COLLEGE OF BUSINESS
Curriculum Committee
January 21, 2014
2:00 p.m.
2013-14 #5
Present
E. Towell (chair), L. Matuszewski, J. Johnson, J. Burton, V. Krishnan, C. Petersen, A.
Buhrow, M. Salmon
Absent
I. Ali, C. Pooler (student representatives)
Guest
S. Marsh
Action on Minutes
The minutes from the Fourth Meeting, October 22, 2013, were approved electronically to
meet the October catalog deadline.
BSAM Update
S. Marsh attended the meeting to give an update on the proposed redesign of the BSAM
major. The title of the program along with its core and emphases is being revised. It is
proposed ACCY 288 will remain as the sole business course in the core, and a faculty-led
university committee will continue to make policy and curricula recommendations for the
program.
Assessment Updates –
MBA Program; Ethics
A. Buhrow gave a report of the AY 2012-13 MBA assessment projects and a report of the
assessment of the undergraduate business ethical awareness learning goal.
Relative to the MBA program goals, the target for meeting or exceeding expectations is 85%.
Two goals fall short of the target: decision making (84.05%) and written business
communication (76.98%). The Curriculum Committee voted to accept the A-Team
recommendations for these areas as follows:
 Decision making – a group of MBA faculty will review the decision making learning
goal and objective; determine how to operationalize the learning objective; identify
courses in which its components are introduced, applied, and reinforced; and create a
plan to assess students’ abilities in relation to the learning objective.
 Written business communication – the MBA office will revise the Writing Lab
Workshop for incoming Fast-Trak students to concentrate more on writing skills
rather than the format of communications; information will be given to all MBA
students about the NIU Writing Center; and the MBA office will consider adding a
writing workshop to other delivery formats.
Relative to the undergraduate business ethics learning goal, the target for meeting or
exceeding expectations is 75%. This target was met for both the discipline-specific scenario
and academic scenario vignettes completed by students and scored by internal faculty/staff
members and external individuals. The Curriculum Committee voted to accept the A-Team
and Faculty for Ethics Committee recommendations as follows:
 Continue to monitor the results.
 Shift the assessment to the new college survey tool.
 Run t-test to determine the differences between internally and externally coded
results.
 Train, then engage the external professionals in coding the academic scenario.
 FFE will rewrite the discipline-specific vignettes: using the feedback from the
internal and external coders; asking for feedback from business professionals;
enhancing the scenario to make it more realistic to students’ first few years postgraduation.
 FFE will update the academic scenario with the help of LEAD students.
Forthcoming Agenda
Items
Department representatives reported anticipated curricular items to come before the
committee this semester.
Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 2:56 p.m.
Minutes approved: February 4, 2014
_________________________________________
Charles Petersen, Assistant Faculty Chair/Secretary