Consultant report
Program review for the Department of Management
Central Washington University
College of Business
400 E. University Way
Ellensburg, WA 98926-7487
509-963-1955
email: cob@cwu.edu
By
J. W. Trailer Ph.D.
Professor of Management
Chair, Department of Management
The California State University, Chico
Chico, CA 95929-0031
530-898-5663
jtrailer@csuchico.edu
The following analysis and evaluation of the strengths and challenges facing the Department of
Management (DoM) are based upon a campus visit on April 6th – 8th 2008, which included
opportunities to interview and interact with administrators, faculty, staff, and students at the
Lynnwood Center, Des Moines Center, and the Ellensburg Campus, and this is also based upon
my reading of the DoM self-study report, dated March 21, 2008.
Strengths
Administration Strategy & Policy
The mission statement is concise and effectively specifies the student focus, the service
region, and the role of research. I conclude that this is a strength
http://www.cwu.edu/~cob/policies/mission.html
Recommendation:
For the Vision Statement, consider defining “premier” learning community, in the same
manner that you effectively define Value, Opportunity, and Quality in Education.
Tenure policy/requirements are clear, and rigorous. Faculty I interviewed stated that the
requirements for tenure are clearly defined. Teaching effectiveness is required, as well as
publishing in peer-reviewed journals. The publishing expectation communicated to me: 2 A’s
and 3 B’s in 5 years. This shows a commitment to high standards for integrating new faculty
into the Department, thereby promoting a positive future-sustainable program of AQ faculty. I
conclude that this is a strength
Recommendations:
1. Include this policy in the self-study report as evidence of commitment to high
standards.
2. This standard seems higher than is necessary, given that the Mission of the College is
primarily teaching. If this policy eventually negatively affects recruitment &
morale, I feel the publishing expectation could be softened and still effectively meet
the Mission.
The Self-Study Report, prepared by Dr. Greg Cant, is excellent. I found this to be a
useful and effective description of the situation. The comments that follow are to highlight
particularly impressive sections, and propose questions to clarify and strengthen some issues:
1. pp.3 Program outcomes. The three Outcomes are concise, but comprehensive and
critical. Excellent.
2. pp. 8: The presentation of ETS results is very effective, and important.
3. pp 15: Actions taken as a result of the ETS - this is very important and I suggest that
more actions be discussed, if possible. This tends to be an important area for AACSB
review. It would strengthen the report to also show course-embedded measures, as
well as ETS measures. Splitting the courses up based on business / non-business
majors may improve ETS scores, but I suggest a stronger case be made for this as a
“curriculum” improvement issue; allowing more rigorous assignments, more complex
problems, etc.
4. pp. 16. There should be an “Actions taken as a result of…” section for Values-based
Outcomes, as there is for Knowledge. It looks like action is in progress via
initiatives. An “Action taken” subtitle here would more clearly meet the needs of
AACSB and would be present your results more clearly.
5. pp. 17: How will the make-up online course (BUS 241) count in credit toward the
degree?
6. pp. 17: Booklet idea is excellent! (ambitious)
7. pp. 18: A grade of C- or better is required in ENG 101? (appears to be a low
standard, in contrast to your other high standards)
8. pp. 19. An “Actions taken…” subheading would be important and helpful here. It’s
not clear that actions were taken, so it’s even more important that this is discussed
(added).
9. pp. 21 Table 15 is excellent.
10. pp. 22. Professional qualifications – reference an appendix that explicitly presents the
AQ & PQ & Participating standards (for example, define a “qualified publication”).
11. pp. 25: Table 18-26 are impressive, and keep them, but another table is needed to
show the number of AQ publications, in the last 5 years, by faculty member, by
major. Same for PQ faculty, with regard to documenting achievement of the PQ
standards. Finally, a similar table showing Participating vs Supporting faculty status.
12. pp. 25: Consider adding a table (after Table 18) showing journals and books citing
CWU faculty publications (as this measure more directly ties to the strategic goal of
recognition).
13. pp. 45: Table 29 – TOTAL = number of students?
14. pp. 49: Required measures of “quantity”…?
Facilities.
