Program Assessment Report 2005-2006
Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) Finance
I. Finance Program Goals
The Finance program goals are relevant, student oriented, specific and include the following: 1. To graduate students who will have the skills necessary to work in a vibrant, technologically
advanced and international business environment. These skills include communication, critical thinking and problem solving and community service.
2. Developing and understanding finance skills for business decision-making; 3. Acquiring the core knowledge of the finance and business disciplines;
4. Developing an ability to integrate finance concepts with other business disciplines;
5. Acquiring the ability to do research and analysis through use of traditional and electronic sources. In an effort to achieve these specific student-oriented goals we have been pursuing the following program goals over the past year:
1. Continue to improve our finance curriculum; we have added a financial planning concentration to our finance program.
2. Continue to increase students in the finance major; we now service over 100 finance majors with 4.25 faculty members.
3. Increasing our number of graduate assistantships that provide research and teaching support to the finance faculty; we currently have 5 graduate assistants and 7 international work study students. 4. Expanding our efforts at recruiting out-of-state and foreign students to increase the diversity of the
students who major in finance; we have an increasing number of international students taking our finance classes.
5. Developing a stronger relationship with the local business community and consider our
Advisory Board’s comments in the development of finance program goals; Our faculty have given speeches at academic conferences and at local area business organizations; and
6. Maintaining our AACSB accreditation which indicates a high quality finance program
It should be noted that many of these goals are on-going and are expected to continue into the next year. We constantly strive for continuous improvement of our finance program.
II. Finance Program Assessment Summary
Please see the Assessment Summary Chart (2005-2006) at the end of this report. The principle Results/Analysis and the Action Taken are listed below.
1. Using our Finance Capstone Survey of students, we have seen some improvement in the finance course rating. Some important concerns of our students seem to be the lack of real world hands-on activities in the coursework and the lack of more concentration tracks in the finance major.
a. Due to budget constraints and personnel considerations, we are not able to add more finance tracks for our majors. Over the past several years we have attempted to keep our finance faculty retention
rate at acceptable levels. During the past year, we retained one temporary finance faculty members. Through close advising and keeping control on our course enrollments we are trying to accommodate both student and faculty needs.
b. We have tried to make faculty aware of the need for more “real world” examples in the classroom. We are discussing ways to measure this effort including working with local companies to offer more student internship programs.
c. We considered in our divisional meetings the need for, and our ability to provide more, finance tracks, by restructuring the major. With AACSB accreditation decisions approaching, it is difficult to make major changes to our curriculum.
2.
Due to some structural changes in the administration, very few other changes were considered this academic year. We are currently governed by a new dean providing leadership for the college.III. Plans for the Current Year: 2005-2006
Our principle goals in for the coming year include:
1. Continuing to make certain we will meet the requirements of the new AACSB rules;
2. Strengthening our finance curriculum and offering more quantitative and application elective courses in the program;
3. Determining how to implement more tracks in the finance program; 4. Finding a sponsor and recruiting students for the Division; and 5. Developing stronger ties with community businesses.
We will meet these goals by:
1. Simplifying our decision making and management structure;
2. Constantly keeping in contact with our peer schools and making faculty aware of what our competition is doing;
3. Listening closely to the advice given by our mentor/peer schools;
4. Working hard to find a divisional sponsor and advertising appropriately (with newspapers, open houses, and company visits) for students; and
5. Enlisting the help of the Lewis College of Business Advisory Board. Our Assessment Plan needs to Change by:
1. Using a benchmark standard to assess student abilities;
2. Developing an alumni list and targeting those alumni in surveys of program effectiveness.
IV. Assistance Needed
It is difficult to find a nationally-based affordable finance exam. If we are to move to a national test, we will have to be given more resources by the college and university.
We have been collecting contact information for graduates since the spring 2002 semester. We are currently looking for resources from the College or University to conduct appropriate surveys.
V. Most Important Thing Learned in this Process
This year has been slight change in the Finance program. We would like to change parts of our finance curriculum and our method of collecting data from our graduates. We would also like to retain our finance faculty so we can provide consistency to our program. An emphasis should be on better assessment and analysis. Some goals in need of better assessment include: increasing
Assessment Summary Chart (2005-2006)
Marshall University
Assessment of Student Outcomes: Component/Course/Program Level
Component Area/Program/Discipline: Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in Finance
Component / Course / Program LevelLearning Outcome Person or Office
Responsible
Assessment Tool or Approach
Standards/Benchmark Results/Analysis Action Taken
Added finance elective courses
Finance Chair and Faculty
Survey of peer universities
AACSB curriculum standards
Added new finance elective course
Added FIN 451
(Financial Planning) and FIN 452 (Investment Planning), as electives Maintain AACSB
Accreditation
LCOB Dean AACSB Five Year
Maintenance Report
AACSB published standards In compliance Ongoing monitoring Core Knowledge in
Business Finance
Finance Chair and Faculty
FIN 323Principles of Finance
LCOB UG Committee reviews course notebooks to ensure students are receiving the core material considered appropriate by the national accrediting body, AACSB
Using various testing procedures students learned concepts taught in principles of finance
Will continue to increase the rigor of our finance course offerings
Global and Ethical Perspectives in Business Finance
Finance Chair and Faculty
FIN 440, International Financial Management
In FIN 440, faculty evaluate student competency based on performance compared relative to previous student groups
Using various testing procedures students learned concepts taught in international finance
Will continue to increase the rigor of our global finance offerings
Reasoning and Critical Thinking through the Integration of Core Business Finance Knowledge
Finance Chair and Faculty
Required and Elective Finance Courses
In all courses including Fin 470, faculty evaluate student competency based on performance compared to previous student groups
Discovered students want more options with regard to electives and would even prefer finance tracks
Will continue to monitor and evaluate all our finance courses
Independent Research and Analysis in Finance Topics
Finance Chair and Faculty
FIN 480 Independent Study Course in Finance
In FIN 480, faculty evaluated student competency for independent research
Students made good progress in doing independent research
Develop new topics for students interested in economic research Written, Oral and
Technological
Communication Skill in the Business Finance
Environment
Finance Faculty - Survey of graduating students in capstone course, FIN 470 - Exit survey of finance students
Survey graduating finance majors to elicit students’ perspectives on the value of the program curriculum, instructors, & administration
Statistical analysis of graduates is used to compare finance against overall GPA performance
Will continue to monitor and evaluate all our finance courses
Additional resources Dean, Chair and Faculty Survey of peer universities
AACSB Annual Salary Survey
Finance faculty pay is below national market
Additional resources Faculty international
experience
Finance Faculty Travel to Bangalore Live interactive students Student satisfaction survey
Two faculty were sent to Bangalore
