As Dean Rob Manuel began working on ways to develop the curriculum in the School of Continuing Studies, he wanted to find a Georgetown-specific approach to educating non-traditional students.

So in addition to considering the skills needed in the local workforce, he and his colleagues paid careful attention to the university's strengths and traditions. The fields of community development, leadership and communications all came to mind.

Manuel, who joined Georgetown last year from New York University, takes an approach that he said is different from that of many continuing education programs around the country. Other schools, he said, tend to operate programs that are niche-based and off center from their university’s core competencies.

"They create a brand different from their university," Manuel said. "We create programs that are aligned."

In December, the university's board of directors approved several new efforts that will enable the school to grow, while maintaining a culture that is very much Georgetown.

Starting this fall, the school will offer a Master of Professional Studies degree, new tracks for the Advanced Professional Certificate program, and changes to the curriculum for the existing Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies degree.

"Our programs are created by faculty who have lived this university for many years," Manuel said, "What they do for a traditional population can be appropriated for a non-traditional audience."

The Master of Professional Studies curriculum has two tracks: journalism and public relations/corporate communications. Those tracks also have been added to the graduate-level Advanced Professional Certificate program. Students enrolling in the first track may focus their coursework on either public relations or corporate communications.

Students in the journalism track have a choice of three concentrations: advocacy/immersion journalism, international/political journalism and cultural journalism.

The tracks fit well into Georgetown's mission and strengths, Manuel said. The advocacy/immersion courses, for example, teach students about the type of journalism in which reporters let their point-of-view emerge in their stories.

"It is social justice journalism. That's what Georgetown's all about," said Barbara Feinman Todd, the school's associate dean for journalism and director of journalism programs for the university.

Regardless of which track they choose, all students in MPS will take a core curriculum with courses in ethical decision-making and social action. They also will take part in "capstone experiences" that require them to complete professional work products in either consulting or publishing.

Communications also is among the new tracks approved for the Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies, along with the fields of leadership and urban analysis/community development. Students now have a choice of more than a dozen concentrations in the nationally regarded liberal arts program.

"I think this program and the new curriculum will be a huge success," said Bob Bies, a professor in the McDonough School of Business and creator of the leadership curriculum. Bies also directs McDonough's Executive Master's in Leadership program, which graduated its second class in December.

Bies and other established faculty members developed the new BALS concentrations, ensuring the coursework meets Georgetown's high standards, Manuel said.

Feinman Todd, for example, developed the communications track. The community development track was created by Professor Sam Marullo, chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology in Georgetown College, and Research Professor Kathleen Maas Weigert, director of the Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service.

 The leadership track includes courses on critical thinking, ethics, negotiation, change management and moral leadership.

"The Jesuits are really into practical knowledge," Bies said. "It's action guided by values."

That notion also surfaces in the urban analysis and community development track, in which students may focus on either policy and planning, or community change. Core coursework includes statistical analysis, social movements, housing policy, globalization, race and ethnic relations, grassroots organizing, and religion and society.

All programs in the School of Continuing Studies are designed for working adults and other non-traditional students, with courses taking place in the evenings and on weekends. Student services, such as admissions and counseling, also are offered at times other than the typical business hours, Manuel said.

To better serve the students, the school also has revised the core curriculum for the BALS. The old core was made up of six eight-credit courses that had to be completed in a particular order. Under the revised core, approved by the board of directors in December, students will take 12 four-credit courses organized in several categories. This arrangement provides students with greater flexibility in scheduling classes, because they may enter the program through any of the categories.

s the school continues to evolve, Manuel said, it will maintain its goal of providing talented and motivated students with an opportunity to engage the academic challenges and Jesuit-inspired ideals available at Georgetown.

"There's nothing more powerful to transforming a society than that," he said.