AACSB Maintenance of Accreditation Annual Report

Transcription

1 AACSB Maintenance of Accreditation Annual Report Submitted by the School of Management University of Alaska Fairbanks Contact person Dr. Mark Herrmann Dean School of Management University of Alaska Fairbanks Fairbanks, Alaska July 1, 2009

2 (A) Progress Update: (I) Brief Summary This year was very good for the School of Management (SOM). The School s focus on enrollments is paying dividends. SOM has seen a three-year enrollment increase of 23%, reversing a downward trend that dominated the previous decade and at a time when the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) enrollments have been flat. Increases have occurred in all areas, the largest in the MBA program (206%). The School also saw the first two meetings of the newly-formed seventeen-member SOM Business Advisory Council (BAC); the first time the School s advisory council had met in many years. Along with the SOM Student Advisory Council (SAC) and Accounting Advisory Board (AAB), the School now has three valued advisory boards. SOM has also renewed effort with the community to work in partnership for economic development. One of these activities is the newly formed Arctic Innovation Competition (AIC). In addition to a $10,000 top prize, SOM plans on offering virtual incubation/acceleration services to the winners of the competition. SOM focused increased attention on development activities and hired its first Director for Development and Outreach to start during the next academic year. SOM student organizations had another banner year, bringing in noted speakers and winning several UAF awards. Much of the year has been spent preparing for the upcoming AACSB team visit with the details of School operations to be presented in the Five Year Maintenance Report. (II) Strategic Plan Starting with a School-wide retreat on January 20, 2009, SOM began a four-month process to rewrite its Strategic Plan as a guide for the next three to five years. The strategic planning process included faculty, staff, students and other stakeholders. Specifically, the SOM mission and vision statements were revised as well as SOM s core values and guiding principles. Four specific goals were then chosen for the School to work towards. All of these are summarized below: School of Management Mission: The School of Management prepares undergraduate and graduate students to meet the challenges facing business professionals in Alaska and around the world. SOM emphasizes clear communication, problem-solving and ethical awareness, while providing students with a sound understanding of business principles and techniques. The School of Management values practical and discipline-based intellectual contributions and provides services to improve both student success and the economic health of Alaska. School of Management Vision: The School of Management will be recognized for high-quality educational programs, hands-on educational opportunities for students, service to the community and accomplished teaching and research faculty. The School of Management strives to be acknowledged as the premier business school in Alaska. Core Values and Guiding Principles Community: We are committed to building a community of stakeholders students, staff, faculty, alumni, community and businesses that promotes learning through teamwork, cooperation, shared purpose, commitment and respectful and ethical behavior. 1

3 Continuous Improvement: We strive continually to improve our School by monitoring our performance and supporting continued discussion among faculty, staff, students, the community, administrators, business leaders and all who share in our desire for success. Environment: We promote respect, value diversity, foster communication and openness, encourage personal and social responsibility and support creativity and innovation. We promote a collegial, supportive environment in which faculty, staff and students work together and develop to their fullest potential. Excellence: We are committed to excellence, intellectual rigor, and the creation of value in the pursuit and sharing of knowledge. Research: We are committed to providing rich opportunities for basic and applied research and encouraging collaborative projects. Student Learning Opportunities: We strive to offer our students opportunities through stateof-the-art scholarship in the classroom and valuable experiential learning opportunities. Strategic Plan Goals Goal 1: Strengthen Commitment to Student Learning The School of Management is committed to its students and will provide them with highquality instruction covering a wide-range of important topics in accounting, business, economics and related fields. SOM is dedicated to enhancing its use of experiential and active learning techniques as well as other learning opportunities, such as those offered by student organizations which are designed to increase hands-on experiences. SOM is also dedicated to the fundamental achievements listed under the Assurance of Learning goals and objectives and will continue to improve student enhancement of these skills across curricula. Goal 2: Increase Community Outreach and Expand Development Activities The University of Alaska Fairbanks and the School of Management have made a public commitment to connect better with the communities and businesses of Alaska. Starting in the Alaska Interior, SOM is making a major commitment to greater visibility within the community by educating the next generation of business leaders and offering assistance with economic development. SOM recognizes the important relationship between the community supporting the School and the environment in which we operate. Goal 3: Increase Focus on the Internship Program The School of Management has a long history of connecting students with internships and providing them with accompanying professional development opportunities. However, recent SOM efforts towards acquiring these educational opportunities have been limited. Our School will recommit to this program; we will increase our efforts to partner with businesses in securing internships and encourage our students to take advantage of the professional development opportunities associated with an internship for college credit. Goal 4: Enhance Course Offerings and Programs The School of Management has focused recent efforts towards revamping its curricula. We have focused much of this effort towards our pre-mba program, our classes in Sports Management and our business minors. We will continue striving to make our curricula relevant and attractive. 2

