Points of Distinction: College of Social Science

  • The social sciences at MSU were ranked among the top 100 in the world by Jiao Tong University (Shanghai) in 2009. Rankings are based on alumni and staff winning Nobel prizes and field medals, highly cited researchers, and articles indexed in Science Citation Index-Expanded and Social Science Citation Index.

Chicano/Latino Studies Program

  • In 2007, MSU launched the first doctoral program in Chicano/Latino Studies in the Midwest – and only the second in the nation.

School of Criminal Justice

  • The graduate program in criminology ranks seventh in the country (2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings).
  • MSU ranks first among all doctoral programs in criminal justice and criminology in federal research funding two of the last three years.
  • The School of Criminal Justice is the nation’s oldest degree-granting program in criminal justice and criminology.
  • The forensic science program is one of the first two programs to receive accreditation by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.
  • The school directs the Terrorism Preparedness Data Resource Center in collaboration with the University of Maryland, University of Michigan, National Institute of Justice, and the National Science Foundation.
  • The school is developing what is believed to be the first academic program in Conservation Criminology: Assessing and Governing Environmental Risk in collaboration with the Environmental Science and Policy Program and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
  • The school has one of the first master’s degree programs in criminal justice to be offered online with new specializations, certificates, and degrees in judicial administration, security management, homeland security, and law enforcement intelligence and analysis.

 Department of Economics

  • The graduate program in economics ranks 31th in the nation (2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings).

Department of Geography

  • MSU has the largest geography department in the United States in terms of faculty size.

Department of Political Science

  • The graduate program in political science ranks 28nd in the nation (2009 U.S. News and World Report rankings).
  • Coordinated by MSU, the Afrobarometer project is a comparative series of national public attitude surveys on democracy, markets, and civil society in Africa. The surveys are implemented by a network of survey research institutions based mainly in Africa. The Afrobarometer project has brought more than $9 million dollars in external funding to MSU.  More than 120 citations to scholarly literature and 1,000 Google references speak to the Afrobarometer’s broad scientific, policy, and teaching impact.  Publications and data from the project have been incorporated into syllabi for undergraduate and graduate classes at 30 universities in the United States and abroad.

Department of Psychology

  • The industrial/organizational psychology graduate program ranks first in the nation in its specialty area (2009 U.S. News and World Report rankings).
  • The clinical psychology graduate program is 42nd in the nation (2009 U.S. News and World Report rankings).
  • The psychology graduate program is 45th in the nation (2009 U.S. News and World Report rankings).

School of Social Work

  • The Chance at Childhood Program is a unique collaborative program between the School of Social Work and the College of Law designed to train social work and law students for work in the child welfare system.
  • The school’s new veterinary social work program, a partnership with the College of Veterinary Medicine, is one of five graduate social work veterinary programs in the United States.
  • The school is one of six programs to be federally funded to develop a program for adoptive couples, aimed at strengthening their marriages and enhancing the quality of life for their families.
  • The school is one of eight programs to be federally funded to develop programs to address recruitment and retention of child welfare workers.
  • The school is one of the first social work programs nationally to offer a blended master’s program in social work that involves interactive television, the Internet, and face-to-face teaching. The Distance education program is a national leader in social work education.