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Curriculum
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Change Process
Implementation
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The Curriculum
Change Process
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The Environment Leading to Change
Business professionals repeatedly tell collegiate business schools that business
problems are interdisciplinary and that students need to be better able to
integrate business disciplines. However, the faculties at business schools with
a major research mission have strong incentives to specialize in a single
discipline like accounting or marketing. They often resist interdisciplinary
teaching because the effort is viewed as detracting from their specialization.
Businesses increasingly operate in an interdisciplinary fashion but business
schools are struggling to change.
The often cited study by Porter and McKibben (1988) reports that most
undergraduate business programs follow a pedagogical model developed in the
1920's and 1930's when business schools began to be organized at American
universities. Responding to business organizations based on concepts of "specialization and division of labor," business schools organized into
functional departments then typically observed in business. It was assumed that
if business was organized by specialty or functional areas like accounting,
finance, and marketing then business education was best delivered by dividing
the effort into specialties.
The division of business education by functional area was further entrenched in
the 1950's as business school faculties responded to the criticism of the
quality and quantity of legitimate academic research in business. In the decades
to follow, business research became more theoretical and specialized and much
more of a factor in faculty reward systems. Broad based doctoral programs in
business (D.B.A. programs) were almost completely replaced by more specialized
Ph.D. programs in a specific discipline (e.g. Ph.D. in Marketing). The AACSB
Faculty Leadership Task Force Report (1996) points out that most business school
faculty members have been trained in this specialized environment in which
interdisciplinary knowledge is rarely valued. When faculty are trained as
specialists and rewarded for their expertise in a functional area, it is natural
for them to want business curricula organized into functional areas.
While no one argues to reverse the gains that specialization and rigorous
research has brought to business education, the organizations that hire --- and
we hope continue to hire --- our graduates want them to be able to approach
business problems from multiple perspectives. In other words, business
professionals argue that their organizations do not face separate marketing
problems, finance problems, or accounting problems --- they face business
problems that include elements of several functional disciplines. They are quick
to point out that there is still a need for employees with strong disciplinary
training but it must also be coupled with a stronger understanding of the
relationship among business functions. In words that have become cliché,
business professionals have had to "break out of the functional silos" in order
to survive and they urge business schools to do the same.
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Fall 1999 & Spring 2000
Initial Study and
Benchmarking Activities |
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It is with this background that the faculty of the Sam M. Walton College of
Business at the University of Arkansas began, in August 1999, a study of its
undergraduate core curriculum ---- a core curriculum that had not changed
significantly in twenty years. The Undergraduate Program Committee was charged
with this task. The committee is composed of one member from each of the six
departments, one student member, and is chaired by the Associate Dean for
Academic Affairs as an ex-officio non-voting member. The old core curriculum was
very typical of many business schools. The core courses were all based on a
single functional discipline with the only formal attempt to integrate
disciplines being the capstone "Strategic Management" course.
view old
curriculum »
During the 1999-2000 academic year the faculty representatives that comprise the
Walton College Undergraduate Program Committee undertook the following
evaluation activities:
- Examined the core curriculum at 15 benchmark
business schools,
- Conducted brainstorming sessions with the
Walton College's two advisory boards -- the Dean's Executive Advisory Board
and the Business Alumni Advisory Council,
- Conducted a survey of business alumni,
- Interviewed representatives of companies who
have hired our graduates,
- Conducted focus groups with students about to
graduate, and
- Participated in an AACSB-International
conference on undergraduate curriculum innovation.
The key findings were as follows:
- Our curriculum is typical of many business
schools but a number of schools are grappling with ways to have a more
integrated curriculum.
- Companies who hire our graduates respect their
functional area knowledge but are critical of their knowledge of "how a
business really works."
- Business alumni cited examples where demands
for integrated business knowledge increased as they progressed in their
careers.
- Students expressed a desire to get involved
with business courses sooner in their career.
- The AACSB conference gave us the opportunity
to discuss efforts to integrate business curriculum with other schools facing
the same issues. Most efforts involved team teaching of closely related
subjects (e.g. accounting and finance professors team teaching a course that
covers introductory material in both disciplines). This approach could be
described as "moving the silos closer together" rather than breaking them
down. One common element in these approaches, and often the cause of their
failure, is the difficulty of implementing team teaching at the university
level.
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Fall 1999 & Spring 2000
Initial Study and
Benchmarking Activities |
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Summer 2000
Reflection and Proposal Formulation |
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During the Summer of 2000, a subcommittee of the Undergraduate Program Committee
received a stipend to meet and review the curriculum study materials gather
during the past academic year. The results of this nine-month evaluation of the
Walton College curriculum led these members of the Walton College Undergraduate
Program Committee to the conclusion that a major curriculum revision should be
proposed to the faculty.
