Approved Programs
New undergraduate and graduate for-credit degree programs that have been approved by the Quality Council on or after September 1, 2011 are detailed in this database, which can be searched in multiple ways: by university, year, program level and/or keyword.
Program Approvals: Queen's University
The Graduate Diploma in Risk Policy and Regulation (GDipRPR) is a four-month program unique in Canada. It is designed to attract students with a Master’s degree in the area of financial economics. A key feature of the program is the integration of material from a wide variety of economic and related fields relevant for risk managers, regulators, supervisors, academic and administrators of financial stability (such as central banks.) Courses in risk management theory and implementation, banking theory and practice, financial regulation, and advanced topics in risk management and regulation will be interest to those pursuing careers in the private or public sector. In addition, the incorporation of relevant material from financial management and accounting and behavioural economics will enable graduates of the program to think creatively about how alternative risk management models can be developed and applied and will allow them to contribute to the design of more effective regulations and policies influencing the financial sector.
Amalgamation of the Faculty of Health Sciences basic science departments (Anatomy and Cell Biology, Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, Pharmacology and Toxicology, Physiology) into the Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences (DBMS) provided an exciting opportunity to redefine and deliver integrated and collaborative graduate programs. The integrated Biomedical and Molecular Sciences graduate program offers three degree programs. Students in the MSc (Anatomical Sciences) receive training in the art of teaching and curriculum design in the anatomical sciences and complete 30 credit units of coursework, a practicum entailing the production of a human anatomy specimen, lecturing and laboratory teaching. Research-based MSc and PhD candidates are trained in hypothesis-based mechanistic research through a program strongly emphasizing experimental work that tests original research questions complemented by a focused course-load tailored to each student’s background and project requirements.
The tight job market has led many new post-secondary school graduates to obtain an edge by seeking practical business knowledge from an institution of higher education. The Graduate Diploma in Business is designed to meet this growing demand and will attract non-business undergraduates wanting to achieve competencies in business acumen. Graduates of the Diploma program will have built on the skills developed in their previous academic training and will have the skills and knowledge in areas of general management and the analysis of the business environment to improve their employability. This four month diploma program is based on the core courses of the Queen’s MBA. Successful graduates of the Diploma program may ladder their credential by applying the credits earned toward completion of the Queen’s MBA should they so desire.
The Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioner (PHCNP) diploma program is a change in credential designation from a post-baccalaureate certificate to a graduate diploma. The new PHCNP diploma program is offered as part of a nine university consortium – known as the Council of Ontario University Programs of Nursing Consortium.
In Ontario, Nurse Practitioners (NP) are Registered Nurses in the Extended Class who have completed additional specialized nursing education enabling them to diagnose, order and interpret diagnostic and screening tests, prescribe pharmaceuticals and perform procedures. This program equips NPs with advanced knowledge and decision-making skills enabling them to assess and promote health, treat and prevent disease and injury, and provide rehabilitation and support to individuals, families and communities. PHCNP diploma graduates may provide vital access to primary health care services in isolated, underserved, remote and rural communities where shortages of primary care physicians are compounded by issues of poverty, unemployment and poor education.
The Graduate Diploma in Professional Inquiry addresses the inquiry skills fundamental to professional thinking and action. Specifically, the curriculum is designed to improve professional problem-solving and decision-making processes at the individual, team, program, classroom and organizational levels. Currently in many professions, including education, there is an emphasis on evidence-informed decision-making. Inquiry practices are the processes used to guide such an approach.
The PhD program in Environmental Studies would provide graduate training in socio-ecological issues and sustainable approaches to addressing environmental issues, emphasizing interdisciplinarity and focusing on the concept of sustainability and sustainable practices. The theme of sustainability emphasizes the long-term nature and impacts of environmental change, the connections between today’s decisions and tomorrow’s welfare, and the strong dependence of human well-being on environmental quality. The program responds to widespread perceptions and concerns about society’s future in a world of finite resources.
The Master of Management Analytics program will meet the rapidly growing need for analysts who understand the technical and mathematical challenges of analytics as well as the management contexts in which they arise. This program will give students who possess strong quantitative abilities the skills that they need to develop, direct and deliver projects in analytics that add value to businesses or other organizations. The program is designed for working professionals and will provide thorough coverage of the mathematical and statistical theories and methods that underlie modern analytics, while maintaining a practitioner focus. Graduates will be able to develop and use advanced database and search techniques to extract useful data from very large data sources and apply modern methods of data summarization and visualization to enhance understanding of organizational environments, including the economy, internal organizational performance, competitive positioning, and the structure and behaviours of markets or client groups.
