Hi Classes, I received this email from our Dean today. I assume your comments have been solicited but we will cover in class. I see that the SOM Student Advisory Council was asked. The dean explicitly solicits your direct feedback; please send to the dean (ffmlh@uaf.edu) and cc me (wayne.marr@uaf.edu). Thanks
———— email here.
Here is the the latest draft of the SOM Strategic Plan. It has been written from the last plan, information gained from the SOM retreat, surveys, initial discussion with the Strategic and Executive Committees and quite lengthy discussions with both the SOM Business Advisory Council and the SOM Student Advisory Council.
We will take this up Wednesday at Exec. If you wish to make any comments on the draft before the Exec discussion please pass them along or alternatively attend the Exec meeting. We have a goal of finalizing the Strategic plan by April 22.
Don’t worry too much about the grammar etc., we will give it a good editing. I am a little blurry-eyed from all these reports that I am
writing. Speaking of which it is now time for me to continue work on the Enrollment Management Plan!
Exec — please read the report before the meeting and have comments and suggestions ready to go,.
———— Strategic plan starts here.
I. Introduction
The School of Management Mission: The School of Management (SOM) prepares undergraduate and graduate students to meet the challenges facing business professionals in Alaska and globally. SOM emphasizes excellent communication, problem-solving skills, and ethical awareness, while preparing students with a sound understanding of business principles and techniques. The School of Management values practical and discipline-based intellectual contributions and provides services to improve both student success and the economic health of Alaska.
The School of Management Vision: The School of Management will be recognized for high-quality educational programs, hands-on educational opportunities for students, service to the community, and accomplished teaching and research faculty. The School of Management will be acknowledged as the premier business school in Alaska.
University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Mission: The University of Alaska Fairbanks, the nation’s northernmost Land, Sea and Space Grant University and international research center, advances and disseminates knowledge through teaching, research and public service with an emphasis on Alaska, the circumpolar North and their diverse peoples. UAF–America’s arctic university–promotes academic excellence, student success and lifelong learning.
UAF Strategic Goals and Pathways
• Teaching and Learning for Student Success
• Research and Scholarship
• Enrollment and Retention
• Community Engagement and Economic Development
• Advancement and Philanthropy
• Faculty and Staff Development
AACSB Standing
The SOM and our Accounting Program are simultaneously accredited through The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International). The highly sought after joint accreditation has only been achieved by 168 universities worldwide and the School of Management is the only University in Alaska with this distinction.
II. Strategic Priorities
Top Four Strategic Goals
(1) Strengthen Commitment to Teaching Excellence
The School of Management is committed to its students and will provide them with high-quality classroom instruction covering a wide-range of important topics in accounting, business, economics and related fields. SOM is dedicated to enhancing its use of experiential/active learning techniques as well as other learning opportunities, such as those in student organizations, designed to increase “hands-on” experiences. SOM is also dedicated to the fundamental achievements listed under the Assurance of Learning goals and objectives and will continue to improve the students enhancement of these skills across curricula.
Specific Objectives
• Continued focus on experiential and active learning in the classroom with a goal that all students graduate will graduate with at least one experiential/active learning classroom experience. Our goal is to have more classes as “hands-on”, active and successful as the Student Investment Fund (SIF).
• Continue a strong commitment to our student organizations. Advise and support the five SOM student organizations by enhancing their opportunities in community engagement and encouraging the development of individual leadership skills. Provide opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.
• Further expand opportunities for our students to continue their education year-round, and increasing their ability to graduate in four years, by better utilizing all twelve-months of the calendar year. Continue to evaluate summer school, the period over winter break, staggering new contracts, allowing flexible retirement packages, increasing use of distance classes and e-learning courses.
• Continue discussions of having the opportunity for more students to take business courses at the freshman and sophomore level.
• Continue to devote resources to our University core course, Econ 100 – Political Economics, our BBA core course – BA 151 Introduction to Business and BA 254 – Personal Finance which is a course we would like included in the University core.
• Continue interdisciplinary education efforts by continued support of the NSF funded Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training Programs (IGERT) for both the Resilience and Adaptation Program (RAP) and the Marine Ecosystem Sustainability in the Arctic and Subarctic (MESAS) programs.
• Increase the role of the SOM Student Advisory Council (SAC) so that students can develop leadership skills, have input into SOM strategic direction, and as a way to integrate the various SOM student organizations.
• Develop and implement Business and Marketing Plan curricula in the MBA program and at advanced undergraduate level that will serve to incubate/accelerate start-up or early stage Alaska businesses. The potential partnering business may be found from the Arctic Innovation Competition (AIC), the Fairbanks Economic Development Center (FEDC), the SpringBoard program and other venues. Strengthen the relationship between research and teaching by continuing the strong support of faculty research and exploring new ways of research-teaching integration and undergraduate research (such as the portable experimental economics laboratory).
• Enhance the review process for the teaching effectiveness of adjunct and term faculty.
• Continue to enhance the development of our staff student advisor.
• Increase the flexibility of our students to take electives that count towards their degree by offering more alternatives to the BBA concentrations.
• Consider the implementation of a Committee for Evaluating Teaching Excellence. This committee would bring together faculty, business leaders and students to discuss curricula relevance and teaching effectiveness.
• Improve, explore and implement additions to Assurance of Learning (AOL).
