Life will be a little easier for UA students who want to earn a second master's degree while attending the Eller College of Management.

Weeks of planning led to a decision to initiate a dual master's degree program between the Eller College of Management and six other colleges on campus. Formal affiliations have been arranged with the College of Engineering, the College of Science and the Optical Sciences Center.

"Students should be able to do two degree programs at the same time," said Amar Gupta, professor of entrepreneurship. "Increasingly, people need both business skills and domain expertise."

The five-semester program will begin fall 2005 and will include one summer of in-field training. President Peter Likins thinks the program is promising and exciting.

"I think it's a fantastic idea. It's a model that will be increasingly common across the country," Likins said. "There are a lot of bridges being built, and I see this as a trend in the future."

The dual-degree program aims to make it somewhat easier for students to get two degrees. Students need the total number of units for the larger degree and half the units for the smaller degree to receive both of the degrees, Gupta said.

"The program reduces the total duration, it reduces the total workload, and it is also cheaper than having to pay for two separate degrees," Gupta said.

Each college has a different set of acceptance requirements, so in order to qualify for a dual degree, students must meet the requirements and be accepted into both the Eller College and second college of their choosing.

Gupta said any graduate student or senior may apply for the program.

In future years, requirement changes will be made and Eller will only accept students with three years of work experience before allowing them into the program.

"In future years, students will be drawn from businesses, and that is our target audience," said Richard Shoemaker, associate director for optical science. "Industry representatives have said that this will be of interest to them to train workers for technical background in addition to business background."

Gupta said he hopes that someday, students from all over the country will want to come to the UA for specialized dual-major programs that will be offered.

"We think this is a very good way to attract students to the university. We have many regional students, but we are not getting enough students from the East or West Coasts," Gupta said.

Program planners hope to coordinate with other colleges in the near future to increase the number of dual-major degrees offered.

"I suspect this will be a very successful program," Shoemaker said.