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BA in Organizational Leadership in Public Safety: Courses

Curriculum Details

45 total credits required

Our BA in Organizational Leadership in Public Safety degree focuses on the essential approaches and principles that contribute to effective, successful public safety organizations. It is designed for students who are ready to advance their careers in public works departments, emergency medical services, law enforcement, fire departments and more.

Students in this program must have 30 transfer credits and will complete 15 courses to earn their bachelor’s degree from New Mexico Highlands University. The curriculum includes 14 core courses and one elective, which you can customize to align with your professional interests and goals.

Each course is eight weeks long and delivered in an asynchronous, 100% online format designed to offer enhanced flexibility for working professionals. Our expert faculty and staff will be available throughout your program for personal support, career guidance and more.

This program allows working adults to complete their undergraduate education with the flexibility of scheduling courses around their work and family constraints. The program provides various starting points and features affordable tuition.

Organizational Leadership Core

Credits

This course is designed to help you think strategically about communication and aid in improving your written, oral, and interpersonal communication skills as a future leader. It introduces best practices by applying key communication theories and strategies to organizational challenges, involving ethical concerns, crisis management, conflict management, change management, and social media communication. Prerequisite MGMT 2110.

This course provides a broad understanding and knowledge if important business analytic topics and how they can be used to support decision making in all business areas such as government, education, and agriculture, Emphasis will be on the technical decision making. Students will learn how data exploration results in a sequence of descriptive, predictive and prescriptive processes to result in unique and new information on which decisions can be made. Prerequisite: BMIS 3760.

This course will examine a series of real-world case studies in innovation within several industries such as business, healthcare, science, and technology.  The goal of this course is to distill the essence of innovation and entrepreneurship and apply it to a range of business, societal, and personal situations.

This course illustrates important aspects of project management, an essential function in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Students will work in teams to study the importance of planning, resource allocation, metrics, tracking, and reporting project costs and schedules. State-of-the-art software will be used for an extensive project during the course of the semester.

This course will help prepare true leaders with the necessary traits to apply moral philosophies and the values of responsibility, integrity, honesty, and fairness in ethical decision making. True leaders collaborate and support growth of others and make appropriate ethical decisions  that promote liberty, justice, and equality. Prerequisites: BLAW 2110, MGMT 2110.

This course is designed to provide budgeting skills to leaders, enabling them to make critical decisions related to the financial health of their organizations. It introduces the process related to the development and management of the budgeting process, requirements, and oversights set by external issues that agencies, and ethical concerns facing leaders. The course also examines resource allocation issues that arise and shape fiscal outcomes in an organizational setting. Prerequisites: Completion of math requirement for the University Core Curriculum.

Seminar in Leadership examines the process of leadership, human behavior, and situational leadership. The objective of the course is to help leaders understand their leadership style and provide them with tools to lead individuals, groups, and teams to achieve the goals of the organization. Assess real world situations and implications from a leadership perspective and make necessary changes to help organizations be more efficient and effective. Prerequisites: MGMT 2110.

This course addresses the fundamental aspects of leading and motivating people. It includes understanding and working with people on an individual basis as well as leading groups. High-performing organizations and the challenges of leading change in organizations are covered. Prerequisite: MGMT 2110.

This course creates a learning architecture where students can inform, improve, and practice their strategic thinking capabilities to affect change in the public policies and managerial practices. Highly successful managers in the public sector share common characteristics. Given the rapid changes in the public sector, effective leaders must propel their organization to deliver high quality products and/or services while maintaining outstanding customer service. Given the ever-growing complexity and interconnectedness  of our society, leaders in the public sector must forge collaborations and partnerships with other organizations and businesses. Furthermore, effective departments, programs, and entities in the public sector must strive to foster an environment of innovation in order to remain successful and competitive. Prerequisites: This course will be taken during the last semester of enrollment with permission of instructor.

Public Safety Core

Credits

This course provides students with an in-depth theoretical and practical understanding of sustaining and emerging disruptive technologies that operate in the Public Safety Community. This course provides students with a fundamental understanding of how the following components operate collectively to form the Public Safety technology ecosystem: Emerging and disruptive technologies, CBRNE sensors, sensor networks and unmanned sensor platforms, Technology management, Knowledge management, and Cyber Threats.

This course will expand the way you think, inquire, analyze, gather data/evidence, and write and talk about homeland security. Students will research and write about homeland security strategic issues, by reading and critically assessing other research-based books and articles, and by discussing homeland security with their colleagues.

POLS 3260. Public Safety and Terrorism (3)

This course provides an introduction to terrorism threats to the United States. It discusses the character and history of the threats. Specifically, it examines the operational and organizational dynamics of terrorism. It also considers sabotage and subversion. It covers those who act as individuals, in small groups or in large organizations; it considers indigenous actors, as well as those who come to the United States to raise money, recruit, or commit acts of violence. This course bridges theory and practical experiences in terrorism, which serve as a baseline for the public safety program.

Prerequisite: POLS 3240.

OR

CJUS 3810. Terrorism (3)

This course critically examines the historical foundations of contemporary international terrorism, theories of its causes, its control, and the consequences of implementing those controls.

Prerequisite: SOCI 1110 or SOCI 2120.

Organization of the administrative structure, problems of internal management, personnel, fiscal management, forms of administrative action, and procedure.

This course is designed to “bridge the gap between theory and practice between the academy and the workplace.” Students will read and critically assess current and historic public safety events; research and write about these selected topics in public safety. Students will practice identifying the parameters of a problem, recognizing, and articulating positions, evaluating courses of action, and arguing different points of view by discussing public safety ideas with their colleagues and instructors.

An upper-division elective chosen in consultation with an advisor from Criminal Justice, Political Sciences, or another appropriate field in the College of Arts and Sciences.

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