Building the Future of Criminal Justice Education: CJ Competency-Based Program Launches This Fall

This fall, the College of Criminal Justice is launching a fully competency-based Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences in Criminal Justice, and SHSU Online's instructional design team has been working hard to bring it to life. 

What Makes CBE Different 

Competency-Based Education (CBE) is a flexible, self-paced approach that centers on what students can demonstrate rather than how much time they spend in a course. Instead of following a fixed semester schedule, students progress by mastering clearly defined, career-aligned competencies, developed in direct collaboration with criminal justice professionals and agencies. That means the skills students build in the classroom translate directly to what they'll be expected to do in the field. 

For students, CBE offers real advantages: continuous entry points throughout the year, the ability to move quickly through familiar material or slow down where needed, faculty who serve as coaches rather than traditional lecturers, and tuition set at $178 per credit hour, about half the average cost in Texas. Students can even earn up to 12 credit hours through work-based mentorships with their current employer. 

A Significant Collaborative Effort  

Behind the scenes, this launch entailed an extraordinary level of coordination. SHSU Online's instructional design team partnered closely with faculty and leadership from the College of Criminal Justice to develop courses across three parallel workstreams simultaneously: new Gen Ed courses built in collaboration with faculty, a series of 1-hour micro-credential courses designed for working professionals in corrections, and a full retrofit of existing 3-hour CRIJ courses into CBE-compliant format, complete with competency statements, mastery-based assessments, and performance rubrics. 

To help guide this work, the College of Criminal Justice and SHSU Online partnered with C-BEN (the Competency-Based Education Network), a national leader in CBE program design. Together, our instructional designers and C-BEN's team have been building blueprints, coaching faculty through an entirely new way of thinking about course design, and establishing quality standards that will serve as the foundation for CBE programs at SHSU for years to come. 

Meanwhile, SHSU's Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) is developing dedicated faculty training to help instructors feel confident and well-prepared to teach in this new format. CBE instructional models shift the teaching approach from traditional lecture-and-grade to a coaching-centered approach: faculty continue to provide expert instruction and mentoring while taking on an expanded coaching role that supports individualized student progress. The training provided by the TLC will be essential in helping faculty make that transition successfully.  

This isn't just a new set of courses. It's a fundamentally different model of teaching and learning. The project required our team to adopt new design frameworks, establish new development processes, and apply nationally recognized CBE practices—all within an ambitious implementation timeline.  

Every course under CBE development must reflect backward design principles from the ground up: identifying what students need to master, determining how they'll prove it, and then building the learning experience that gets them there. 

A Team Effort Worth Celebrating 

This kind of work doesn't happen without a lot of moving parts coming together at once. Instructional designers, faculty, subject matter experts, C-BEN consultants, TLC trainers, and CJ Online leadership have all been working in close coordination, often navigating new questions in real time as they arise. It's the kind of ambitious, high-stakes project that tests a team's ability to stay organized, communicate constantly, and problem-solve on the fly, and our team has risen to the occasion. 

If you see a member of the instructional design team this fall, give them a high five. They've earned it. 

Learn More 

Interested in seeing how CBE compares to traditional online learning, or want to explore the BAAS in Criminal Justice program? Visit the College of Criminal Justice's CBE page to learn more.