SUU offers forensic degree

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Feb 26, 2006 by Nancy Perkins Deseret Morning News

CEDAR CITY -- Southern Utah University is poised to offer its students the chance to take a closer look at the field of forensic science.

The interdisciplinary, professional master program will draw from a vast array of experts already on campus, said Lamar Jordan, chairman of SUU's department of criminal justice and political science.

"I consider this to be a very unique program," said Jordan, who retired in 1994 from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and now teaches various courses at SUU in the criminal justice field. "I don't know of any other one like it in the country, quite frankly, because of our interdisciplinary approach."

Fifty to 60 students graduate from SUU each year with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice, but Jordan said the new master's program would likely attract students with other undergraduate degrees.

The new degree is designed, said SUU Provost Abe Harraf, with an eye toward the 1,500 students who graduate with a degree in biology, chemistry, psychology, accounting, criminal justice and computer science/information systems.

"They will be ideally prepared to continue their education in this popular and contemporary master's program," Harraf said.

According to a November 2005 report by the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, the demand for forensic science technicians and affiliated careers is expected to increase by more than 36 percent over the next nine years.

Among the in-house tools to be tapped for the new degree are SUU's Moot Court Room and a crime scene lab used routinely by area law enforcement and justice officials to investigate and document evidence gathered at Utah crime scenes.

"Every student will be required to learn how to be a forensic expert in the courtroom," Jordan said. "They will learn how to collect evidence, write a report, submit it to a virtual crime lab, and to testify in court. You can be the greatest investigator in the world, but if you can't explain the evidence in layman's terms, the jury will be lost."

Students will learn how to investigate cyber crimes with the most current forensic accounting, network and Internet security tools available, he said. The psychology of criminal behavior will be studied, as will forensic chemistry issues dealing with drug analysis, trace evidence, DNA, blood spatters and many other areas of emphasis.

"There's a lot of interest in these growing fields of forensic science," Jordan said. "This degree is designed to appeal to those who are interested in criminal justice. If you want to ferret out crime and evidence, it all comes together right here."

For information about the master of forensic science program, visit the school Web site at suu.edu.

E-mail: nperkins@desnews.com