UMD Senate approves new technology and bilingual skills certificate programs

The University of Maryland Senate passed two new certificate programs in its third meeting of the semester Tuesday, one focusing on bilingual skills for speech pathologists and another about technology management.

The post-master’s bilingual skills certificate program, which will be offered starting next fall, comes two years after a similar certificate was created for post-baccalaureate students. This new program allows speech language pathologists who have already earned a master’s degree to receive training on how to “serve clients from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds,” according to the certificate.

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The program, which the hearing and speech sciences department proposed, is 12 credits, consisting of five required courses that “emphasize the clinical application and training in bilingual service delivery.” 

There’s substantial demand for this type of service, said Elizabeth Beise, a member of the senate’s Programs, Curricula, & Courses Committee. About six percent of the more than 173,000 members of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association are registered as bilingual service providers, Beise said.

The Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Technology Management will also be offered starting next fall. It is a 14-credit program intended to teach students how to use “emergent technology into and across their organizations and markets,” Beise said at the meeting Tuesday.

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The business school proposed the program, and it will team up with the engineering school to teach the courses, which include “Marketing Emergent Technology” and “Technology Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Commercialization.”

Students who are pursuing an MBA from the business school and choose to complete the certificate would do so in their second year of the program, according to the certificate. It can also be completed as a stand-alone certificate for professionals who are not graduate students at the university.