The Master of Science in Healthcare Quality is unique in that it will develop a discipline in three areas of healthcare that are rarely linked – quality, risk and safety–with the intent to ensure better quality healthcare minimizing errors for Canadians. As healthcare planning is often conducted in isolation and within narrow parameters, this master’s degree will prepare professionals to examine quality across a broader spectrum: understanding legal precedence and decisions, linking quality to beneficence (doing good), minimizing the emphasis on non-maleficence (doing no harm), and recognizing the role of policy, health care reorganization, human factors and engineering to provide excellent care.
The MSc (HQ) program is interdisciplinary in its design, delivery and scope. Use of informational technologies will permit access for potential students across Canada, and internationally.
Canadian based mining companies face the challenge of building constructive and positive working and living relationships with mining affected communities not only within Canada but also abroad. This certificate program is structured to address some of the most critical community relations skill and practice deficiencies of mining company staff working at North American based operations, and potentially at foreign sites as well. The program reflects industry needs, community challenges and political realities in North America. This practitioner-targeted certificate is skill based and competency focused, with three out of four courses packaged for distance delivery, allowing participants to continue working as they learn.
The program is designed primarily to meet the professional needs of people already working in or having worked in the minerals industry, in associated government agencies, or in non-governmental or community based organizations. It aims to equip students with the knowledge, competencies and best practices that will help them to understand, engage with, and contribute more effectively to the creation of positive and lasting company-community relationships. Successful graduates will be able to assume expanded work roles and increasing levels of responsibility within their organizations.
With an interdisciplinary reach that will connect departments, programs, and faculties across the university, the BA in Black Studies will serve to educate the Queen’s community about the histories and contemporary struggles of African and Black diasporic communities. Complementing and extending existing courses and research clusters that attend to Black Studies, African Studies, Black Diaspora Studies and Caribbean Studies, as well as studies of race and belonging, the plan will introduce students to a variety of perspectives that emphasize equity, social justice, and building cross-community alliances. The Black Studies Minor will provide students with the opportunity to produce new knowledge, study, teach, and centre anti-oppression in interdisciplinary settings—building on and extending the creative and intellectual work of Black communities in local-global contexts. The Black Studies Minor will encourage collaborative learning and draw attention to respectfully engaging, and deploying, multiple epistemologies from across disciplines. Upper-year courses offer opportunities to engage in activist and community work and cultural production, as well as small reading and theory intensive projects.
The Bachelor of Arts Honours and Medial in Indigenous Studies is housed in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures. The plans combine courses from a wide range of departments (Art; History; Biology; Drama; Economics; English; Film Studies; Gender Studies; Geography; Global Development; History; Languages, Literatures and Cultures; Law; Political Studies; and Religion), ensuring that students are exposed to a diversity of perspectives on Indigenous Topics. The plans not only reflect the interdisciplinary focus of Indigenous Studies, but also contribute to new iterations of the discipline.
The plans in Indigenous Studies will unite traditional classroom education directly with experiential learning while increasing University and community partnerships to deliver authentic experiences, routed in Indigenous epistemologies, methodologies, and frameworks.
The core of the plans include introductory courses on Indigenous Studies and topics in Indigenous Human Ecology, a required course on Indigenous theories and methodologies, a required Indigenous language component, and for the major, a capstone project course allowing students to explore an issue in Indigenous studies through both library and community-based research.
An MRE (Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering) degree from Queen’s will put students at the cusp of a rapidly growing field, pushing the boundaries of intelligent autonomous systems and world-changing technologies. A rewarding curriculum covers everything from artificial intelligence to autonomous movement and control systems, integrating key topics in computer, electrical, and mechanical engineering. A sequence of experiential project-based design courses will progressively build the students’ foundational knowledge and culminate in a capstone design project that could lead to participation in an external design competition. In their final year, students choose from one of four concentrations in automation, robotics, biomedical engineering, or intelligent systems.
- Cultural diversity
- Cultural competency
- Interdisciplinarity
- Intercultural sensitivity
- Learn a minimum of two languages
This major will provide students with an understanding and awareness of cultural diversity in their own cultures, as well as some knowledge of different cultural practices and world-views. Courses are multi-, cross-, and inter-disciplinary on a variety of topics that examine the influences of key social, historical, political, and artistic developments within varied cultural traditions. The major is an excellent platform for study abroad opportunities or gaining additional experiential learning. Developing cultural competency and intercultural sensitivity prepares students for a wide range of post-graduate careers, graduate degree options, and professional programs.
