Rawls College of Business2008-2009 AACSB Maintenance Report1

Rawls College of Business2008-2009 AACSB Maintenance Report1

TexasTechUniversity

JERRY S. RAWLS

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Maintenance of Accreditation Report

2008-09

MISSION

As a major comprehensive, research-based business school with a wide range of programs, the Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration:

• Educates and develops our students for positions of leadership in Texas and the global marketplace;
• Emphasizes partnerships with other Texas Tech units and external parties to provide educational and research opportunities for students and faculty and to provide benefits to our external stakeholders;
• Provides service to our educational and professional communities; and
• Advances knowledge through research by the faculty and students.

Vision: The RawlsCollege will be among the top business schools of choice in Texas for prospective students, employers, faculty, business community, and the public at large. The RawlsCollege will concentrate on programs where we will be excellent and where we have a competitive advantage. The overarching goal of the college is that every faculty member hired, student admitted, and employer invited to campus will be successful.

Overview: During 2008-09, a risk analysis of the college noted a number of issues, including accreditation, where learning assessment was identified as major. It was decided to increase the resources for assessment.

The publications of the faculty, especially in highly prestigious journals, have increased. We have been reaffirmed in our accreditation by AACSB International, but we must continue to demonstrate progress in annual reports or we will come to the negative attention of the AACSB International committee that reviews schools based on annual reports. We believe that the primary issues will be maintaining class sizes, the proportion of student credit hours generated by academically qualified (journal article producing) faculty, student job placements, degrees per faculty member, and developing a quality assessment program. We have brought the undergraduates above the national norms in placement. However, MBA placements continue to be a concern and have been impacted by the recession.

We have a number of programs that promise to be among the best and we are focusing on them. We have reduced the class sizes in the undergraduate program. We have made progress in getting our new building funded. We have reached the targeted numbers of undergraduate students, but still need to increase the graduate program.

To achieve the mission and vision of the Rawls College of Business while maintaining accreditation, additional resources are necessary. The current undergraduate program is understaffed by academically qualified faculty. Well more than 50% of the undergraduate student credit hours must be generated by academically qualified faculty. This is partly a matter of scheduling and partly a matter of the quality of the faculty resources.

Within the constraints of the AACSB International accreditation standards, maintaining the undergraduate program, growing the size of the graduate program substantially, increasing research productivity and achieving the vision of the college as a school of choice, the following resources will be required over the next eleven years:

1.The number of tenure-track plus clinical faculty positions should increase, which should keep the academically qualified faculty in line with the headcount of students and degrees granted in comparison with similar schools. If the college is to double graduate enrollments, then this would require 3 new faculty be in this category per year for the next 10 years. The new faculty would in turn require the graduate addition to the new building.

2. Additional sources of funding of approximately $3 million per year must be generated to support summer research stipends for the tenure-track faculty and tenured faculty who are highly productive scholars.

3. Teaching budget to support the replacement of tenured faculty as they retire with competitive offers to new faculty.

4. The administrative and operating budgets of the college will need to increase proportionately.

1. Because of limitations of funding available at the university level, the Rawls College will need to increase its entrepreneurial activities, funded research, and grants.
2. Over the next decade, the college needs more endowed scholarships to fund students.

Details on priority accomplishments are presented in Appendix A. Quantitative data are provided in Appendix B for review.

Goal 1. Academic Excellence: Become a business school of choice in Texas for students, faculty, employers, and the general public.

• Improvements have occurred in both student graduation rates and student retention. Completion of undergraduate courses has improved. Undergraduate student headcount per faculty member has decreased.
• The average class size for undergraduate classes has decreased from 89 (in 2002) to 54 (in 2008), however, the size has increased slightly the last 2 years.
• Professor Peter Westfall, Area of ISQS, was recently elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.(Only 8 Texas Tech faculty, university-wide, hold this honor.)Professor William Gardner was the President of the Southern Management Association. Horn Professor Shelby Hunt remains one of the top-rated researchers in Marketing. The number of articles in top-rated journals has increased to about 35 per year due to recent faculty hires.
• The BBA program was ranked 77th by Business Week in the most recent survey. (A factor in this ranking was the average class size and the student-faculty ratio.)The Health Organization Management program was rated 40th by USNews.The Physician Executive MBA was ranked 19th in the USA (ahead of Harvard’s and Yale’s programs).The Accounting graduate program achieved a 15th ranking in the USA on the CPA examination pass rate for graduate students.
• Academic journals that were edited by faculty members during 2008 were Journal of Management,The American Statistician,International Journal of Information and Operations Management Education, and Journal of Business Valuation and Economic Loss Analysis. A faculty member was selected to be the editor of Issues in Accounting Education. A special issue of Leadership Quarterly, which is the premier publication in the field, has been dedicated to long-time faculty member Horn Professor Jerry Hunt.
• A course in Leadership and Ethics is now required in the MBA program. A course in Accounting Ethics is required in the MSA program.

Goal 2. Access: Recruit, retain, and graduate business students who are prepared to succeed in and provide leadership to organizations and who represent a diverse population.

• The Graduate Services Center staff visited 20 Texas colleges and universities. There were delegations to the countries of India, China, and Vietnam. The RawlsCollege received delegations from both China and Vietnam during the year. The mid-level administrators from Chong-Du University in central China were here for a 5-day seminar on university operations.
• Graduate staff advising is consistently assessed by the students as well above the national average as is faculty advising. Undergraduate advising has improved substantially over the past 5 years and is not near the national average.
• Since 2002, the total number of undergraduate students has decreased by about 1,200 with a small decrease in the number of undergraduate degrees awarded. The college has made 100 scholarships available to community college transfer students, who more often are of diverse backgrounds. There has been a substantial increase in graduate credit hours and students over the past five years.

Goal 3. Engagement: Great business community interactions that enhance the educational experience of business students and their understanding of the business community.

• The RawlsCollege and the academic areas bring many guest speakers into the classroom. The Chief Executives Roundtable brings 6 nationally prominent speakers to campus each year. Many student projects are completed each year in the entrepreneurship classes and the capstone courses that support the local business community.
• The annual scholarship breakfast engages the Dallas business community and the alumni.

Goal 4. Technology: Make appropriate use of technology in the delivery of services by the Rawls College of Business.

• High majority of classes are taught in multi-media rooms.
• We explored technology for virtual desktop computers to replace the current computer labs that take up a lot of space in the current building.

Goal 5. Partnerships: Build strategic business and academic relationships for the advancement of the Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration.

• The Center for Entrepreneurial and Family Business continued developing a partnership with the University to enhance the value of technology developed by the University and to help the development of the regional economy. A tentative partnership with the College of Engineering has been started with a jointly offered a course in entrepreneurship and a program to take Engineering students to Norway for the Summer 2008, which was quite successful.
• Partnership with Medical School continues and is strong; however, a change in the Medical School calendar has required that several summer courses change delivery format. New Partnership with the School of Pharmacy has been formed for classes to start Summer 2009. A partnership was formed with the School of Nursing to offer a certificate program in healthcare change for an external hospital chain, but was not successful in delivery because of registration and administration issues.

Goal 6. Facilities and Human Resources: Build a quality business facility, faculty, and staff.

• A building site was selected (the old student health center and a dormitory), the site was cleared, and the project funding of $70 million was approved by the Board of Regents. Architectural plans were finalized for the building. A general contractor was selected along with commissioner, owner’s representative, and mechanical designer.
• The Career Management Center has operated for four years with more than 3,000 interview opportunities each year.
• The summer research program was continued with 5 faculty funded.