DATE:
TO:
FROM:
February 26, 2001
Julie Furst-Bowe
Associate Vice Chancellor
Bob Meyer, Dean
College of Technology, Engineering and Management
SUBJECT: Program Review Response for General Business Administration
The following response regarding the program review of the General Business Administration (GBA) is based on the PRC’s final report. In that report, the PRC provided a recommendation for the program director and the dean, which follow, along with the respective responses.
Recommendation for the Program Director:
1.
The number of student complaints about teaching and advising is a concern. Controlling enrollment at an appropriate size should help—when it is accomplished. As some students correctly observed, advising is the arena in which personal and the professional domains are joined. Perhaps because some GBA teachers are especially effective at advising, students were harsh towards those who were not. We recommend that the program director monitor the effectiveness of advising.
We recommend that the program director submit a progress report on the two issues above to the
PRC in 2002-03.
Response: The program director, in cooperation with the dean’s office, is currently implementing an enrollment management plan. When fully staffed, the Department of Business and the program director are best able to serve around 900 students. It is the goal of CTEM leadership to downsize the program to that level.
Upon reaching enrollment targets, the number of students assigned to each advisor will be reduced.
The target for individual advisors is 50 advisees. Fully staffed, the Department of Business should be able to handle that load with that number of students.
In addition, to effectively assess quality advisement, the following measures have been proposed by the GBA program director: a.
Monitor the teaching quality of required courses in the program through student opinion questionnaires and department course evaluations. Results will be reported back to the PRC in two years. b.
Monitor the advising quality of the program through student opinion questionnaires. Results will be reported back to the PRC in two years. c.
Implement strategies for large group advisement on Advisement Day. This will enhance the oneon-one advisement currently being delivered by business faculty and will hopefully impact the perception of quality advisement by students.
Recommendation for the Dean:

1. The committee recommends that the dean continue to evaluate resources allocated to the GBA program and provide additional resources as needed. Of particular concern are the program’s need for an additional teacher of MIS and the remarkably lean GBA program office staff.
Response: The standard release time provided to program directors housed within the College of
Technology, Engineering and Management is a 0.25 allocation. The dean’s office fully realizes this allocation dose not represent the amount of work required to complete the many tasks of a program director. The GBA program director allocation is currently 0.50, and will be increased to 0.75 next year. Summer contracts for program directors typically are ten days; for the GBA program, the director will be given twenty days to work with freshmen and transfer students. In addition, a .025 graduate assistant has been provided for the GBA program this academic year. We will continue to examine how to reallocate resources as possible, but are finding limitations to CTEM’s ability to respond in the future. Unless additional resources are given to the college, we must look at ways to reduce resource demands by rolling back on program enrollment.
Regarding the recommendation for an additional teacher of MIS, the department chair works diligently to meet the demand for courses through strategic scheduling of faculty. The dean’s office will work with the Department of Business to determine the backlog and/or demand for MIS courses.
If there is indeed such a backlog, faculty assignments will be made to meet the demand.
Finally, clerical support for all CTEM program directors is being investigated. At this time, it is planned to hire a one-half time LTE to assist Ms. Lana Berge in support of all of CTEM’s programs.