UNION COUNTY COLLEGE ACADEMIC PROGRAM REVIEW. Business/Public Administration. Associate in Arts Degree

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1 UNION COUNTY COLLEGE ACADEMIC PROGRAM REVIEW I. Program Objectives Business/Public Administration Associate in Arts Degree This program offers a strong foundation for students wishing to major in either public and/or business administration. The program includes courses in statistics, computer programming, and management. The courses are designed to develop analytical and quantitative skills, as well as familiarity with the basic characteristics of government and business organizations. The specific objectives of this program are that the graduate must be able to demonstrate: knowledge of the principles and practices of management and organization in American Business; knowledge of the principles and dynamics of American public administration; knowledge of the principles of microeconomics and macroeconomics; the ability to perform statistical procedures common to American business; critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and effective communication skills; an awareness of an concern for the ethical implications and institutional policies and individual practices; an awareness of the diverse factors that shape the world in order to keep pace with the changing society; the ability to use technology for learning and research; the ability to learn independently and to direct one s own learning. II. Departmental Organization and Administration The BUPA program is an associate in arts degree program. Department communication is informal with no strict constraints. Frequent area meetings are held within the department and annual department meetings are held. and mobile communication devices are used extensively among department faculty. The professors of the BUPA program report to the coordinator of the program, who reports to the chairperson of the department, who then reports to the Vice President for Academic Affairs, who reports to the President of Union County College. III. Faculty During the academic year the BUPA program consisted of twenty, full-time faculty members. Professor Carmichael taught 18 contact hours in the fall semester, 6 of which were not in the BUPA program and 6 contact hours in the spring semester, 3 of which were not in the BUPA program. Professor Coppa of the Economics-Government-History department taught 12 contact hours in the fall semester, 3 of which were not in the BUPA program, and 9 1

2 contact hours in the spring semester, 3 of which were not in the BUPA program. Professor Grodner taught 18 contact hours in spring semester only, 15 of which were not in the BUPA program. Professor Henderson taught 21 contact hours in the fall semester, 18 of which were not in the BUPA program and spring 10 contact hours in the spring semester, 7 of which were not in the BUPA program. Professor Phillips taught 40 contact hours in the fall semester only, 37 of which were not in the BUPA program. Professor Singer taught 12 contact hours in the spring semester only, 9 of which were not in the BUPA program. The BUPA program also consisted of twenty-two, part-time faculty members and 1 fulltime staff member who taught part-time in during the academic year. Professor Ackerman taught 6 contact hours in the spring semester only. Professor Blinder taught 13 contact hours in both the fall and spring semesters, 10 of which were not in the BUPA program. Professor Hart taught 6 contact hours in both the fall and spring semesters. Professor Rossi taught 12 contact hours in the fall semester, 6 of which were not in the BUPA program and 12 contact hours in the spring semester, 3 of which were not in the BUPA program. Professor Ruane taught 3 contact hours in the fall semester. Professor Schoeman taught 6 contact hours in the fall semester and 9 contact hours in the spring semester, 6 of which were not in the BUPA program. Professor Srinivasa taught 10 contact hours in the fall semester, 7 of which were not in the BUPA program and 14 contact hours in the spring semester, 8 of which were not in the BUPA program. Sharon Johnson, a full-time staff member, taught 3 contact hours in both the fall and spring semesters. The faculty reviews textbooks, course materials, and course outlines on a periodical basis and updates any information necessary. The faculty has also attended training for blended learning in which the internet is used for assignments and projects. A. Advisory Committee The BUPA program is considering starting an advisory committee to evaluate the program in-line with the programs at four-year institutions. Meetings for this committee will occur whenever it is found that the curriculum may need updating. IV. Curriculum Accounting (16 credits): Business (3 credits): Economics (6 credits): Communications (6 credits): Mathematics (7-8 credits): ACC 103 Accounting I ACC 104 Accounting II ACC 203 Intermediate Accounting I or 1 Laboratory Science ACC 204 Intermediate Accounting II or 1 Laboratory Science BUS 105 Organization & Management ECO 201 Principles of Economics I ECO 202 Principles of Economics II or ENG 128 The Dynamics of Communication ENG 101 English Composition I ENG 102 English Composition II MAT 146 Brief Calculus with Applications or MAT 246 Business Statistical Analysis 2

