New Degree Program

Makes a Great Impression

by Becky Lofstead
The author is director of the WVU News
and Information Services Office.

West Virginia University will soon become a training ground for criminal identification specias around the globe. The University and the Federal Bureau of Investigation recently signed an agreement that will allow WVU to offer the world's first degree programs in forensic identification--with emphasis in biometrics and latent fingerprint identification--beginning this fall.

The FBI will work closely with WVU to develop programs that respond to the emerging technologies and scientific expertise of the professional law enforcement community. The programs will likely attract students from around the world, but some of the first students may come from the FBI Fingerprint Identification Facility in nearby Clarksburg, just forty miles south of WVU's Morgantown campus.

The Clarksburg facility, the single largest repository of fingerprint information in the United States, opened in April 1995. Over 3,000 people work at the facility, which supports over $1 billion in high-tech criminal justice system projects.

WVU President David C. Hardesty, Jr., credits U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd as the catalyst for the FBI complex being built in West Virginia. "Thanks to Senator Byrd's efforts, West Virginia now will develop the first degree-granting university program in forensic identification to go with the world's most modern fingerprint identification system," Hardesty said. "This combination will go a long way toward making our University and our state the nation's leader in criminal justice."

Charles W. Archer, the assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Service (CJIS), noted that Senator Byrd is keenly aware that the new high-tech methods for fingerprint identification and resulting computer analysis require highly trained individuals with advanced educations and technical skills.

And WVU is uniquely situated and positioned to provide these sophisticated skills. "WVU's proximity to our Harrison County facility, its status as a major Carnegie Foundation Research I institution, and the faculty expertise in all areas related to forensic identification are just outstanding," Archer said. "The synergy of these two organizations working together is great."

The WVU-FBI partnership will also help law enforcement officials nationwide take a bite out of crime, Archer said.

WVU Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Gerald Lang said the multidisciplinary degree program will be offered at the bachelor's and master's levels, and will be administered by the Provost's Office in order to give the program the high level of support it requires to get off the ground. Lang said the degree offerings will be available by the fall of 1998, pending approval of the FBI, the University, and WVU's Board of Trustees.

"This will be a specialized, competency-based degree," Lang said. "It will be drawing on the many talents of our University faculty in computer science and electrical engineering, biology, medicine, occupational medicine, dentistry, statistics, physics, mathematics, chemistry, biochemistry, human resources and education, law, and other fields."

Michael T. Yura, WVU counseling psychology professor and the point person in this new partnership, said WVU has been working with the FBI since 1993, when workers first started migrating from Washington, D.C., to the Morgantown area.

"In the beginning that meant locating services and housing for the employees who would be moving here, including many minority employees," Yura said. "Now, we have a new way for WVU to serve the country and the world through these new degree programs. Yura said the new program will eventually include distance education via satellites--to sites around the world.

Yura said identifying finger-prints is just one way investigators use biological information to establish identity and solve crimes. Other methods of identification include retinal scans, facial imaging, and voiceprint analysis. Many FBI and other law enforcement employees who do this type of work learned it on the job, according to officials.

"In today's society, where courts demand greater expertise, and defense attorneys are quick to attack government witnesses, the WVU program will provide us with a better-educated expert whose credibility should be greater and whose knowledge should be higher," said John Hoyt, chief of resources management at the FBI's Clarksburg facility.

 

 

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