• Continued to utilize and annually update a comprehensive Enrollment Management Plan (EMP) designed at student recruitment and retention.
• We will strive to keep our commitment to teaching excellence sustainable by a combination of increases to the resource base and appropriate resource allocations. We will market our efforts to the students and showcase our successes to the UAF administration and business community.
(2) Increase Community Outreach and Expand Development Activities
The University of Alaska Fairbanks and the School of Management has made a public commitment to better connect with the communities and business of Alaska. Starting in the Alaska Interior, SOM is making a major commitment to becoming more visible and working with the community by educating the next generation of business leaders and offering assistance to economic development. SOM recognizes the important relationship between the community that supports the school and the environment in which we operate.
Specific Objectives
• Hire a development officer and increase efforts to enhance relationships with alumni and the business community and to increase private fundraising.
• Continue to strengthen our speaker series aimed at giving our students maximum exposure to business leaders and politicians. Provide maximum interaction between invited speakers and students including informal lunches and meeting times.
• Implement the Arctic Innovation Competition (AIC) which is a contest designed to generate practical solutions to real life problems and challenges. Consider using MBA students to work with the winners on business and marketing plans.
• Enhance the role of the SOM Business Advisory Council (BAC) by increasingly using BAC on strategic planning, Assurance of Learning Assessments and generating ideas for SOM.
• Continue to improve the working relationship with the Fairbanks Economic Development Corporation (FEDC) and the University Economic Development Working Group (UEDWG).
• Continue support of economic development research such as current research on oil and gas, the natural gas pipeline, commercial, recreational and subsistence fisheries, and other projects that are tailored to the economic health of Alaska.
• Continued support of all SOM research including encouragement of research grants.
• Support the Associated Students of Business (ASB) mentor program.
• Continue to improve upon Accounting and Business Weeks.
• Continue to strengthen the ASB Business Leader of the Year banquet.
• Increase opportunities for our student organizations to take part in community service.
• Continue to increase the marketing efforts of our school.
• Continue to work with the FEDC on the School of Management’s role for a proposed virtual incubator and to enhance the University’s efforts in technolgy transfer.
• Importantly, we will strive to keep our commitment to the community sustainable by implementing programs that will assist the community with economic development and maintaining an excellent working relationships wit the UAF and Statewide development offices.
(3) Increased Focus on the Internship Program
The School of Management has a long history of providing internships with accompanying professional development opportunities. However, recently the effort in this important educational opportunity for its students has been limited. Our School will recommit to this program by increasing our efforts to partner with businesses in securing internships and working with our students to take advantage of our professional development opportunities associated with an internship for college credit.
Specific Objectives
• Increase emphasis on the internship program utilizing a faculty mentor, a SOM development officer, UAF Career Services and the SOM Business Advisory Council.
• Adjust curricula to make it more attractive for students doing internships to take the internship course.
• Hire a development officer who will create more internship opportunities for our students.
• Work with the Business Advisory Council exploring the possibility of implementing Externships – a program where students would shadow business leaders at their jobs for a brief period of time.
• Continue our focused efforts on having our Student Investment Fund students taking internship positions with the Alaska Permanent Fund.
• Develop a strong network of student internships with local business and entrepreneurs.
• Increase use of professional development opportunities for students such as courses or seminars in interviewing, dress for success, resume building, etc.
• Working with UAF Career Services, increase the interaction between potential employers and our School.
• Continue conversations in regard to a design and a cost/benefit analysis of a Cooperative Education Program (similar to those in Canada) where a student graduates in four years with, ideally, closely supervised full-time semester-long work experience with three different firms accompanied with substantial professional development.
• Not only will we renew our efforts on the internship program but we will do it in such a way that the program is sustainable. This will be done with the hire of a SOM development officer, a committed faculty mentor and soliciting the strong support of the business community.
(4) Expand Course Offerings and Programs
The School of Management has focused recent efforts in revamping its curricula to make it more relevant and attractive to students. We have focused much of this effort on our pre-MBA program, classes in sports management and our business minors. We will continue improve our curricula.
Specific Objectives
• Update our real-time distance delivery equipment and increase focus on distance delivered programs and courses. We are currently delivering our MS Resource and Applied Economics program to Anchorage and Juneau and are in conversation with the Dean of the School of Natural and Resource Agricultural Sciences to deliver more courses and programs to the Mat-Su region. We will also continue to work with the College of Distance Education and e-learning on future distance priorities.
• Work with the UAF Honors program to accept pre-MBA courses as undergraduate Honors courses and allow Honors students early admittance into the MBA program.
• Continue work on course scheduling aimed at an accelerated MBA program and particularly to accounting students to fulfill their 150-hour requirement.
• Design a graduate certificate around pre-MBA courses.
• Work with the School of Natural Resource and Agricultural Sciences to design a Parks and Recreation degree.
• Explore the potential of new BBA concentrations such as sports Management and human resources.
• Increase outreach into the high schools.
• Explore the potential to design new business minors in areas such as International Business, and human resources.
• Explore the potential of designing an Executive MBA programs for specify targeted cohorts such as the Alaska Native Corporation executives.
• Explore the potential of expanding the Bachelors of Emergency Management degree to include Homeland Security.
• For any changes in our course and/or program offerings we will strive for sustainability made possible by resource reallocation and enhanced by development activities.
