The North Dakota State Board of Higher Education unanimously approved a first-of-its-kind collaborative master’s degree program between North Dakota State University and the University of North Dakota. Approved Nov. 4, the Master of Public Health (MPH) program will address an anticipated need for professionals in the field of public health.
The program will partner NDSU's College of Pharmacy, Nursing, and Allied Sciences with UND’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences; and other departments at both universities.
“This program exemplifies the advantage and potential impact of the state’s two flagship research universities working together to solve a critical state need,” said NDSU President Dean L. Bresciani. “With support from the State Legislature, UND President Kelley and I intend for this to be the first of many such collaborations.”
Charles Peterson, dean of the College of Pharmacy, Nursing and Allied Sciences at NDSU, told the State Board the new joint MPH program will serve as a model academic collaboration that the “rest of the country will be watching closely.”
Peterson said, “This is a program that has been created by North Dakota for North Dakota and it will help the state advance public health initiatives all across the state in a unique and innovative way. This program will place North Dakota in a leadership role nationally related to public health education and training because of its unique configuration and innovative approach in training health professionals. This is a historic day for North Dakota, for NDSU and for our college.”
“I am very pleased with the decision of the State Board of Higher Education,” said Dr. Joshua Wynne, dean of the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences. “This joint program is a milestone in the cooperation between the two universities. It is going to give our students an amazing and unique opportunity to train in the public health arena.”
According to the proposal, both UND and NDSU agree to split funding for the program. Each university would benefit from the academic strengths of the other in the areas of health and medicine. UND is a national leader in rural health services and research that leads to better access to health care in underserved areas. NDSU has proven strengths in medication therapy management, telepharmacy and research in biopharmaceuticals.
Mary Wakefield, former head of UND’s Center for Rural Health and current member of President Obama’s health and human services agency, and Dr. Terry Dwelle, North Dakota health officer, are credited with coming up with the idea for the program. Both identified a need to bolster the number of rural public health professionals in the state and better equip existing rural health workers with the tools they need to improve services.
Plans call for online classes so that eventually students in the program won’t have to leave their home counties except for short periods to participate in more intensive training better taught in classrooms.
Students will be able to enroll at either UND or NDSU with tuition going toward whichever institution is offering the classes.
The North Dakota Legislature next will decide on funding for the program that would allow the two Universities to keep the proposed tuition at the $600-per-credit-hour level. “We are working very hard to keep tuition as attractive to students as possible,” Wynne said. “We don’t want to price this out of the range of the typical student.”
The total cost of the program is anticipated to be about $1.2 million over the next legislative biennium.