Queen’s new Politics-Philosophy-Economics (PPE) program provides students with a set of diverse and flexible skills for the study of social issues and societal responses. The questions that motivate the study of politics, philosophy, and economics share important similarities, including their social nature, the analytical and critical thinking required to address them, and their complexity and multi-dimensionality. The tools and perspectives may be different in each discipline, but the questions asked are based on common interests. The PPE program provides students with varied approaches to probe, investigate, and resolve fundamental issues of social importance.
The BA in Liberal Studies is a fully online interdisciplinary program designed to provide students with an integrated liberal studies education. The program is structured around modes of critical thought, and focused on breadth rather than specialization. The plan is made up of 30.0 units of specified core and option degree-credit courses, which are combined with electives to complete the 90.0-unit degree program. The program starts with a required foundational course which introduces students to approaches, methodologies and fundamental questions in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Students are then required to select courses from each of the four modes of critical thought: scientific inquiry and reasoning, insights into contemporary society and culture, critical perspectives on history, and academic writing. Finally, a required capstone course, LIBS 300, will enable students to draw on and synthesize their learning using a collaborative, project-based approach. By fostering an interdisciplinary approach to intellectual inquiry, argument and analysis, the BA in Liberal Studies will prepares students for more in-depth study in a specific field or to enter a professional program such as law, as well as provide them with a strong comprehensive educational foundation and the adaptable skills for any career path or life activity.
The Queen’s University Bachelor of Music Theatre (BMT) is a 4-year collaborative program offered by Queen’s University and St. Lawrence College that will provide students with a quality theoretical and practical education in musical theatre performance. Aspiring musical theatre professionals will receive extensive preparation in acting, singing, and dance. Students will receive instruction from faculty and industry professionals with interdisciplinary training that fully encompasses the priorities of experiential learning in the performing arts. They will gain the knowledge and skillsets to be successful in the fast-paced and rapidly changing fields of dramatic and musical theatre through learning in classes such as playwriting, design in theatre, and applied musical instrument training. By the end of the program, students will have an extensive knowledge of not only how to perform in a musical theatre and entertainment environment but also how to lead and design creative endeavours within the field and beyond.
Queen’s University is proud to offer one of Canada’s newest and most innovative online degree programs. The Bachelor of Health Sciences degree is a collaborative, inter-professional program created jointly by the University’s Schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Rehabilitation Therapy. Students customize their degree, choosing from a variety of strategically designed courses. Further specialization is encouraged through a series of unique learning tracks allowing for more in-depth study in specific fields of interest. The courses have been designed to develop students’ competencies and skillsets in relation to careers across the health professions. Upon completion of the Health Sciences degree, graduates will have gained the courses required for application to a wide variety of health professional programs and to graduate studies.
Queen’s University and St. Lawrence College are collaborating to offer a Joint Bachelor of Science (Honours) Degree/Diploma in Biotechnology. Students in the Biotechnology Specialization Plan at Queen’s can earn credit towards the Biotechnology Diploma at St. Lawrence, and vice versa.
Students may transfer academic credits between the two institutions, resulting in the accelerated completion of both programs (a 4 year BScH in Biology, specialization in biotechnology and a 3 year Advanced Diploma in Biotechnology) in just 5 years. Students can start the Degree/Diploma at either institution, and will spend between 2.5-3.5 years at Queen’s, with the remaining time at St. Lawrence. The Bachelor of Science (Honours) Biotechnology Specialization will also be available as a stand-alone four-year degree program for Queen’s students.
The combination of technical skills with conceptual and research training will provide our graduates with undergraduate Biotechnology training second to none in Ontario. Program graduates will have a unique set of skills. Highly trained in the technical aspects of biotechnology that the College training offers, they will have the skills to take on jobs as lab technicians in industry, government or academic jobs. The University training will enhance their theoretical and research training and give them the skills to lead research and innovation in biotechnology.
The Bachelor of Mining Engineering Technology degree is a collaboration between Queen’s University’s Robert M. Buchan Department of Mining and Northern College’s Haileybury School of Mines. The program is designed to meet the needs of the mining industry, and of college-educated professionals looking to advance their careers and education. Directed at Civil/Mechanical Engineering Technologists, or Mining Engineering Technician graduates, the BTech (Mining) program consists of customized bridging courses, two years of online university study, as well as two on-site field placements (located in Kingston and Timmins). Curriculum material will provide fundamental depth of knowledge and background theory in the field of mining. The program’s technology focus is designed to provide technical, managerial, and sustainability skills. Students are prepared to address emerging challenges in improving productivity, efficiency, and safety, reduce environmental impacts, and develop a social conscience. Graduates of the program will be experienced, motivated leaders, with the hands-on knowledge required to solve a variety of practical industry problems, and will have the ability to turn newly developed tools and technologies into productive and efficient solutions for the modern mining industry.