I found the facilities to be excellent. I had the opportunity to tour the facilities at the
Lynnwood Center, the Des Moines Center, and the Ellensburg Campus, and in each location I
observed that the classrooms, classroom technology, faculty offices, and student services were
provided in high quality facilities. Clearly, a great deal of funding has been dedicated to the
infrastructure of each location and this shows a strong Administrative commitment to creating a
premier learning environment. I conclude that this is a strength
Faculty.
Faculty turnover is perceived to be a problem by the faculty. Replacing faculty is
perceived to be difficult due to the low salary level, relative to other AACSB programs. Further,
salary inversion exists, and this is expected to become worse in the future as there is no policy in
place to illuminate and attack this problem. It is my assessment that this is CWU’s greatest
fundamental obstacle to achieving AACSB accreditation. (The faculty must perceive that they
are receiving “fair”pay or they will exhibit withdrawal behavior to establish equity via reduced
effort and commitment.).
Recommendations:
1. Establish a strategic goal/metric for faculty salary as a percent of the salary
distribution of AASCB programs. (for example, at Penn State our goal was to
be at the 75th percentile of all salaries for AACSB Management faculty.
CWU might pick a standard of 50th percentile. Whatever standard is selected,
the result will be validity and consistency in maintaining a level of pay equity,
and this will eliminate salary inversion and restore motivation for all faculty to
pursue strategic objectives.)
2. Advertise the compensation strategic goal/metric (from above) in faculty
position announcements. Recruiting will improve when faculty can see a
commitment to pay equity, and time will not be wasted on faculty with
unrealistic expectations.
Not all faculty are adequately prepared for research. It is my understanding that some
faculty were hired in a different University cultural era; one that did not expect an active research
program. These faculty appear to have low motivation due to a low expectation that they can
successfully publish (Pay equity, as discussed above, is assumed here to be solved).
Recommendations:
1. Continue the policy of appointing Research Center Leaders, however consider
changing the financial rewards for publishing from individual to group-based. I was
informed that faculty receive additional funds for each article published ($2,000 for
each article published, if the journal is listed appropriately in Cabell’s).. This type of
policy is effective for reinforcing top performers, however such a policy starves
underperformers. If the objective is to maximize publications, then this policy is fine.
However, in this case the strategic objective is not to maximize the number of
publications but to maximize the number of publishing faculty and so the current
policy is systematically destructive.
a. Recommendation: Change the funding policy to be based on the number of
faculty publishing: 50% of Research Center faculty publishing earns 50% of
bonus funding pool for each member of that Center. 100% of Research
Center faculty publishing earns 100% of bonus funding pool.
b. Improve motivation for publishing by attacking the low expectation that effort
will lead to success.
i. Survey the underperforming faculty to determine their perceptions on
obstacles to publishing (equipment, data collection, research methods
training, etc).
ii. Establish a budget specifically for removing these obstacles, and allow
the Research Center Leaders to participate in this process.
iii. Consider awarding sabbaticals on the basis of completing continuing
education in research methods.
iv. Consider providing mini-grants (2 to 5 k) to specifically support the
writing of full grants for external funding of research.
Requiring Business faculty to be student advisors directly impacts the faculty workload
and correspondingly has multiple negative impacts:
1. Results in poor consistency in advising, reducing student satisfaction with the CWU
experience, and reducing word-of-mouth recruitment.
2. Results in high training costs, to ensure a large number of non-specialists have current
and appropriate knowledge and skill in advising.
3. Results in lost time due to rework. Lack of specialization and division of labor
creates a culture of low quality as standard. Low quality results in advising sessions
that must be reworked after the student experiences distress from schedule failure.
Rework takes further time away from faculty and staff, placing a greater time need on
a fixed resource. Accordingly, less time is available for each advising session. Less
time devoted to the process lowers advising quality. A destructive cycle develops,
and is self-reinforcing
4. Faculty student advising is time diverted directly from faculty publishing research.
5. Advising requirement increases the perceived (justified) need for higher
compensation, worsening the perception of faculty pay equity.
Recommendation:
Adopt a professional advising staff. (We use a professional advising staff here at
CSUC, and based on my experience I believe you will experience both a higher quality
and a lower total cost with this option).
Curriculum.
I was provided the opportunity to privately interview students at the Lynnwood Center,
the Des Moines Center, and the Ellensburg Campus. Students were given a chance to vent
frustrations with the program, yet I received no negative feedback. Thus, I conclude that the
curriculum, from the students’ perspective, is excellent. I conclude this is a strength.
