Taking Care of Business
friday, november 23, 2007
Perhaps you thought I took a week off from “Friday Notes” because of Thanksgiving. But while I did certainly enjoy the turkey—and the family and other company that this favorite-of-all-holidays brings—I did not forget that the whole point of “Friday Notes” is pretty much a big “thanks-giving.” So I’m posting late, but on an important topic that I’ve been thinking about quite a lot lately: our Business Administration program and its future.
Indeed, over the last several weeks, I have interviewed many finalists for the five positions the Stonehill Business Department is currently searching to fill. It’s always exciting to interview prospective faculty members, and in this case, there’s quite a lot to be excited about. The Department is seeking AACSB accreditation, and as it moves toward this important milestone, it has used the standards developed by the accrediting organization to rethink its curriculum, to focus the research of faculty already in the department, and to craft the new areas of expertise the department needs. All these efforts express Stonehill’s eagerness to offer a progressive program that both prepares graduates to enter business fields in the rapidly changing global economy and honors Stonehill’s longstanding commitment to integrating liberal and pre-professional education.
I think it’s critical for all Stonehill faculty to know the history of this commitment and to understand why it is important to Stonehill’s future that we spend time, energy, and financial resources to “take care of Business.”
First, we probably need to agree that it’s hard to say in any “purist” way what “kind” of college Stonehill is. Labels like “liberal arts” and “comprehensive” are only useful in certain contexts. We can celebrate that we are a “liberal arts college” while simultaneously recognizing that we include among our top competitors many types of schools: comprehensive colleges, “Master’s Universities,” and other liberal arts colleges.
Since 1949—the second year of Stonehill’s history—we have offered curriculum in one or more Business fields. Like any areas of study, we have seen student interest levels vary over the years; in the 1980s, student interest in Business was so high that the College actually had to put a cap on the number of spaces in the program. Over the last 15 years, we have consistently graduated about 25% of the class each year in Business Administration. And the most recent information (2004-05) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) indicates that 21.6% of all baccalaureate degrees in the U.S. were granted in Business. Given the public understanding of Stonehill’s identity, this should give pause to anyone who assumes that we could make our class each year without a strong Business program.
We have also seen a significant number of students—including humanities, fine arts, science, and social science majors—choosing to minor or double-major in Business fields. And the department does a great job with these students. Indeed, even with their majors, they are the first to celebrate that Stonehill produces a different kind of accountant or marketer or manager—because the faculty truly wants students to have a broad education in the liberal arts as well as a deep knowledge of their major field.
Stonehill has historically offered a unique combination of disciplines for a small college and has—in an unforeseen way—actually anticipated the needs and interests of this generation of students. Currently, there is a high level of interest in practical areas of study, and demographics suggest that this trend will continue and increase in the coming years. First-generation and minority college students, who will grow as a percentage of college–age students over the next decade, report greater-than-average interest in business and other pre-professional fields, and even the most “pure” liberal arts colleges are already finding ways to accommodate these interests. They are adding accounting and finance to their Economics Departments; or they are calling Business by its more old-fashioned title of “Commerce”; or they are linking business study to programs exploring globalization; or they are adding a fifth-year MBA program designed for liberal arts graduates. But they are clearly trying to figure out how they will prepare for what Stonehill has already been doing: integrating business-oriented professional preparation with a solid liberal arts foundation.
Lately, we’ve been using the phrase “liberal arts plus” to acknowledge the creative integration of liberal and professional studies at the College. In recent years, more and more Stonehill departments have sought to promote the relevance of their disciplines in new ways—sometimes by “putting knowledge to work” through practical applications. And studies like the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) show that applied learning really makes a difference. For example, NSSE reports that an internship or field placement is the most powerful form of a culminating senior experience in terms of greater self-reported gains in thinking critically, solving real-world problems and working effectively with others.
So all these interviews with Business candidates (which the department has done an outstanding job to bring about) have allowed me to take the temperature of our program and to imagine its future directions. It will take significant resources to build the program that the faculty are committed to—and whereas the sciences needed facilities to take the next step, Business, at least initially, needs more personnel. I hope that as we complete this hiring, add international emphasis to all the concentrations, and strengthen several features of the Business program, other College departments will see that taking care of Business pays tribute to a historical program at the College and offers a proactive salute to Stonehill's future health.
Best regards,
Katie