The celebration of 2015 started a week early when we learned just before Christmas that SPU had earned reaccreditation from the AACSB. As I mentioned in the December 2014 Shareholders, AACSB accreditation is difficult to achieve — only 5 percent of business programs internationally are able to meet the standards. We are one of the smallest AACSB-accredited programs in the world, and (to put into perspective how hard this is to achieve) we have to meet the same set of standards as Stanford and Wharton. And we do!
We learned a few things through the accreditation review. First, we need to update the way we assess the learning outcomes of our students. We have a process in place that works but it is extremely time-consuming and too complicated. Professor Katya Drozdova will be giving leadership to this process beginning with winter quarter.
Second, we need to better show that our programmatic decisions map to the University’s and to SBGE’s strategic plans. This documentation need is leading us to accelerate our adoption of better technology such as SharePoint and OneNote, so that by the end of 2015 we can do away with binders and notebooks. The SBGE staff are collectively driving this initiative.
On the very positive side, the accreditation team was impressed with our students, our programs, our faculty, and our Executive Advisory Board (EAB) members.
Though accreditation is now behind us, we aren’t sitting still. In 2015, we will update our strategic plan to reflect our merger with the Political Science Department. We have received a generous gift from the Bob and Ruth Dunn Charitable Foundation that, in 2015, will allow us to expand our student mentorship program for the next three years. We are also studying to see if we can also extend our professional development programs to provide more educational and career development opportunities for adult learners in the Puget Sound.
I hope your New Year, as well, has started with good news and great opportunities!
Faithfully,
Joseph