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Virginia Tech’s Highly Ranked
Graduate Programs Offered at the
Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center
Virginia Tech graduate programs in education and engineering at Virginia
Tech fared well in this year's U.S. News & World Report "America's Best
Graduate Schools 2006" survey recently released.
The Career
and Technical Education Program in the College of Liberal Arts and Human
Sciences’ School of Education is ranked third in the nation by the
survey. In addition, seven of the College of Engineering's individual
graduate programs are ranked among the top 30.
Virginia
Tech's top-ranked graduate program continues to be the Career and
Technical Education (CTE) graduate program which climbed to third in the
nation after being ranked fifth among vocational/technical graduate
specialties for the last four years. The program has been a top-10
selection for 11 straight years. The program, which ranked fifth last
year, offers master's and doctoral degrees to roughly 100 teachers
working in fields such as business education, family and consumer
sciences, agricultural education and health education.
Program
leader Dr. Daisy Stewart said most of the courses are available to
teachers throughout the state online or through video- or
audio-conferencing. According to Dr. Stewart, that accessibility,
combined with the reputation of Virginia Tech's teaching staff, has
likely helped the program's national ranking.
"The fact
that our master's degree is available by distance learning has increased
our visibility and we have received many compliments about the relevance
of the program for career and technical educators," said Daisy Stewart,
CTE program leader and graduate coordinator. "The national emphasis on
having highly qualified educators is enhanced by making rigorous
professional development opportunities available to all teachers,
whether or not they are located near a university." This program is
available in Abingdon and Blacksburg.
The overall
ranking for the Virginia Tech College of Engineering rose this year from
32nd to 31st and achieved a rating of 18th among engineering schools at
public universities. Individual engineering graduate programs ranked in
the top 30 are industrial (eighth), civil (11th), environmental (12th),
aerospace (13th), mechanical (20th), materials (26th) and electrical
(29th). Master’s programs/courses are available by compressed video
through the Commonwealth Graduate Engineering Program at Virginia Tech
Southwest Center in Abingdon. Degrees available in Abingdon: civil
infrastructure engineering, civil and environmental engineering,
electrical and computing engineering, computer engineering, systems
engineering, and engineering administration.
U.S. News & World
Report's graduate survey, published annually since 1987, uses data
gathered from the surveyed schools plus rating based on reputation. The
survey is intended to provide prospective students with information
about the nation's top graduate programs. Results of the survey appear
on the magazine's website (http://www.USNews.com).
Virginia Tech Southwest Center
is located at the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center in
Abingdon, Virginia. Please contact Penny McCallum at
(276) 619-4311 for additional information about VT programs.
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