True Crime Montana Style! UM Launches New Criminology Degree

The bad guys have one more thing to really worry about now that the Griz are on the case!

Okay, way overdid that one. Still, UM News Service tells us that judging by the amount of interested applicants already, it appears a new degree is taking the campus by storm. Faculty modernized the curriculum and built criminology into a stand-alone Bachelor of Arts degree.

While the University of Montana has offered criminology courses since the 1970s, and evolved by the 1990s with a sociology bachelor’s degree in sociology with an emphasis on criminology, it's the the new stand-alone criminology major that's drawing noteworthy numbers of students to the program.

DOUBLING THE APPLICANTS

Daisy Rooks, a UM professor and chair of the department, says that freshmen applicants for the new program more than doubled to nearly 500 between 2023 and 2024. Many students take the new program completely online, and people can now earn a criminology degree from UM anywhere in the world, as long as they have an internet connection. Rooks was quoted as saying, "We worked hard to develop our program thoughtfully to make it stand out. We have a pretty high-quality internship program, so students can take their classroom learning and apply it to the real world."

OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO

Criminology is the scientific study of crime and the criminal justice system. The versatile degree leads to careers in law enforcement, the courts, the corrections system, the probation system, private investigations, graduate study in criminology or sociology, and nonprofits like victim advocacy groups and domestic violence shelters. Many UM students use criminology as a pre-law major.

Griz crime-fighters-to-be can further "investigate" this amazing program here.