In my interview with students, several issues were discussed that they felt should be
brought to the attention of the Administration:
When asked “Why did you choose this program?” their response:
1. CWU has a reputation among students as one of the best educations available in the
State of Washington (Accounting program, and the Marketing program were
specifically mentioned). In general, the students were very satisfied with, and
appreciated, the quality of education they received at CWU.
2. Convenience of the location to take classes (At the remote locations, this appeared to
be the most important factor).
3. “Work friendly” schedule of classes, mostly in the evenings (Again, this was
important at the remote locations). A recommendation was suggested by the students
at the remote locations: An important aspect is to allow the students to plan ahead, so
they have time to change their working schedule to allow courses to fit their schedule.
Publishing the class schedule a year or more in advance would make the remote
programs even more attractive.
Quality of teaching. In general, satisfaction with faculty instruction and curriculum
content is high (“Fantastic” to be specific), however, a select few teachers do a very poor
job:
1. they just read their overhead slides to the class and go home.
2. they rush the class at the end of the course; cover 10 chapters in the last 2 weeks
(apparently so these faculty can honestly report that all the required chapters were
covered.).
3. The Marketing 470 class, Business Communication, and core MIS class are a joke;
too easy. (As an example of a “bad” experience, a required M.I.S. class was
discussed. It was stated that the course itself has promise, but the faculty member
was making the course a “complete waste of our time.” Apparently, it is generally
known that this course is so easy, a student can receive an “A” in this MIS course,
without ever reading the text.).
4. There exists poor consistency in the quality of instruction for the Strategy course.
(As an example of a bad experience in a strategy class, apparently one faculty
member consistently states “on the first case you will get a zero.” If this instructor is
being truthful, the assignment is worthless. If this instructor is lying, he/she has lost
all credibility. In either case, the student experience is dysfunctional, and so much so
that these students took the time to tell me this story. )
The AACSB assessment team will interview students and these issues may arise.
Accordingly, I suggest that the CWU Administration consider reviewing their Student
Evaluation of Teaching process. I suspect that these student concerns are not being
recorded and reported, for reasons unclear to me. When I asked the students about their
ability to evaluate the performance of the faculty, they seemed to feel such evaluations
were not consistently provided, and the students were not motivated to provide
meaningful comments when they were provided.
Recommendation:
1. On the Teaching evaluation form, add a paragraph explaining the College’s
use of feedback provided by students. (The students don’t know how Student
Evaluations of Teaching are used., and so they suggested that students would
be motivated to provide meaningful feedback if they understood how the
feedback was used, and by whom. )
2. Evaluations should be required to be conducted at the beginning of a class
session, not at the end. (Apparently, student evaluations of teaching tend to be
handed out at the end of the class hour, so there is not adequate time to
provide feedback)
Student Clubs. The academic-based student groups/clubs/organizations are considered to
be very important and effective. (an Accounting Club, SHRM Club, and a Marketing
Club were specifically mentioned). It was clear that the majority of student clubs were
deemed “critical to student success.” I conclude that this is a strength.
Recommendation: The students’ recommend that a club be available to support every
Business major. I concur.
Two-way Video (2wv). Students at the remote locations felt that the 2WV generally
works at an acceptable level. Students would like 2WV expanded to include courses
offered at the Ellensberg Campus.
Advising & scheduling.
1. “Orientation” was described as very good.
2. Apparently a very high standard of prerequisite adherence is enforced for enrolling in
the Upper Division courses. I received consistent feedback that this has had the
following positive effects:
a. Improved work ethic
b. Increased respect for the degree
c. Increased seriousness (of the students).
d. Students feel inclined to learn, rather than “get through it.”
Although there are negative side-effects associated with this high standard policy
(discussed next, in issue #3), the negative issues are a short-run cost for a long-run
gain. Thus, I conclude that this is a strength.