3 Humanities/Social Sciences (6 credits): Information Systems (3 credits): Government (9 credits): Electives (9 credits): Total (65-66 credits) 1 Mathematics courses chosen by advisor SOC 101 Principles of Sociology PSY 101 General Psychology or SOC 206 Minorities in American life CIS 100 Introduction to Computer Applications CIS 101 Introduction to Information Systems GOV 201 American Govt. & Politics GOV 202 American National Govt. GOV 204 Public Administration 1 Humanities Elective 2 General Electives The total number of credits required in the BUPA program meets the criteria for being awarded an Associate in Arts degree and the distribution of courses is appropriate for a typical Business/Public Administration curriculum. Foundational mathematics, accounting and economics courses are required. The importance of the English communications courses cannot be overemphasized; repeatedly employer feedback highlights the need for good communications skills from employees. The programming, government, science, and humanities/social science courses help contribute to developing students well-rounded general education. All of these courses have the appropriate content and level as indicated by the course descriptions in the UCC course catalog. V. Articulation Agreements or Joint Admission Agreements The BUPA department has many articulation agreements with four-year colleges designed to facilitate transfer to these institutions. The BUPA program will transfer to Kean University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, and Rutgers University. Please note that these institutions do not agree with course titles for the program. They also do not agree with the mathematics required for the program. VI. Resources, Facilities and Services The resources, facilities and services that are provides to the BUPA program have been deemed adequate. VII. Students A. Program Enrollment Analysis The proportionate change in total BUPA majors has a history of fluctuating. The total enrollment in the academic year included 69 BUPA majors, most of whom were continuing (36) or first-time (14) students. Table 2 details BUPA enrollment patterns over the past several years. Table 3 further details fall enrollment patterns by attendance status. As can be seen in this table, there was a small decline in the amount of students enrolled in the Fall of 2006 (50) to the Fall of 2007 (44). 3

4 Table 4 shows the number of transfers into the BUPA program. The BUPA program had an increase in the amount of 4 external transfer students into the program from to followed by a decrease of 6 from to The amount of external transfer students increased to 2 in and then increased again to 5 in before settling at 3 in Student attrition throughout the BUPA program has posed an issue for students academic success. As Table 5 depicts, there were 20 first time BUPA students in the Fall 2006 semester, yet only 2 endured after four semesters. Those who did not continue in the program either did not re-enroll (13 students, or 65%), or changed their major (5 students, or 25%). There were no graduates of the BUPA program over the four semesters from the Fall 2006 cohort. Table 6 illustrates the number of graduates from the BUPA program. There were 3 graduates from the BUPA program in which increased to 4 graduates in and decreased to 0 graduates from to The number of graduates then increased to 1 graduate in Credit hours generated from BUPA students increased 218 hours to 1,099 credit hours from fiscal year (FY) 2002 to FY Table 7 contains this information. The BUPA direct instructional cost has increased over $28,000 between the 2002 and 2007 fiscal years, to $117, while the cost per full-time equivalent (FTE) student has also increased $275, to $2, Table 8 has figures since FY2002. There are 2 similar Associate s degree programs in the area, 1 Certificate program, 1 Bachelor degree program, 5 Master s degree programs, and 1 Doctoral degree program. Table 9 lists these schools and programs. B. Core Course Scheduling and Enrollment Table 10 depicts the distribution of students among core BUPA courses from the to academic years. There are no courses specifically designed for the BUPA program, these courses were chosen as core courses because of their content. Overall, 6,662 (duplicate) students enrolled in 299 sections of core BUPA courses with an average class size of 22.3 students. A total of 953 (duplicate) students enrolled in the core BUPA courses in academic year There were 36 sections that ran, with an overall average class size of 26.5 students. During the academic year, 1,039 (duplicate) students enrolled in 44 sections for an average class size of 23.6 students. It should be noted that there is no course that is run specifically for BUPA majors and students in other disciplines are included in these enrollments. It should also be noted that all of the core courses in the BUPA program were offered and ran at least once during the to academic years. Additional required course enrollment is presented in Table 11. Table 12 contains core course scheduling information. There were a total of 314 core courses offered, of which 299 actually ran, over the seven year time period. Most BUPA major courses were offered (and ran) on the Cranford campus. Tuesday/Thursday courses dominated the schedule, with 113 of the 114 offered courses running. Apart from Tuesday/Thrusday courses, the most popular days for courses were Monday/Wednesday/Friday (59 that ran) and classes that started between 9:00am - 9:59am (55 that ran). C. Student Outcomes 4

