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September 30, 2005 > News > Jones School, Economics propose business minor

Jones School, Economics propose business minor

By David Brown | Thresher Editorial Staff

A joint proposal by the Economics Department and the Jones School calls for the creation of an undergraduate minor or certificate in business that would be administered in the Jones School. The University Standing Committee on the Undergraduate Curriculum discussed the proposal at its meeting Wednesday.

The proposal, submitted by former economics department chair Peter Hartley and Associate Jones Graduate School of Management Dean George Kanatas, suggests the business minor would replace Managerial Studies, an interdisciplinary second major comprised primarily of economics and psychology classes.

The program would consist of six mandatory classes: Financial Accounting, Corporate Finance, Marketing, Organizational Behavior, Business Strategy and Communications. All courses except for Communications would be taught by Jones School faculty. Communications would be very similar to the current MANA 404: Management Communication, and would continue to be taught by an instructor outside the Jones School.

The curriculum committee did not vote on the proposal. Instead, committee chair Bill Wilson said he asked Jones School Dean William Glick for more logistical information.

Wilson, an electrical and computer engineering professor, said he asked for more details to be provided in a future meeting.

“We asked [Glick] and others to think about it some more and flesh it out and then come back to us,” Wilson said.

Glick said student demand for a business program, Jones School capacity for the program and a method for handling excess demand must be determined.

The written proposal suggests students apply for the minor program, but Glick said undergraduate business programs at other universities use different criteria, including GPA-based and lottery systems.

Additionally, the committee will seek to determine if the proposal is consistent with Rice’s traditions and academic standards. One issue is that Rice currently offers only one minor, in Naval ROTC, Glick said.

Dean of Undergraduates Robin Forman said the committee will discuss the role of minors in the curriculum in general at a future meeting. If the business minor is approved, he said, other departments may consider submitting proposals for minors as well.

“It is not clear whether we actually need a new policy to allow minors,” Forman said. “Still, I think it is valuable to have conversations about the general issue of minors — what the university view of a minor is and the role they might play in the curriculum.”

Should the committee decide not to approve new minors, the business proposal states the program could be a certificate instead. Currently, Leadership Rice offers a leadership certificate, and the Center for the Study of Languages offers a certificate for teaching English as a Second Language. 

                Support for the program

Hartley said he thinks many students are interested in business education, based on enrollment in Managerial Studies and economics classes such as ECON 448: Corporate Finance and ECON 355: Financial Markets.

“I think the economics department for some time has noticed there is a strong demand for business-related courses,” Hartley said. “We’ve had a lot of students majoring in economics because they intend to go into business.”

Hartley said some departments have dropped their Managerial Studies courses without much reservation because the departments are not currently accountable for the quality of the Managerial Studies major.

“The argument is that if the only undergraduate program in the Jones School is the business minor, then the Jones School’s reputation is at stake,” Hartley said.

Glick, who was the director of the business honors program at the University of Texas from 1993-‘95, said having a business program would make Rice more attractive to prospective students.

Wiess College sophomore John Kehoe said he supports the proposal because it would make the Jones School useful to undergraduates.

“It makes more sense for the faculty of the Jones School to teach [undergraduates] classes about business than economics professors,” Kehoe said.

Kehoe said he thinks many economics majors are actually most interested in business.

“I’d like to see a business program so that students who are interested in business will have coursework designed specifically for them,” he said.

Depth of the program

Hartley said he and other economics faculty members think business should not be a major because students should have a more academic and theoretical foundation than what business classes provide at the undergraduate level.

“We believe undergraduate students are better served by having another major that gives them a broader and deeper background,” Hartley said. “You need to do the basic material and get an understanding of that before you go into more applied work like business studies.”

Glick also said he thinks a business major would distract too much from the traditional undergraduate education, but that a minor in business is a good complement to the curriculum.

“Students need to know how the world works first,” he said. “They need to pick a core area, and then learn enough about business to make money off of it.”

However, Hartley said some faculty at Rice are concerned the business minor might distract students from taking classes in other departments.

“They’re very concerned it might mean students would end up doing these business-related courses and not doing more basic material or broader material,” Hartley said.

End of article

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