Learn how to lead organizations in the criminal justice field with the Policy and Planning graduate certificate from the University of Central Missouri. Take control of your career and propel yourself into a more managerial or administrative role through this graduate program by learning to think about the big picture for criminal justice organizations.
You’ll learn short- and long-term planning skills, personnel management and more from highly experienced faculty who have more than 35 years of experience in criminal justice administration. They’ll share their first-hand knowledge with you to make sure you’re prepared to advance in your career after you earn your graduate certificate.
Online graduate program in Policy and Planning
You’ll also benefit from the program’s flexibility through asynchronous online courses that allow you maintain your other personal commitments while focusing on your education.
Program Guide
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Complete in as little as one year
Fully online program
Become a leader in criminal justice
Credits may apply to a master’s degree
UCM’s Policy and Planning graduate certificate program provides you with targeted, foundational knowledge that helps you better understand the administrative side of the criminal justice field. You’ll learn how to develop and act on strategic plans, manage and inspire personnel, assess and develop criminal justice policy, analyze data and balance the investigative and administrative sides of criminal justice organizations.
To earn your Policy and Planning graduate certificate, you’ll take the following four core courses:
The University of Central Missouri’s Policy and Planning graduate certificate program gives you the opportunity to take your education outside the classroom through hands-on projects. You can participate in practical field work that gets you involved with criminal justice organizations in the community. You’ll use what you’ve learned in the graduate program to help a facility or organization identify its goals and develop or strengthen its strategic plan to help it operate more effectively and efficiently.
Use your Policy and Planning graduate certificate from the University of Central Missouri to move up in your current job or set out on a new career path in the criminal justice field. Graduates of the program will be qualified to work in managerial and administrative roles such as mid-level law enforcement management, correctional administration, mid-level public entity administration and command-level law enforcement.
Expand your expertise
If you choose to continue your education, you may be able to apply the courses you take in this graduate certificate program to a master’s degree, allowing you to further enhance and expand your expertise. Courses required for this certificate can be applied to the Criminal Justice and Criminology, MS Area 2: Criminal Justice Administration and Leadership, meaning you are one step closer to achieving your education goals.
Careers in policy and planning
Use the interactive tool below to explore potential careers that pair well with a Policy and Planning graduate certificate. Learn about job growth, salary projections and more.
If you choose to earn your Policy and Planning graduate certificate from the University of Central Missouri, you’ll be getting a high-value education at a price you can afford. UCM offers some of the most affordable tuition in the state, and our support in helping our students finance their education has led LendEDU to rank UCM as a top university for low student debt. Financial aid options include:
UCM also sets aside certain scholarships for students in select programs of study. You can learn more about program-specific scholarships with the UCM Scholarship Finder.
Dr. Etter has first-hand experience running a criminal justice facility, including handling personnel matters, strategic planning, operations logistics and more. He shares that experience with his students as a mentor and professor.
Dr. Urban’s research interests include parenting from prison programs and human trafficking. She draws on her findings and personal experience in the courses she teaches, which include Introduction to Juvenile Justice and Criminal Justice Planning.
If you choose to continue your education after earning your Policy and Planning graduate certificate, you may be able to apply the credits from this program to a related master’s degree at UCM:
You may be interested to learn about the following related graduate certificate at UCM:
To be considered for admission to the UCM graduate Certificate in Policy and Planning, you must have a minimum cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 2.75 at the university level and completed a Bachelor’s degree.
A maximum of three units of transfer credit may be applied toward requirements in the Certificate in Terrorism and Homeland Security. Courses taken toward the graduate certificate program may be applied to a UCM Master of Science degree.
Use the Program of Study to see required courses and course descriptions and the Calendar of Course Offerings to see when classes are offered.
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