NIU College of Business
STRATEGIC PLANNING COUNCIL XIV MEETING MINUTES
(Academic Year: 2010-11) ~ Friday, February 25, 2011 ~ 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
STRATEGIC PLANNING COUNCIL XIV (SPC)
SPC Members:
Amy Buhrow (Coordinator AACSB/Assessment), Ann Carrel (Director, Executive, Professional, & FastTrack MBA Programs), Virginia Cassidy (Vice Provost), Joe Cullinane (President – Joe Cullinane
Enterprises, Inc – via phone.), Anthony D'Andrea (Director, Development, Senior Gift and Estate Planning
Officer – COB), Michelle De Jean (Director, COB Marketing), Ken Elliot (MGMT Instructor, UBUS 311),
Charles Gowen III (MGMT Faculty), Lenita Hepker (Administrative Assistant to the Dean), Sonja
Herington (Director, Global Affairs & Special Projects), Chang Liu (OMIS Chair), Brain Mackie (OMIS
Faculty), Lori Marcellus (Director Undergraduate Studies), Sarah Marsh (MGMT Chair), Mark Misic
(Director of Technology), Christine Mooney (MGMT Faculty), Jessalyn Murray (Undergraduate Student
Rep), Paul Prabhaker (Associate Dean, College of Business), Nancy Russo (OMIS Faculty), Denise
Schoenbachler (Dean, College of Business), Rebecca Shortridge (ACCY Faculty), Marc Simpson (FINA
Chair)¸ Pam Smith (ACCY Faculty), Kelly Stewart (Office Manager OM&IS), Beth Towell (Associate Dean
of Undergraduate), and Dan Wunsch (Associate Dean for Administration)
SPC Members Unable to Attend:
Tim Aurand (MKTG Faculty), Curtis Batterton (Graduate Student Rep), Geoff Gordon (MKTG Chair), Len
Lundstrum (FINA Faculty), Jane Mall (Director, COB Experiential Learning and Corporate Relations), Tim
West (ACCY Faculty) and Jim Young (ACCY Chair)
Guests:
Lori Jackson (Coordinator, Retention and Recruitment)
The Dean welcomed our new Undergraduate Student Representative, Jessalyn Murray, a junior majoring
in interactive marketing. Introductions were made.
The Dean asked for approval of the minutes from the November 19, 2010 meeting. Nancy Russo made a
motion to approve, Ken Elliot seconded. Minutes were approved as presented.
Mission Statement
Does our restated mission statement work for us when reviewing the requirements that AACSB has set
forth for mission statements?
“Create innovative academic and business experiences through partnerships among students, faculty,
staff, alumni, and the business community.”
SPC XIV Meeting Minutes ~ Friday, February 25, 2011
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Amy Buhrow reviewed AACSB standards and the corresponding basis for judgments – BFJ – (the review
team’s checklist) in regard to the college’s restated mission statement:
Standard 1
BFJ:
The mission emphasizes the achievement of high quality in each degree program.
Concern: We talk about innovative academic partnerships, but we don’t necessarily talk about quality.
We are doing innovative things, doesn’t that suggest quality?
BFJ:
The mission statement of the school supports the mission of any larger organization of which it
is part.
We will need to map our restated mission statement to NIU’s mission statement.
Standard 2
BFJ:
The mission statement includes a description of the school’s emphases regarding intellectual
contributions of faculty members.
Concern: Our team should be able to look at our mission statement and get an idea of what our
portfolio of intellectual contributions or research looks like. How do they do that with the
restated mission statement?
We should have supporting documents with the mission statement – strategic
objectives. List the strategic objectives under the mission statement which will address
the AACSB standards.
The SPC needs to review the College’s strategic objectives.
o We need to truly define the research piece and show how it ties to our
academic qualifications.
Do we have to follow the mandate of where the “mission statement includes a
description of the school’s emphases regarding intellectual contributions of faculty
members?” This is really the only directive listed.
How much needs to get added to address this?
If we are supporting the University’s mission statement, as stated in standard 1,
then isn’t it implied that we have an emphasis on intellectual property?
NIU’s mission statement states:
“The central mission of the university is the transmission, expansion, and application of knowledge
through teaching, research and artistry, and public service. In fulfilling that mission, Northern Illinois
University meets the needs of students for liberal, professional, technical, and lifelong education.
Mindful of the changing needs of the society it serves, the university reviews its programs at regular
intervals, assesses their quality and their capacity to fulfill their objectives, and expressly commits itself
to their continuing development or redirection when appropriate.”
SPC XIV Meeting Minutes ~ Friday, February 25, 2011
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BFJ:
The portfolio of intellectual contributions reflects the mission and includes contributions from a
substantial cross-section of faculty within each discipline.
We have to make a commitment as to what percentage of our research falls into
contribution to practice versus contribution to discipline (basic research model) versus
pedagogical.
Our faculty research mix should demonstrate an emphasis on contribution to practice as
much as the contribution to discipline if we are truly saying that we are about these
partnerships and engagement as stated in the mission statement.
