resources:
(a) Personnel requirements
Since all courses involved are already offered within the MHP program,
no new faculty will be required per se to meet the needs of this
certificate program.
BCPS has hired Ms. Kelly Cherwin as coordinator of the MHP
program and one other professional master's program in our department.
She is providing administrative support and marketing these programs.
She will be able to do the same for this certificate program with
minimal effect on her overall workload.
Ms. Cherwin's salary is currently provided by the Sloan grant.
We anticipate expansion of the MHP program itself over the next year or
so for three reasons:
- The market for trained health physicists is growing, primarily because
of concerns over nuclear terrorism;
- The IIT program is the only Health Physics program in the US taught
primarily over the Internet;
- Ms. Cherwin will be able to devote significant time and effort to
marketing the program and helping the students,
almost all of whom are non-local, to deal with the IIT system.
Our goal within the MHP program itself is to increase enrollment by fall
2004 to the point where we can offer all the courses in the program annually,
whereas we currently offer most courses only biennially. This will meet the
goals of the Sloan program, which is strongly geared toward PSMs that can
be taken by full-time students who have recently completed their BS degrees
and are still looking for their first post-baccalaureate jobs. It is impossible
to complete the MHP degree in less than two calendar years when most of the
courses are offered only biennially, and there is never more than eight semester
hours' worth of courses available in any one semester. Therefore it is not
yet practical for students to work through the MHP program on a full-time
basis. Enlarging the enrollment in the MHP courses, both from MHP students
and students in this certificate program, will move us more rapidly toward
the goal of offering each course annually.
Clearly there will be a cost associated with this shift from biennial to
annual offerings of these courses. But the portion of that cost that could
be attributed to the enrollment in this certificate program will be very small,
and will be more than offset by tuition payments. All of the students in
the MHP program are paying full graduate tuition for their coursework, and
we expect the same to be true of students in this certificate program.
(b) Current faculty associated with the program
- Andrew J. Howard, Ph.D., Program co-Director: Associate Professor of
Biology.
Teaches physics 561 (radiation biophysics), finds faculty for the program;
works with MHP program External Advisory Board.
- Carlo U. Segre, Ph.D., former program co-director: Professor of Physics
and Associate Dean for Special Projects.
Can teach physics 571 and 572 (Health Physics I and II).
- Gocha Khelashvili, Ph.D.: research faculty member, CSRRI, Physics Division,
IIT. Currently teaching physics 571; scheduled to teach physics 572
in spring 2004.
- Panakkal K. Job, Ph.D.:
Radiation physicist at Argonne National Laboratory:
part-time faculty. Taught physics 577 (external dosimetry) in
summer 2003; will co-teach physics 575 (case studies) in spring 2004.
Will help in the development of physics 770 (health physics instrumentation)
in summer 2004.
- Robert Woodard, MHP:
Radiation dosimetrist, Entergy Corporation; graduate (2003) of IIT's
MHP program; currently teaching physics 576 (internal dosimetry).
Additional part-time faculty are being recruited now to teach other courses,
particularly physics 573 (Statutes, Standards, and Regulations).
We are also looking for a professional Health Physicist outside the university
to act as co-director of the program.
The chairman of the BCPS Department will hire the faculty to teach these
courses based on the recommendations of Prof. Howard and Dean Segre.
Funds for part-time hires for these courses are available now,
and the addition of this certificate program will not have
a major impact on the financial model for the MHP program as a whole.
(c) Facilities required:
All courses in the MHP program except Physics 770
are taught over the Internet, so studios or Internet-equipped classrooms are
required. Again, the requirements are already defined to meet the needs of
the MHP program itself, and the marginal impact of this particular certificate
program will be minimal. Physics 770 will be taught at the APS and the IPNS
at Argonne Laboratory, and Prof. Howard
will arrange to make the facilities available.
Program Description:
(a) Detailed degree requirements:
The program requires each enrollee to complete at least twelve semester hours'
credit in the physics courses that form the core of IIT's
Health Physics program,
i.e. twelve semester hours chosen among the following courses:
Course Title |
Course Number |
# Semester-Hours |
Introduction to Health Physics I |
Physics 571 |
3 |
Introduction to Health Physics II |
Physics 572 |
3 |
Statutes, Standards, and Regulations |
Physics 573 |
3 |
Case Studies in Health Physics |
Physics 575 |
3 |
Internal Dosimetry |
Physics 576 |
2 |
External Dosimetry |
Physics 577 |
2 |
Radiation Biophysics |
Physics 561 |
3 |
Health Physics Instrumentation |
Physics 770 |
2 |
Physics 770 is the only course on this list that is a short course, so
the program meets the requirement that no more than half the courses in a
certificate program be short courses.
There will be no comprehensive examination associated with this program.
Students will be required to file an Application for Graduate Certificate Form
prior to beginning their final semester in the certificate program.
Approval of this Request for Certificate Form by the Academic Unit Head
and the Graduate Dean will be required.
Graduation and award of the Certificate in Radiological
Physics will require completion of the chosen 12 semester-hours of courses
with a grade point average of 3.0 / 4.0 or better.
(b)Admission criteria:
Students who qualify for admission to IIT's full-time graduate
programs who submit an undergraduate transcript showing a grade-point
average of 3.0/4.0 or better will be eligible for this program.
Graduate experience in a related field may be substituted.
Candidates will be expected to show completion of courses in calculus-based
physics up through modern physics (IIT's physics 348 or equivalent)
and one year of calculus.
Decisions on admission will be made by the Masters in Health Physics Program
Director.
(c) Timeline and schedule:
Because this program is a subset of the MHP program,
we can begin to offer the program immediately, i.e. in summer 2003. A typical
schedule for completion of the program, even prior to the conversion of the
MHP program from biennial offerings to annual, could be:
year |
semester |
Course 1 |
Course 2 |
Semester-hours |
1 |
summer |
Physics 577 |
|
2 |
1 |
fall |
Physics 571 |
Physics 576 |
5
|
1 |
spring |
Physics 572 |
|
3 |
2 |
summer |
Physics 770 |
|
2 |
After the MHP program converts to annual offerings, a typical schedule would
be:
year |
semester |
Course 1 |
Course 2 |
Semester-hours |
1 |
summer |
Physics 577 or 770 |
|
2 |
1 |
fall |
Physics 571 |
Physics 576 |
5 |
1 |
spring |
Physics 572 |
Physics 561 or 575 |
6 |
Respectfully submitted,
Andrew J. Howard