Towson University Overview
Founded in 1866, Towson State University began as the Maryland State Normal School.  The institution changed its name to Towson State Teacher's College in 1935 and with the creation of an arts and sciences program, became Towson State College in 1946.  Towson State became a university in 1976 and changed its name to Towson University in 1997.  Towson University is a comprehensive metropolitan university located in suburban Baltimore.  It is the largest university in the Baltimore metropolitan area with 16,647 students enrolled during the Fall 1999 semester.  2,666 of these students were graduate students.  Towson University offers 60 undergraduate majors and 33 master's level programs.  No graduate degrees are offered in International Studies. Towson University serves the higher education needs of students from the Baltimore region, central Maryland, and many adjoining mid-Atlantic states. 18% of the students are out-of-state students and 3% are international students.  The programs and services are designed to serve students in the top third of the high school graduates in Maryland.

Towson University is located on a rolling, wooded, 320 acre campus in Towson, Maryland, the county seat of Baltimore County (pop. 692,000).  The campus is approximately 2 miles north of the Baltimore City line and about 50 miles north of Washington, DC.  Its location places Towson University close to centers of local, state, and national government agencies and near major international business centers.

Towson State University is a constituent institution of the University System of Maryland.  Other campuses in the system include the University of Maryland at College Park, University of Baltimore, and nine other universities and two research centers. (see (http://www.usmh.usmd.edu/)  This offers many opportunities for coordinating programs and resources with the other universities in the system.  The International Studies Program does make some use of this collaboration, especially in the area of international education.

The Department of Political Science and the International Studies Program are located within the College of Liberal Arts at Towson University.  Other departments in the College of Liberal Arts include the Departments of Anthropology, Criminology, & Sociology; English, Geography & Environmental Planning; History, Foreign Languages; Philosopy; and Psychology.  Other interdisciplinary programs administered by the college include Women's Studies, Gerontology, Metropolitan Studies, and Law & American Civilization.

Program Overview
The International Studies Program at Towson University was founded in 1968 as an interdisciplinary undergraduate major leading to a B.A. in International Studies.  In recent years, the program enrollment has fluctuated from around 90 to about 150 majors. The program does not offer any graduate degrees at this time.  The goal of the International Studies Program is to provide students with an understanding of international affairs that prepares them for further study in graduate or professional education or that prepares them to enter the world of international business or public service.  To meet this goal, the program attempts to accomplish the following five objectives:

1. Provide a solid grounding in the nature and structure of the international system and its culture, economy, geography, history, and politics.
2. Provide a theoretical basis for understanding how and why the international system works.
3. Develop skills that will aid the student in work, research, and further study in international affairs.
4. Provide an opportunity for students to specialize in a regional area (such as Latin America or Western Europe) or to specialize their studies in a functional area (such as international economics or international politics).
5. Provide an opportunity for experiential learning through internships, study abroad, the Model Organization of American States, editorial work on the Towson University Journal of International Affairs, and campus seminars.

Program Administration
The International Studies Committee performs the administrative role that faculty normally fulfill in an academic department.  That is, the members of the Committee collectively decide on the curriculum and the direction of the program, they serve as academic advisors for the students in the International Studies Major, and they assist the Director in the daily administration of the program as needed.  Currently there are 13 members of the International Studies Committee drawn from the departments of Anthropology & Sociology, Economics, Geography, History, Management (Business), Foreign Languages, and  Political Science, the Career Center and the Office of International Education.  The daily operation of the program is the responsibility of the Director of the Program.  The director is a tenure track/tenured faculty member in the Department of Political Science.

The Director of International Studies performs the administrative role that a chair normally fulfills in an academic department.  That is, the Director makes final decisions about waiving academic requirements, decides about transfer credits that can be applied toward a student's completion of the major, assigns students to advisors, certifies students' completion of requirements for graduation, manages the budget, maintains student records, submits courses to the schedule, represents the program in other meetings on and off campus, and manages the daily administration of the program.  In official correspondence and paperwork, the Director's signature is used in place of the signature of a chair of the academic department.

Curriculum
The International Studies Program is implementing a revised curriuculum beginning in the Fall 2000 semester.  This curriculum is designed to give students the opportunity either to focus their studies on a regional or topical track or to experience the broad multidisciplinary nature of the major. All students must complete 48 credits (16 courses) in International Studies to complete the major.   Students must complete the core curriculum described below (27 credits) and then must complete one of five tracks of courses (21 credits).  The five tracks are the General track, International Development track, Asia track, Europe track, and Latin America track.  The purpose of the tracks is to provide students an opportunity to apply what they learned in the core curriculum to an issue or region of their choice.  All 16 courses must be completed with a grade of 2.00 (C) or higher.  It is recommended that students complete the foundation courses in the core curriculum before proceeding to the rest of the curriculum.

Students must achieve a level of proficiency equivalent to four semesters of college level language training in a foreign language that is offered by or can be tested by the Department of Foreign Languages.  The language selected may depend upon the International Studies track the student chooses.  For example, students in the Latin America track must achieve proficiency in Spanish.  Students can fulfill the language requirement for the International Studies major through any of the procedures outlined in the "Meeting B.A. Requirements" section of the Department of Modern Languages entry in the college catalog.  Lower division courses taken in a modern language do not count toward the 48 credits needed to complete the International Studies major.  Please see course catalog for updated course requirements.

I. INTERNATIONAL STUDIES CORE COURSES

A. Foundation Courses- (15 Credits)   Students must take all of the following courses.

ANTH 207	Cultural Anthropology
ECON 202	Macroeconomic Principles
GEOG 105	Geography of International Affairs
HIST 161	The World Since 1945
POSC 107	Introduction to International Relations

B. Economics and Management (3 Credits) Students must take one of the following courses.

ECON 305	Survey of International Economics
ECON 323	Comparative Economic Systems
ECON 325	Economic Development
ECON 421	International Economics
MNGT 355	International Business

C. Geography and History (3 Credits) Students must take one of the following courses.

GEOG 381	Political Geography
GEOG 427	The Global Economy
HIST 103	European Civilization since the 17th century
HIST 324	Democratization in Latin America
HIST 370	Diplomatic History of the United States since 1900

D. Political Science (3 Credits) Students must take one of the following courses.

POSC 303	Theory of International Relations
POSC 337	Comparative Governments of Foreign Powers
POSC 339	Comparative Political Systems
POSC 428	Political Theory II
POSC 434	Comparative Foreign Policies

E. Research and Practicum (3 Credits) Students must take one of the following courses.
  Any 3 credit course in an approved study abroad program.
           OR ANTH 491  Internship in Anthropology* ANTH 37x Ethnographic Field Methods ECON 205  Statistics for Business and Economics* ECON 497   Internship in Economics* FREN 497 Internship in French* GEOG 491  Internship in Geography* GERM 497 Internship in German* HIST 300 Introduction to Historical Study HIST 493 Internship in International Studies* LAST 493   Internship in Latin American Studies* POSC 301 Research Methods in Political  Science POSC 493 Internship in Political Science* SPAN 497 Internship in Spanish*

          OR