It was agreed that the Mission Statement signage will be replaced in the front of the building. We will
put this through the curricular process to make the change in the NIU catalog.
The strategic objectives will be thought through and brought to the next SPC meeting.
Strategy for mapping the mission statement:
Mapping the mission statement can be achieved by asking everyone who works in the College of
Business to answer the following questions:
1) What have you done in the past year that has been innovative?
2) What type of innovative experiences have you fostered for the stakeholders that you deal with?
3) What kind of partnerships have you fostered within the past year?
Retention and Recruitment Update
The Dean asked Lori Marcellus to give an update on behalf of the SPC subgroup working on retention
and recruitment.
University Admissions has created several new activities and open houses for student recruitment that
are taking place during the spring semester 2011.
In the past, open houses have traditionally been a combination of both prospective freshmen and
transfer students. This year the university separated these two student groups out, having separate
open houses for each classification.
New Transfer Informational Session
There was a new transfer informational session which the COB did a lot of work to prepare for on
February 11. There were only 12 attendees. There will be two more in the spring: March 25 and April
1. Prospective students are supposed to RSVP.
Because of low turnout, for the next couple of events we will ask Delta Sigma Pi to man a table
at the front door directing students to appropriate department offices.
Why don’t transfer students attend informational sessions and open houses?
Usually transfer students have already decided which university they are going to attend from
the start of their community college program.
A number of transfer students commute, so they pick universities that are close to home.
SPC XIV Meeting Minutes ~ Friday, February 25, 2011
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If students are not going to be living in the dorms, they don’t feel it is necessary to visit the
campus prior to attending.
Transfer students will call our the COB’s Undergraduate Advising Office throughout the year to
make sure they are taking the right classes at their community college for transferring.
Admitted Freshmen Open House
The College did a program for admitted freshmen on February 21 which was well received. We had 61
out of 67 RSVP’d students attend with a total of 150 attendees, including parents. There is another
event on March 7.
For the Admitted Freshmen Open House event, the R&R Committee decided to have more than just the
traditional informational tables. Four different areas were created which the students rotated through;
the students were separated into groups and spent about 20 minutes at each rotation:
Student Panel, Chaired by Sam Baker
Faculty Panel, Chaired by Jim Young
Alumni Panel, Chaired by Denise Schoenbachler
Informational tables in the atrium where the students could go from table to table to pickup
information and talk with the department advisors and faculty
There will be one more Admitted Freshmen Open House on March 7 which will be planned in the same
format.
There was an evaluation form given to the students at the end of the open house with three questions:
1) What did you find most beneficial from this afternoon’s program?
2) What more information could we have provided?
3) What three words would you use to describe our College of Business?
Responses to this evaluation can be found in the attached appendix.
Postcards will be sent to students who attend our open houses as a follow-up.
Phone calls to Prospective Students
On Tuesday, February 22 and Wednesday, February 23, Delta Sigma Pi called fall 2011 admitted
freshmen that had not confirmed their admission. Delta Sigma Pi will call more students on Wednesday,
March 2. Quite a few of the students called were referred to the March 7 freshmen event.
Student questions/comments:
One question on safety
A lot of questions on scholarships
Some questions on organizations, student involvement, college life
Some students reported that they were going to community college due to lack of financial
resources
ISU was the main school of choice for those not attending NIU
SPC XIV Meeting Minutes ~ Friday, February 25, 2011
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Faculty members have been calling transfer students since October/November 2010.
Most of these students are already committed to attending NIU.
CABEA – Chicago Area Business Educator’s Association
The COB co-hosted a conference at Hoffman Estates for CABEA, an association of high school business
teachers, on February 16. Lynn Neeley was on a panel for entrepreneurship and Chuck Downing did a
presentation on using technology in the classroom. There were about 70 registrants and it was a great
opportunity for us to showcase NIU.
The group is looking for a place to host a program focused on how to teach entrepreneurship. There is a
small group within the COB who is going to help with this. They want the program in June. This is an
opportunity for the COB to establish ourselves as the place for entrepreneurship education.
Some teachers expressed interest in coming to NIU for a development workshop. The R&R Committee
will work on creating this workshop.
Attendees shared with Denise that business education is way down because there is so much emphasis
in the schools on testing and producing higher ACT scores. The schools are requiring students to take
more foundation classes to help with the ACT and enroll in classes where the students can earn college
credit. This does not leave room for students to take electives, such as the business courses.
Enrollment Summaries
The Dean went over enrollment summaries comparing fall 2010 to fall 2011. The summaries show
enrollments for:
new freshmen
post baccalaureate (students who have already earned one bachelors degree and are coming
back to get a second)
reentry (students who were registered, dropped out, and came back)
transfers
The enrollment summaries for fall 2010 and fall 2011 can be found in the attached appendix:
The application count is the number of applications to Northern
The admitted count is the number of students admitted out of that application pool
The confirmed count is the number that has responded back to Northern saying that they are
coming to NIU
Enrollment counts will be reflected once students start registering for classes, this will start midApril
The admitted number goal is 500 for fall freshmen. We are currently on target for transfers.
