Marquette University Law School has established a program that will allow Saint Norbert College students to enroll after only three years of undergraduate study.
Students accepted into the program, referred to in a statement released this week as a “3-plus-3” program, can graduate with a bachelor’s degree from SNC and a law degree from Marquette in six years.
Typically, the path to obtain a law degree takes seven years.
Marquette Law School Dean Joseph Kearney said the program is a partnership that will benefit both institutions.
“It will assist students who wish to pursue a legal education, providing the economic benefit of shortening their time in higher education and the career-related benefit of enabling them to enter the workplace one year earlier,” Kearney said. “We have welcomed many St. Norbert graduates to the law school over the years, and we look forward to a closer partnership through this program.”
SNC, a Catholic liberal arts college located near Green Bay in De Pere, enrolls around 2,100 students and has recently undergone millions of dollars worth of expansion projects. Since 2009, SNC has opened a new library, athletics stadium, and a $39 million science center that includes the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Green Bay campus.
The college broke ground on a $26 million, 50,000-square-foot addition to its fitness and sports center on April 1.
SNC President Tom Kunkel said the idea of creating a partnership with Marquette Law School was brought to him by an SNC-Marquette dual graduate
“As we looked into it, it became clear this model did exist in other states in the U.S. and then we learned that Marquette has its own ‘3-plus-3’ program,” Kunkel said. “It was a model that other colleges and laws schools have successfully employed. We’re trying to reach out and provide extra value to our students where we can.”
SNC has previously partnered with Marquette University to create a five-year (4-plus-1) undergraduate-graduate economics program.
“The partnerships, I think, in higher education in some ways are a little like where health care was 20 years ago,” Kunkel said. “In the past, institutions felt they needed to be all things to all people, and eventually they realized that model didn’t work. We need to focus on the things we’re really good at and partner on the things we’re not.”
The way the program is set up, SNC undergrads will be eligible to apply to Marquette Law during their junior year. Once admitted, students will move directly into Marquette’s law program. If they complete all their first-year law school requirements, those credits will be applied to their SNC undergraduate degree. Students will then have to finish their remaining two years at Marquette Law to receive their juris doctor degree.
To qualify for the 3-plus-3 program, SNC students must have scored a minimum of 28 on the ACT exam and have a cumulative high school grade point average of 3.75.