As these members of the Undergraduate Program Committee were discussing the
evaluation results and possible proposals for curriculum revision, they became
were given a pre-publication draft of the work of Kenton Walker on a business
process approach to integrating business curriculum (Walker and Black, 2000 -
article can be
viewed
here). The term "business processes" refers to the essential activities
that every business must perform to succeed - acquiring resources, producing a
good or service, and selling the product or service. These processes are
inherently interdisciplinary and provide an organizing background that places
each functional area of business in perspective.
The subcommittee formulated a curriculum revision proposal and presented it to
the full committee in August 2000, assuming that it would serve as the starting
point for an extended discussion. The rest of the committee was very
enthusiastic about the proposal and voted to present it to the Walton College
faculty at the beginning of the Fall 2000 semester. |
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Summer 2000
Reflection and Proposal Formulation |
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September 2000
The Initial Proposal to the Walton College Faculty |
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In September 2000, the committee presented a curriculum revision proposal to the
Walton College faculty. Before the presentation, the details of the proposal
were kept confidential (except for a briefing with the Dean) so that everyone on
the faculty would hear the proposal at the same time. The initial proposal was
designed to make everyone on the faculty a little uncomfortable and, thus,
feeling the need to participate in discussions. The most controversial items
were:
- A proposal to replace the entire 42 semester
hour core or "common body of knowledge" with 24 semester hours of integrated
courses based on business process concepts.
- A proposal that the integrated courses would
be taught by individual faculty members rather than being team-taught. This
would require faculty to teach some course material outside their primary
field of specialization.
After the presentation, the faculty was divided
into discussion groups designed to mix faculty members from different
departments. Each group was moderated by a senior faculty member who committed
to a neutral stance. The discussion groups were asked to address a list of
questions and report back to the reassembled group. The groups were given the
following questions:
- What are the strengths (positives) of the
proposal?
- What are the weaknesses (negatives) of the
proposal?
- How can the proposal be improved
- What implementation issues need to be
addressed?
- What advice do you offer for the Committee?
The PowerPoint presentation used in this meeting
can be viewed here:
view presentation » |
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September 2000
The Initial Proposal to the Walton College Faculty |
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November 2000
Follow-up to the Initial Proposal:
Continuing the Conversation |
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At the conclusion of the September 2000 meeting on the initial curriculum
proposal, the faculty was asked to send additional comments to the Undergraduate
Program Committee. After several e-mail comments were received, the Committee
decided to set up a shared file so that everyone on the faculty could view the
comments. Interestingly, as soon as this file was set up, e-mail comments
ceased. This was a surprising but instructive lesson in the change process ---
our faculty were not willing to engage in an exchange of e-mail comments on the
curriculum change. A more productive source of comments was the informal
feedback to committee members.
The Committee reviewed the issues raised at the September meeting and the
feedback in the weeks that followed and gathered additional information to
address questions and formulated responses to other issues. In November 2000,
the Committee hosted another faculty meeting to "continue the conversation." The
PowerPoint slides for the presentation at that meeting can be viewed here:
view presentation » |
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November 2000
Follow-up to the Initial Proposal:
Continuing the Conversation |
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January 2001
Endorsement of Concept of "Smaller
Integrated Core" |
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Based on feedback after the November faculty meeting, the Undergraduate Program
Committee proposed the following motion to the faculty on January 26, 2001:
"The faculty endorses the goal of developing a smaller integrated undergraduate
business core curriculum. The faculty agrees that we should continue to
investigate ways to achieve this goal with the objective of seeking faculty
approval of a method or framework for integration as the next step in the
revision process."
After 18 months of work, the Committee wanted an endorsement of the concept of a
smaller integrated core before continuing its work. There was a proposal from
the floor to separate the concepts of "smaller core" and "integrated core" ---
the intent being to defeat the concept of an integrated core. In response,
committee members and other faculty argued that a too much of value would be
lost with a smaller core that was not integrated. The alternate proposal was
never put in the form of a motion and the main motion passed with a show of
hands by such a large majority that a count was not taken.
The PowerPoint presentation used at this faculty meeting can be viewed here:
view presentation » |
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January 2001
Endorsement of Concept of "Smaller
Integrated Core" |
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Spring 2001
Visits from other Business Schools |
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To fulfill the charge in the January 2001 motion to "investigate ways to achieve
the goal of a smaller integrated core", the College hosted presentations by
representatives of four other business schools that are attempting to integrate
their undergraduate curriculum:
- The University of Virginia is combining
related functional area courses into single courses that are team-taught.