April 22 – Juniors in High School Open House
This event is for students who are currently high school juniors and will be seniors in the fall 2011. The
Juniors in High School open house is one place where the college can start building a pipeline for new
freshmen.
It was suggested to email alumni and have them get the word out regarding the April 22 event, as well
as other open houses.
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We can get the names of students who are going to be juniors in high school and directly market the
open house to them.
Passport Update
The College is looking to pilot a passport program in the fall semester with the Business Careers House
(BCH) students. The Passport committee will work with the coordinator to build BCH programming
around the concept of fulfilling the passport requirements.
Mark Misic has created a blackboard passport community. We are going to be piloting the e-portfolio
feature within Blackboard, which is a way of capturing artifacts. This will work well with the passport
program giving students a place to house their electronic records, such as papers and projects.
For passport purposes, the paper/project will not be graded, but it is captured and the program sustains
it for the whole four years the student is at NIU. The student can access what they’ve uploaded
electronically and build an e-portfolio of the activities they have been involved with outside of class.
An email and web address has been created, so the infrastructure is in place for the pilot program to be
rolled out in the fall.
Rhonda Rosborough and Emily Del Monaco are going to a meeting at Xavier University focused on best
practices of their Passport program. They will report what they learn at the next passport meeting on
April 21.
MBA Enrollment
Currently the COB has about 20 completed applications for EMBA and marketing has not started yet.
The goal is 50.
There are currently 30 completed applications for the Fast-Trak program, the goal is 50.
At this time last year we had 150 applications for the Evening MBA, right now the MBA office has 155
applications.
Because of the budget situation at NIU, the college has had to put more and more on the MBA budgets,
so it is important that all faculty and staff continue to support these MBA programs.
Thanks were given to all the faculty and staff who have contributed to and support the MBA programs
by attending open houses and marketing the programs to outside constituents.
Technology
The College is moving to a revolutionary model that is going to be the first on campus for bring the
computer lab to any internet ready computer. We are removing the barrier of having to go to one of
the COB computer labs to get specialized business software.
The goal is to be able to get rid of costly computer labs and provide the user with resources to
access the business computer software from anywhere in the building.
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The new software will remove the barrier of delivering business software to classrooms or to
any computer with an internet connection.
This model will allow us to deliver all the computer software needed to even older computers.
The lab will now be in the classroom.
The college will be able to create a mobile lab, for situations where we have orientation, outside
groups, etc., where a lab space is needed.
The college will have mobile printing stations, where users can print from any device.
If a student does not have a laptop, the college will help by creating a laptop loan program, or by
providing scholarships for the student to purchase a laptop.
If a laptop is required by the college, then the cost of the computer can be included in the
students’ financial aid package.
AACSB Update
The COB is up for reaccreditation in the year 2013-14. There will be a visit team here either in the fall
2013 or spring 2014.
We have typically been on a fall cycle for maintenance of accreditation visits, but we are
thinking of moving the visit to the spring because we have program review the same year.
A formal letter needs to be sent to AACSB to let them know that we are interested in
maintaining our accreditation by July 1.
We have identified a list of peer and aspirant schools and are making a list of recommendations
of who we want on our visit team.
An update of what has been done to address the issues and concerns identified by the last visit
team in 2008 needs to be written.
o In our next SPC meeting we may be looking at those areas and what we have done in
those areas.
Assurance of Learning (AOL) is an expectation and it is a big part of what business colleges need
to do for AACSB accreditation. Schools need to be continuously working on developing their
AOL. It is very clear that if the school is not doing AOL, and if the school has not been through
several cycles since the last visit, the school will be put on a six year review.
o The Dean thanked Amy Buhrow and Jack Marchewka for the work they have been doing
to make sure that the COB-NIU meets the standards for AOL.
The next SPC meeting with be Friday, May 13 from 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. in the Dean’s Conference
Room, lunch will be provided.
Meeting adjourned at 1:54 p.m.
SPC XIV Meeting Minutes ~ Friday, February 25, 2011
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What did you find most beneficial from this afternoon’s presentation?
SPC XIV Meeting Minutes ~ Friday, February 25, 2011 ~ Appendix
Page 1
What more information could we have provided?
SPC XIV Meeting Minutes ~ Friday, February 25, 2011 ~ Appendix
Page 2
What 3 words would you use to describe our College of Business?
SPC XIV Meeting Minutes ~ Friday, February 25, 2011 ~ Appendix
Page 3
Enrollment Summary Fall 2010
College of Business
SPC XIV Meeting Minutes ~ Friday, February 25, 2011 ~ Appendix
Page 4
Enrollment Summary Fall 2011
College of Business
SPC XIV Meeting Minutes ~ Friday, February 25, 2011 ~ Appendix
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