5 The Office of Assessment, Planning and Research conducts an annual survey of UCC graduates. All of the BUPA respondents reported that they accomplished their objective at UCC. All of the students who transferred to a 4-year institution after graduating from UCC transferred to Kean University to pursue a degree in Public Administration or Management Sciences. Survey results over the past five years also emphasize that the majority of BUPA graduates are generally satisfied with UCC. Further details from this survey are presented in Table 13. An analysis using the CCbenefits occupational projections tool revealed that the job forecast for students graduating from BUPA programs in the Newark-Union Labor Area is a concern. The area fell short of the expected change by 999 jobs showing an increase of 515 jobs over a ten year period. Highlights of this analysis can be found in Appendix I. VIII. Summary and Conclusions The obvious weakness of the BUPA program is low retention. In the Fall of 2006 the BUPA program had 20 first-time students enrolled. Of these 20 students, only 2 were still enrolled in the BUPA program after four semesters. While the amount of first time students entering the program is a decent size (14 in the 07/08 academic year), the low retention rate shows the number of students surviving to the second and third semesters will likely be small. The cost per FTE of the BUPA program, i.e., $2,874.26, exceeds the median cost per FTE of programs at UCC which was $2, in FY The cost per FTE of the BUPA program has exceeded the median cost per FTE of programs at UCC since FY The occupation employment projections for marketing managers, social and community service managers, and managers, all other show ten annual average job openings from 2004 to 2014 for Union County while projections for chief executives, legislators, administrative services managers, transportation, storage, and distribution managers, postmasters and mail superintendents, and emergency management specialists show an annual average of 0 job openings. 1 The BUPA Program was not designated as a regional program because it is not unique among community colleges in the State, e.g., Morris and Cumberland County Community Colleges offer programs. The BUPA program is considering going through a transition from an Associate in Arts to an Associate in Science degree. This transition will make it easier for students to transfer into a four-year degree program as most four-year programs result in a Bachelor of Science degree. This transition will change the general education requirements. The change will have to go through the curriculum committee for review and to faculty for approval and finally to the President s Council. 1 Source: State of New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development 5

6 Business/Pubilc Administration Table 1 Faculty Profile Academic Year Number of Number Credits Taught Fall 2007 Full-Time Faculty Part-Time Faculty Spring 2008 Full-Time Faculty Part-Time Faculty was a full time staff member 2 64 were non-bupa credits 3 23 were non-bupa credits 4 37 were non-bupa credits 5 33 were non-bupa credits

7 Appendix I Business/Public Administration Job Forecast CCbenefits provides data, tools and reports for community colleges to use for occupational projections with respect to specific educational programs. For the purposes of this report, the APR office utilized the economic forecaster module to investigate the occupational projections for graduates of the Business/Public Administration, Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) code The analysis links the academic program by CIP code to the federal government s Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system. CIP code is directly mapped to SOC codes , chief executives; , legislators; , marketing managers; , administrative services managers; , transportation, storage, and distribution managers; , postmasters and mail superintendents; , social and community service managers; , managers, all other; and , emergency management specialists. Business/Public Administration (CIP ) Mapped to SOC codes : chief executives; : legislators; : marketing managers; : administrative services managers; : transportation, storage, and distribution managers; : postmasters and mail superintendents; : social and community service managers; : managers, all other; and : emergency management specialists. For the Newark-Union Labor Area (Essex, Hunterdon, Morris, Sussex, Union). Timeframe: (5 years) Over the next five years, a projected increase of 315 Business/Public Administration jobs (2.57%) is predicted for the Newark-Union Labor area. This compares to a 3% increase throughout New Jersey and a 6% increase nationally. General economic growth throughout the US should create about 893 additional Business/Public Administration jobs in this area over the next five years. An expected 74 Business/Public Administration jobs will be lost in the local area over the next five years. A regional decline of 504 Business/Public Administration jobs is expected by the year In sum, 893 jobs created - 74 local jobs lost 504 national jobs lost = 315 total projected jobs. The concentration of Business/Public Administration jobs in the Newark-Union Labor area is above the national average however, this concentration is expected to decline over the next five years. Throughout the State of New Jersey, areas that specialize in Business/Public Administration jobs are Mercer, Somerset, Morris, Essex, Middlesex, Hudson, Union, Burlington, Hunterdon, Atlantic, Camden, Bergen, Monmouth, and Passaic counties, since these areas are above the national concentration average in Business/Public Administration jobs. Timeframe: (10 years) The Business/Public Administration job market in the Newark-Union Labor area over the next ten years is projected to have an increase of 515 jobs. Regionally, an increase of 4% of Business/Public Administration jobs is anticipated over the next 10 years, compared to increases of 4% at the state and 10% at the national level.

8 The future health of the economy over the next ten years should account for an additional 1,514 Business/Public Administration jobs in the Newark-Union Labor area. A projected loss of 106 Business/Public Administration jobs in the local area is a result of occupational performance at the national level. Regional attributes are expected to account for the loss of 893 jobs in this labor area. In total, this equates to a job increase of 515 Business/Public Administration jobs over the next ten years.