3. Scheduling was reported to be a problem with regard to the Strategic Management
class. Apparently, some students are unaware of the required sequence of class
offerings, especially the Strategy course, and this creates a graduation delay. This
was reported to me as a significant “Advising” problem. It was indicated to me that
(as a result of the above) 0% of transfer students are able to graduate in 2 years. The
source of the problem was discussed as being attributable to the Pre-major business
advisor, who compels the students to plan their own degree, “complete your 2 year
plan and bring it to me.” Accordingly, the resulting plan is so poor, it is either thrown
out much later by the major advisor, or the major advisor is not appropriately
consulted and graduation is delayed when it is ultimately discovered that the plan is
not feasible. Due to the severity of advising problems mentioned above, students
have developed peer-advising systems as part of their Academic Clubs!
a. Recommendation:
i. Consider adopting a strategic planning goal/metric of “time to
graduation for transfer versus non-transfer students,” to verify the
problem here, and to track progress of each regardless.
ii. Advisor and Pre-advisor must coordinate and receive calibration
feedback to ensure quality and consistency in student advising. (It is
my observation that the pre-major business advisor is simply
overwhelmed by the volume of work required to complete the tasks
with high quality. An investment in an additional advising staff
position should be considered.)
4. It was reported that the class time schedule of the remote locations occasionally
conflicts with the timing schedule of the Ellensburg Campus. It was my impression
that this was an inter-College scheduling issue, not an intra-College schedule
problem. This causes serious problems for some of the remote location students.
a. Recommendation: Consider adopting a common class time schedule for the
University.
5. At the remote campus locations, class schedule times often change after students
register. This creates serious problems for these students, since the timing of the
course must be coordinated with their employer’s work schedule.
a. Recommendation: Consider adopting a standard class time offering (for the
remote locations) that never changes. It is my understanding that the remote
locations are provided a restricted, standard set of classes so a permanent
schedule may be feasible.
Class size. The size of standard classes appears to be 35 students, and a size of 25
students in the advanced classes. This is a relatively excellent student/faculty ratio
allowing greater student-faculty interaction. I conclude this is a strength.
Supplemental instruction. The supplemental instruction currently provided for
Economics is considered to be “fantastic” and extremely important by the students. The
students ask that a similar program be established for the Finance classes.
Summary of Strengths
College Mission Statement
Tenure policy / requirements
Facilities; Classrooms, Faculty, Staff & Administrative offices, & Student services
Classroom technology
Curriculum reputation “one of the best educations available in Washington”
Student Clubs
High academic standards for entering the Upper Division.
Small class sizes
Summary of Challenges
Faculty compensation
Faculty recruitment
Faculty publishing
Student advising & scheduling
Improving consistency in high quality instruction across sections and courses
Improving student evaluation of teaching documentation
Final thoughts
I was very impressed. I believe CWU is now very close to being able to meet AACSB
expectations, however, as is typical, the few remaining issues are significant and expensive. To
illustrate how close CWU is to a successful decision, I need to compare CWU progress in
contrast to the top 3 issues, in order of importance, we learned from our AACSB reaffirmation in
2007:
1st. Compliance with all AQ, PQ ratios, by major, and by program. (if these are not met, in
every case, the remaining issues won’t be enough to save the decision).
2nd. Assessment of Learning. Learning objectives must be explicit, and corresponding measures
developed, and actions taken as a result of comparing the actual to the desired state.
3rd. Evidence must be presented that College policies are clearly consistent with the mission and
vision of the College, and the College Mission is aligned with the Mission of the University.
The CWU Management Department needs to report on all ratios, by major. I don’t have access
to that data, but my impression is that faculty AQ & PQ & Participation sufficiency are not yet
satisfactory when viewed by program. Attaining and sustaining the required AQ & PQ standards
will likely require significant funding to ensure pay equity, and adequate publishing resources for
faculty. It is also likely that some policies need to be modified to remove obstacles to
publishing. Support by Administration and commitment by faculty is all that remains on this
issue. Assessment of Learning has a plan and much action. All that remain on this issue is to
more clearly define course-embedded measures, and to more clearly describe actions taken as a
result of assessment. The College Mission is very well done, and College policies were clearly
consistent with the Mission and Vision. In my view, this aspect already meets AACSB
expectations.
I am proud and honored to have had the opportunity observe the students, faculty, and
administrators of CWU. I hope these comments are of help to you as you move forward.
Your students are very proud of you, and your institution.
At the end of the day, what greater success can you achieve?
(Congratulations)
Respectfully submitted,
Jeff Trailer, Ph.D.