Goshen College is starting a program for students to get a Certificate in Library Science. This certificate opens up jobs in Indiana public libraries, school libraries or museums, depending on their interests and other qualifications. This certification is open to students of any major and consists of nine credit hours worth of classes.

Of these nine credit hours, many of the classes already exist at GC. While students must be registered for the library department version of the classes, they can be counted toward a student’s major as well as toward the Library Science Certificate. However, one new class has been added: Foundations of Library and Information Science. This class will be offered starting in the spring of 2027 and will be taught by one of the GC librarians.

Angela Fisher is one of the librarians who will be teaching the new class next year. She is excited to collaborate with the Goshen Public Library, hopefully through guest speakers and field visits. “We want to establish foundational knowledge for a career in library and information science, and then, with the additional courses, the students will add special skills knowledge,” said Fisher. “This certificate might be a great fit for someone interested in museum or public history work and also for our education majors as it can help them prepare for the Praxis School Librarian exam.”

While GC is excited to announce the library sciences program, it is not the only new development on campus; the master’s in social work program has just received its accreditation. The program is a collaboration between Goshen College and Bluffton University, another Mennonite institution located in Ohio.

This accreditation is the conclusion of a journey that began in 2021 when initial plans for the program were drafted. The first students graduated from the program in 2024, and as of today there have been nineteen graduates: seven from GC and twelve from Bluffton. Currently there are 60 students enrolled in the program, 36 of them through GC.

Jeanett Harder is the MSW Program Director, and is very excited about reaching this milestone. She described the amount of work that went into the accreditation: over 2400 single-spaced pages of writing, describing the syllabi, student handbook, and other details about the program. “Both Goshen and Bluffton paid a whole heap of money for this opportunity to become accredited,” she said. “Only about half of social work programs are granted accreditation on their first try—we’re very grateful to be in this group.”

Accreditation of this program means that it meets the high standards of the U.S. Department of Education. This accreditation is required for graduates to be employed and to be licensed, and many enrolled in the program before this was sure to happen. They can now say retroactively that they were enrolled in an accredited program, allowing them all the benefits that come with that.

GC continues to add programs, opening career options for its students. These programs are unique for their collaborations with other universities and focuses on social change, as well as being able to integrate with other majors. 

Currently there are 60 students enrolled in the program, 36 of them through GC.

Jeanett Harder is the MSW Program Director, and is very excited about reaching this milestone. She described the amount of work that went into the accreditation: over 2,400 single-spaced pages of writing, describing the syllabi, student handbook and other details about the program. “Both Goshen and Bluffton paid a whole heap of money for this opportunity to become accredited,” she said. “Only about half of social work programs are granted accreditation on their first try — we’re very grateful to be in this group.”

Accreditation of this program means that it meets the high standards of the U.S. Department of Education. This accreditation is required for graduates to be employed and to be licensed, and many enrolled in the program before this was sure to happen. They can now say retroactively that they were enrolled in an accredited program.