4 (III) Enrollment Management Plan Improving the quality of our program and increasing student credit hours (SCH) has continued to dominate the SOM landscape. These efforts have resulted in greatly-improved enrollments (see below). Table 1. Percentage increases in SCH accruing to SOM for all course offerings (to AY09) AY08 AY07 AY06 Undergraduate Accounting AIS Business Administration Economics Graduate Accounting AIS MBA MS Economics Interestingly, 47% of these increases over the last two years have come from the traditional courses offered during the Fall and Spring semesters with 14% from increases in summer school offerings (including 2-week course offerings during Wintermester and Maymester). Thirty-nine percent of the increase came from the expansion of distance-delivered courses. Of specific note for AY09 are the following: (a) This was the first year that we offered our new pre-mba program. The pre-mba program allows graduate students who did not major in a business-related field to take four leveling courses that, if completed with a B or better, will admit them automatically into the MBA program. These courses are (i) BA 652, Fundamentals of Business; (ii) Acct 602, Accounting for Managers; (iii) Economics 622, Analytical Methods for Economics and Business and (iv) Economics 621, Fundamentals of Economics. Fourteen students finished the pre-mba program this year. (b) We successfully completed our first summer seminar course (2008) Managing in a Complex Environment for the MBA program. This series was generously funded by Flint Hills Resources. (c) SOM offered its first two courses over winter break (Wintermester), a two-week period between the Fall and Spring semesters. SOM offered BA 323, Business Ethics (26 students) and Econ 227, Econometrics (21 students). Instructors for both classes reported success. (d) SOM offered two new courses BA 467, Legal Issues in Sports and Recreational Law (22 students) and BA 491, Sports Marketing (24 students). Both courses were popular and continued the trend of SOM having courses taught by well-qualified adjuncts. BA 467 and one-half of BA 491 are taught by the UAF Athletics Director, who also holds a law degree from Wisconsin; the other half of the sports marketing course was taught by a SOM MBA graduate who is currently marketing director for UAF s local public radio and television station. 3

5 (e) An articulation agreement in which junior and senior honors students can take the pre-mba courses for honors credit was made with the UAF Honors Program. (IV) Faculty Development and Administration Changes The following are changes to faculty status. (a) Faculty Leaving: 1. Assistant Professor in Accounting, Yijiang Zhao, is leaving for a faculty appointment at American University. 2. Instructor of Marketing, Erin Berry, is taking a one-year leave to finish her doctoral dissertation at Iowa State University. 3. Assistant Professor in Finance, Mingming Zhou, is leaving for a faculty appointment at the University of Colorado. 4. Assistant Professor of Economics, Branka Valcic, is leaving for a position at The Scottish Association for Marine Science. (b) Tenure and Promotion: (i) Awarded Promotion to Professor: Dr. Douglas Reynolds, Economics. ` (ii) Awarded Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor: Dr. Lily (Chunlian) Dong, Business Administration. (V) Assurance of Learning The academic year has seen a great deal of activity directed toward Assurance of Learning (AOL) measures and strategies, including the following: 1. Developing a committee structure and assessment procedure that will ensure a smoother process for Assurance of Learning (Figure 1). Learning Goals Improvement Learning Experiences Assessment Figure 1. School of Management AOL Process. Central to this process was assigning a portion of faculty workload to AOL with Dr. Greg Goering assigned as the AOL advisor. We anticipate this change becoming a permanent workload assignment 4

6 for all the faculty within SOM. The curriculum review and AOL committees were combined with great success. The AOL advisor sits on both the Undergraduate and the MBA AOL/Curriculum Review Committees. 2. The SOM learning Goals and Objectives were reevaluated and modified by the AOL faculty committees at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. At the undergraduate level, the learning goals are Communication, Critical Thinking, Technical Knowledge and Ethical Knowledge. At the MBA level, they are Professionalism, Communication, Problem Solving and Business Principles. 3. AOL working plans and alignment matrices were reevaluated and modified by the AOL faculty committees at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. 4. Course fliers have been developed emphasizing the SOM goals and objectives as they apply to each class. 5. The following are the outcomes from the assessments that were implemented this year or will be implemented the following year: Based on the oral presentation assessment selected students are strongly encouraged to visit the UAF Department of Communication s Speaking Center The MBA program is developing an MBA Fatal Error Policy for all MBA courses. Based on results from the ethics case, Dr. Jacob Joseph will be rewriting cases. (VI) Other (a) Business Advisory Council (BAC). SOM had two successful meetings in AY09, ending several years of inactivity. (b) SOM created the Arctic Innovation Competition (AIC) a muchpublicized ideas contest that has received enthusiastic press around Alaska and will continue to strengthen the ties between SOM and the Alaska business community. (B) Priority Update: Budget. UAF has instituted a tuition model in which schools will recover 60% of their generated tuition. By zeroing the initial budget allocations to a level playing field, with no changes made over the last two years because of enrollments, units that have increased enrollments are penalized. This has cost SOM approximately $130,000, which it will seek to regain through a UAF reallocation. NLC. In AY09 SOM took over the Northern Leadership Center (NLC). The School is working with UAF to make the NLC sustainable. Development. SOM has recently hired its first Director of Development and Outreach. This position comes three years after Schools and Colleges were told that they were responsible for their own fundraising. SOM has been making strides in development, and it will continue to expand these efforts. 5