Creating Opportunities for Growth
Campaign for Delaware:
Postioning the College for the Future
Undergraduate Education
The College of Business and Economics is one of the largest colleges at the University of Delaware. Yet with 100 faculty and 2,400 students, the College is small enough to ensure that our students receive the personal attention and tailored academic and professional programs that foster success. Clearly, students recognize the quality of a Delaware business education. Our undergraduate programs are in high demand; we currently turn away half of all qualified applicants. And we are rapidly gaining widespread recognition for the quality of our facilities, programs, students, and faculty.
With added numbers of excellent undergraduate applicants, the College needs to provide more in the way of scholarships, fellowships and research funds to support these students. Our goals are to provide support to students based on financial need, support to academically talented students to attract them to our programs, and support that actually engages students in individual research and international learning opportunities. Currently, for example, about 400, or some 20 percent of our undergraduates, receive some sort of financial support from the University. With additional gifts during the Campaign for Delaware, the College will be able to increase its support by 50 percent to help a larger number of students with larger awards than in the past.
First-rate academic and professional advising for our students are high priorities. Through the Undergraduate Academic and Professional Development Center, and in consultation with individual faculty, students receive timely guidance throughout their four years in the College. The objective is to assist them in choosing a program of study, extracurricular activities, and internships that will lead them to fulfill their goals by the time they graduate. Companies such as Conectiv, DuPont, Gore, Hercules, Hewlett Packard, ICI, MBNA America, J.P. Morgan, Wilmington Trust, AstraZeneca, and hundreds of other financial, consulting and CPA firms participate in providing our students internships and permanent jobs. Through gifts that create and support innovative programs to provide for the academic and professional development of our students, we expect to significantly enhance the success of the College’s graduates.
Graduate Education
Graduate programs in the College have experienced substantial growth since 1990. The focus of the Masters in Accounting program on management of information systems and the simultaneous Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Delaware and French universities have both proved popular additions to our programs. Increased demand for both our part-time and full-time MBA programs has been accompanied by a comparable rise in student quality. In addition, the Executive MBA Program has been very successful in attracting high quality, experienced professionals. The program now has more than 170 alumni representing a diverse array of industries and companies.
The graduate student programs currently have various financial packages available to support highly qualified students. Awards of graduate assistantships and fellowships currently pay half of tuition and an annual stipend to students based on their performance in the program. The Corporate Associates Program enables corporations to become involved in the admissions process of outstanding MBA applicants. The Associate Program provides full tuition, a stipend and internships with a corporation during the school year and during breaks in the academic calendar. Through a blending of increased endowment and additions to the Corporate Associates Program, we expect to be able to provide additional support to well over 75 more of the 640 business graduate students each year.
Attracting and Retaining Excellent Faculty
Along with support for students, the College also needs to increase support for faculty. The faculty of the College is highly respected for excellence in teaching. Recent benchmarking studies ranked the College’s faculty very high in student satisfaction relative to faculty at other highly regarded universities. The College’s faculty is also gaining widespread respect of their peers and business leaders for their research on important and timely issues. For example, Dr. John Sawyer, Department Chairperson and Professor in Business Administration, works with Fortune 500 corporations to determine what aspects of corporate culture encourage innovation by research and development employees. And Dr. Larry Seidman, Professor of Economics, is actively involved in research that is influencing current thought on Social Security reform.
Through research partnerships with external constituencies and with other units of the University, the College’s faculty contributes its expertise to the vital task of developing the economic future of our region. For example, four faculty from the departments of Economics and Business Administration recently collaborated with colleagues in the College of Human Resources, Education and Public Policy to examine alternative ways for Delaware to prosper in the coming century.
With increasing competition for faculty among business schools, we need to continue to attract top faculty to the College and retain the excellent faculty already at the College. The College lags far behind other schools of business in endowed funds dedicated to our faculty, with only some $100,000 to $150,000 currently available each year. Our goal is to significantly increase this amount to compete more effectively. Gifts like the recent $1 million endowed Edgar S. Woolard, Jr. Chair in Corporate Governance will provide national recognition for our faculty and the College, as well as needed funds to support teaching and research.
The Climate of Business and Use of Information Technology
As the business environment is undergoing rapid change, so are the programs in the College of Business and Economics. The College’s undergraduates gain a broad liberal arts perspective of the larger world, its origins, and its future during their first two years at the University. The last two years focus on more specialized knowledge of business concepts, an integrated perspective of the organization, and applications of this knowledge to solving real-world problems. Throughout this four-year experience, students develop a sense of ethics, globalization, and diversity. They also develop strong skills in communications, analytical decision making, information technology, and teamwork.
As a result of in-depth discussions with the business community, the College recently launched a cutting-edge information technology initiative. This college-wide program integrates the use of the most current technological infrastructure throughout the undergraduate and graduate business curriculum. This infrastructure will be continually reviewed to ensure it remains state-of-the-art. The State of Delaware has already committed significant funds to this effort to make the College a leader in the integration of technology into the business curriculum. However, for this initiative to succeed, the College will need additional investment to provide hardware, software and additional training.
Community Activities
The College’s dedication to lifelong learning extends beyond degree programs. The Office of Executive Education, the Small Business Development Center, the Family Business Center and the Center for Economic Education and Entrepreneurship all strengthen the business skills of people from Delaware and around the world, people from senior citizens to grade school students. For example, the Small Business Development Center is the only statewide program that offers small business owners access to technical assistance in the form of informational resources, training classes, and one-on-one counseling. Also, the College’s Family Business Center will provide further assistance in addressing the specialized needs of small and large family businesses.
The College is also involved in the preparation of future business leaders through the Center for Economic Education. Through the center, the College offers a unique master’s degree program in economic education to primary and secondary teachers from around the globe. Also, the Center works directly with schools to develop programs to teach economics concepts to primary and secondary school students. Once developed, these programs are offered to teachers and schools.
Currently, we receive significant annual support for these programs. However, in order to continue to serve our community, we hope to add to these funds and partially endow their operations so that we can continue to support research and training, and so that we can increase our resources to expand our reach to a broader community.
International Opportunities
The College also has a strong commitment to global thinking and to providing our students with opportunities to study international business first-hand through our unique relationships with multinational businesses and educational institutions. Undergraduate and graduate students alike have opportunities to visit overseas businesses in Brazil, France, Ireland, Japan, Sweden and other nations through our study abroad programs led by business faculty. Doctoral students in economics can now earn dual degrees at the University of Delaware and the University of Lyon in France. These and other programs encourage students to gain an international perspective on business.
However, students who are already receiving scholarship or other support often do not have the additional funds to be able to travel and live overseas. To encourage these students to travel and study abroad, we are working with individuals, employers and institutions to provide financial support. These funds will give academically qualified students access to such opportunities without regard to financial constraints.