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

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 sixteen students active in the program, and we expect to admit another dozen as of fall 2003. Our program is one of only two health physics programs in the US that are 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 one of only two programs 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 all courses 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.

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 of Research. Can teach Physics 571 and 572 (Health Physics I and II).
• Tilahaun Woldeselassie Woldemichael, Ph.D.: visiting instructor in physics.
  Currently teaching Physics 572.
• Panakkal K. Job, Ph.D.: Radiation physicist at Argonne National Laboratory: part-time faculty. Contracted to teach Physics 577 (external dosimetry) in summer 2003.
  Will teach Physics 770 (health physics instrumentation) in summer 2004.
• Gocha Khelashvili: postdoctoral researcher, CSRRI, Physics Division, IIT. Scheduled to teach physics 571 in fall 2003.

Additional part-time faculty are being recruited now to teach other courses, particularly physics 575 (Case Studies in Health Physics), physics 576 (internal dosimetry), and 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.

(b)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 Dr. Job 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 submit an undergraduate transcript showing a grade-point average of 2.9/4.0 or better will be eligible for this program. Graduate experience in a related field may be substituted. Students will be expected to show completion of courses in 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:

After the MHP program converts to annual offerings, a typical schedule would be:

Respectfully submitted,

Andrew J. Howard