Even amid a pandemic, West Liberty University continues to expand their educational horizons. Beginning in fall of 2021, WLU’s College of Education and Human Performance will begin introducing three new full master’s programs in education that are 100 % online including: visual art education, leadership in education administration, and instructional design for learning.

Program director for the Master of Arts and Education, Dr. Nicole Ennis, shares information about each of the three new programs being added to the Master of Arts Degree tracks this fall.

The first new program is the Virtual Arts and Education track, which is a full master’s program for people who already have a bachelor’s degree and teacher certification in art education.

Leadership in Education Administration is the second track being added and is also a full master’s program. Particularly, this versatile program is designed for “practicing teachers who want to become principles. It allows them to get the content knowledge and apply to get the principal supervisor of general instruction or superintendent added to their teaching certificate – which is required to be employed in any of those positions,” according to Ennis. Not only is this program versatile, but it is completely online to accommodate working professionals. Ennis said developing this track to suit working professionals was important because everybody that would be in this program would be a certified teacher with a full-time job.

The third and last program track being added this fall is the Instructional Design for Learning. The program has Ennis and other faculty members in the MA department “really excited”. Ennis excitedly shared, “this prepares individuals to be instructional designers, which is a growing field. In the wake of the pandemic, it is an even more desired field as we look at all of the things that we’ve had to change from face to face to online. Instructional design is not specific to teachers or K12 education. It’s for all industries!” This program is designed to train individuals to create space in the online environment for training, teaching and designing content that works in either synchronous or asynchronous learning environments.

According to Ennis, each program is approximately 30 hours (typically 2-year programs); however, “there are ways to accelerate” the amount of time it takes to complete the chosen program.

Applications for the three new programs are currently being accepted for the fall semester and can be found by going to the WLU College of Education and Human Performance – Master of Arts website. Ennis explained financial aid for these programs is currently available and individuals interested in seeing what their options are should contact Ennis at [email protected].

For more information about this article, please email Annalise Murphy at [email protected]. Questions regarding the new programs can be directed to Ennis. WLU Director of Media Relations, Maureen Zambito, also published a press release, “New tracks for MA in ED start this fall” and includes more information on the subject.