Announcement

Emerson College has announced a new collaboration with Franklin University Switzerland, an international liberal arts university in the southern Swiss Canton of Ticino, to launch two accelerated 3+1 degree programs that will allow students to complete a bachelor’s degree at Franklin University and a master’s degree at Emerson in four calendar years and a summer.

The 3 + 1 program, which begins in the Fall 2019, includes a fast-track bachelor’s degree from Franklin, followed by an Emerson master’s degree offered in either Publishing and Writing or Public Relations. The bachelor’s program will take place on the Franklin campus in Lugano, Switzerland, and the master’s degree on Emerson’s Boston campus. Emerson and Franklin are also working to develop a new, joint Bachelor's degree program in International and Political Communication, which will allow students to spend two years at Franklin and two years at Emerson—providing a truly global education in this burgeoning field.

According to Lee Pelton, president of Emerson College, the partnership marks the second international degree program within Emerson’s Global Portals Initiative. Last month, the college announced a first-of-its-kind Global Bachelor of Film Art degree with Paris College of Art, and builds on similar existing degree programs with a partner university in Barcelona, Spain. The College also plans to establish a winter-session and summer program in Sydney, Australia in 2019 and joint degrees in Hong Kong in the future.

“As the premier institution of higher learning for creative leaders in communications, the arts, and the liberal arts, Emerson seeks to fulfill our mission in an increasingly global world by creating a borderless campus—which we see as vital to educating the world’s future generations of artists and storytellers,” said Pelton.

Michaele Whelan, Emerson’s provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, said, “This program gives students the opportunity to combine a liberal arts education, with international immersion and exposure to the world through travel, as well as an advanced professional degree at one of the highest-ranking colleges of writing, publishing, and communications – in a compressed timeframe.”

The program is open to students enrolled at Franklin in good standing with a GPA of 3.0 or higher, and the admission process is seamless: eligible students will be automatically admitted to either Emerson’s master’s degree in Publishing and Writing or Public Relations, depending on their choice.

The partnership will also enable collaborative research opportunities between faculty members of both institutions, a Visiting Scholars program, student exchange, and enrollment in summer study abroad programs at both Emerson and Franklin.


About the College

Based in Boston, Massachusetts, opposite the historic Boston Common and in the heart of the city’s Theatre District, Emerson College educates individuals who will solve problems and change the world through engaged leadership in communication and the arts, a mission informed by liberal learning. The College has 3,780 undergraduates and 670 graduate students from across the United States and 50 countries. Supported by state-of-the-art facilities and a renowned faculty, students participate in more than 90 student organizations and performance groups. Emerson is known for its experiential learning programs in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, the Netherlands, London, China, and the Czech Republic as well as its new Global Portals, with the first opening last fall in Paris. The College has an active network of 51,000 alumni who hold leadership positions in communication and the arts. For more information, visit Emerson.edu.