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May 18, 2007 > News > Business minor to be offered in fall

Business minor to be offered in fall

By Beko Binder | Thresher Editorial Staff

The Faculty Senate approved a proposal for an undergraduate business minor at its last meeting of the year May 2. Submitted by the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, the proposal calls for a minor featuring six courses taught by Jones School faculty covering the basics of business education. The Jones School will offer half of the required classes this fall and will phase in the rest of the program by the next year. Jones School Associate Dean for Degree Programs Jeff Fleming said the courses for the minor are open to all students, but most courses in the program require prerequisites STAT 280: Elementary Applied Statistics and ECON 370: Intermediate Microeconomics. He said students do not have to declare a minor to take business courses. According to a memo from Jones School Dean William Glick, three of the six courses — MGMT 296: Business Communication, MGMT 301: Financial Accounting and MGMT 343: Financial Management — will be similar to existing managerial studies courses, but will teach a more applied-knowledge approach. The other three courses — MGMT 296: Business Communications, MGMT 380: Marketing and MGMT 471: Strategic Management — will be unique, and each will cover a different part of business. Although the business minor faced concerns from the Faculty Senate about shared similarities with the existing managerial studies major, Glick said in the memo that the business minor focuses on specific, integrated business techniques, while the cur rent managerial studies major deals with a broad application of interdisciplinary theories. Economics department chair Herve Moulin said his department is largely supportive of the new minor, even though there is overlap with managerial studies. “We are working on ways to make the two curriculums more compatible,” he said. “We are thinking of building bridges between the economics depar tment and managerial depar tment and we feel like it is a good idea to offer this minor.” The senate proposal also stipulates that the Jones School will never establish an undergraduate business major in the future. Speaker of the Faculty Senate Marj Corcoran said the adopted proposal adequately addresses most of the concerns raised by faculty, staff and students. Corcoran said one of these concerns is that the introduction of a business minor will cause the mentality of the student body to become more professional-oriented and change the culture of Rice. However, Corcoran said she thinks the existence of a managerial studies major and financial modeling minor prove that professionalization will not be a problem. “There have been businesslike programs for some time,” she said. “I don’t think it is going to be a radical departure from the past.” Corcoran also said the Jones school has its own budget, which means the cost of the minor will not affect the university’s ability to make other curriculum changes. Jones College junior Adam Guerra said he thinks the business minor is a good idea and that students should be able to decide what courses and minors to pursue. “I have heard some people say [a business minor] would be cheap and worthless, but in my mind I don’t see how it would be bad to have more options,” he said.

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