Students of the radiological imaging 3 + 1 program no longer have to worry about losing the plus one, or master’s year program for the summer of 2016. New Dean of the School of Health and Sciences William Kohlhepp, amongst others, feel strongly that the new changes will be a significant advantage to the students when they enter the workforce.

“The application is before the state of Connecticut and they have a period of time for review and we are very optimistic that we will get that approval,” Kohlhepp said. “Our vision is to give them basic foundational courses from the MBA healthcare and management program that will prepare them for success in specific focused courses that are designed to allow the students to enter into team leader or initial entry level supervision kinds of positions in advanced imaging.”

This alternate route was chosen when it became clear that the original master’s program (Certification in Advanced Imaging Modality) would not give the students the competitive advantage they initially thought, Kohlhepp said.

“We went out and talked with some people that would be hiring our graduates and they felt the basic licensing accreditation was sufficient,” he said. “They saw no value in the additional enhancements and that really took us aback and slowed us down a little bit.”

Kohlhepp acknowledged this miscommunication explaining how it was more of an issue trying to figure out what course of action to take as opposed to not telling the students.

“I have apologized to them [the students] for the lack of communication and I think we are in good shape and that’s past history,” Kohlhepp said.

Directly following, Kohlhepp reiterated that they have worked very closely with the state of Connecticut to ensure these students will be able to move right into their summer courses following graduation and feel very confident that approval is inevitable.

Since becoming the Dean of the School of Health and Sciences roughly three months ago, Kohlhepp made a commitment to fixing the program and communicating with the students in regards to it.

Kohlhepp, along with Director of the program and Chairman of Radiological Sciences John Candler, Dean of the School of Business Matt O’Connor and Professor of Health Care Management Angela Mattie worked together to modify the program for the student’s best interests.

As of right now, the students in the class of 2016 radiological imaging program are set to graduate in late May and move right into their summer coursework as part of the master’s program.

Several students in the diagnostic imaging program declined to comment to The Chronicle for this story.