There is no fundamental reorganization of concepts.
view presentation »
- The University of Tennessee is maintaining
most functional area courses and introducing a team taught ten semester hour
topics course to achieve integration at the sophomore year. A business
simulation is used to achieve integration in a capstone course.
view
presentation »
- The University of Oklahoma delivers three
traditional functional area courses in a "just-in-time" manner so that they
mesh with an experiential project in which students plan and implement a
business during the same semester.
view article 1 »
view
article 1 »
- The University of Wyoming, where Kenton Walker
is a faculty member, used a faculty team to experiment with his business
process ideas for one year. However, the experiment was discontinued because
of resistance to change and a lack of support from the college leadership.
view presentation »
The representative of each school spent a full
day in the College. The schedule included meetings with the Dean, department
chairs, a presentation to the faculty, and a follow-up meeting with the
Undergraduate Program Committee. |
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Spring 2001
Visits from other Business Schools |
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September 2001
Revised Proposal |
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During the Summer of 2001, the entire Undergraduate Program Committee received a
small stipend to meet and consider the results of the Spring presentations.
During the course of the summer, the Committee met with the College's Executive
Committee twice as they sought to revise the initial curriculum proposal into
one that the majority of the faculty could support.
Based on these discussions, a revised proposal was presented to the Walton
College faculty in September 2001. The major revisions were as follows:
- The decision to not attempt integration of all
business law concepts but to reduce the course to two semester hours
- The decision to not integrate business
statistics but to seek to redesign the course to incorporate more problem
solving and analytical thinking elements.
- Presentation of two options involving
economics and other social science courses. The University core includes a 9
hour social science requirement. Business student typically used 6 of the
hours to take the two principles of economics courses. These options were
proposed because some faculty wanted their students exposed to more psychology
and sociology while other faculty wanted to continue the greater exposure to
economics.
- Option 1 proposed
- a 3 hour macroeconomics course with
microeconomics being integrated into the other business core courses and
- 6 semester hours of other social science
courses in the 9 hour University core social science requirement and
- 19 hours of general education electives
- Option 2 proposed
- continuing he traditional 6 semester hour
principles of economics sequence
- 3 semester hours of other social sciences
in the 9 hour University core social science requirement
- 3 additional hours of social science from
a specified list of courses
- reducing general education electives to 16
semester hours
The PowerPoint slides used in this presentation
may be viewed here:
view:
PDF (126 KB)
•
PowerPoint® (189 KB) |
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September 2001
Revised Proposal |
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Fall 2001
Compromise Proposal and Approval of
New Curriculum Structure |
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After the September 2001 faculty meeting, a meeting was scheduled with the
faculty of each department. The Undergraduate Program Committee chair (Associate
Dean for Academic Affairs) attended each meeting and, along with the
representative from that department solicited feedback on the revised proposal
and the options therein.
Based on a sense of the feedback from the round of departmental meetings, the
Undergraduate Program Committee chair recommended that the Committee recommend
that the faculty adopt Option 2 of the revised proposal. He predicted that,
while a majority of the faculty would vote for Option 1, a significant minority
across several departments would be very upset that Option 2 was not chosen.
However, very few of those in favor of Option 1 would refuse to vote for Option
2. By endorsing Option 2, the Committee could achieve a much larger consensus
for the new curriculum structure --- and this consensus would be valuable as
implementation proceeded. The Committee unanimously agreed and sent the
following recommendation memo to the faculty:
view revised
curriculum »
By a 78 percent majority, the Walton College
faculty voted, on October 24, 2001, to approve the recommendation of the
Undergraduate Program Committee. After 26 months of study, consultation, and
debate, the Walton College faculty responded by deciding to develop a path
breaking interdisciplinary undergraduate business core curriculum that focuses
on business processes -- the things that every business must do.
The following PowerPoint presentation made to the Walton College Dean's
Executive Advisory Board summarizes the compromise curriculum change proposal
adopted by the faculty.
view:
PDF (131 KB)
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PowerPoint® (240 KB) Two modifications were made to the curriculum
structure during the implementation phase:
- Data Analysis was switched from a second year
course to a first year course.
- The requirement that 9 hours of general
education electives by in a single concentration was dropped in favor of the
restriction that only 6 hours may be in physical education courses.
The rationale for both of these modifications is
explained in the Curriculum Implementation discussion.
The final New Curriculum Structure may be viewed here.
view new
curriculum » |
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Fall 2001
Compromise Proposal and Approval of
New Curriculum Structure |
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References |
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AACSB Faculty Leadership Task Force Report,
St. Louis, MO, 1996.
Porter, L.W. and L.E. McKibbin, Management
Education and Development: Drift or Thrust into the 21st Century?, McGraw-Hill,
New York, NY, 1988.
Walker, Kenton B. and Ervin L. Black, "Reengineering the Undergraduate Business
Core Curriculum: Aligning Business Schools with Business for Improved
Performance," Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 6, No. 3, (2000), p.
194-213. |
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This project is sponsored in part by
the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE),
U.S. Department of Education.
visit: FIPSE 
Dept. of Education |
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