Dear friends,
One of our goals in the Carson College of Business is to expand our business offerings in innovative formats that will help meet the growing needs of WSU students who do not major in business. These students benefit not only from our events such as the Business Technology Symposium (attended by 118 non-business majors in 2017), but also from classes such as Introduction to Business, in which 83 percent of students are non-business majors, or Introduction to Financial Accounting, in which 42 percent are non-business majors.
Our Personal Finance class is so popular across the University that we recently had to open additional sections to accommodate over 100 additional nonbusiness students, and we still had a waiting list. With the help of investors in our Dean’s Catalyst Fund, we are creating a state-of-the-art version of the course that will be available online and from there, we will design further programming on our campuses to bring together our business majors with other Cougs. The idea is that our CCB majors interested in financial services will prepare for jobs in part by working with students who are more like the customers they plan to serve—and the students beyond the Carson College will learn from their peers. We hope to add mentors from industry to the mix and work together to develop new paths to career and life success for WSU students in and beyond the Carson College.
In this issue of eDividend, we showcase examples of other collaboration that extends business education beyond our walls. Working with various partners, we offer premier programs such as the online MBA and Executive MBA programs, which U.S. News and World Report recently ranked 12th nationally for best online MBA programs and 8th for best online MBA programs for veterans. You’ll read about the Center for Entrepreneurship expanding into a new space, launching several new programs, and hiring a new student venture manager. Our CES works with faculty and WSU students in engineering, communications, agricultural and life sciences, and more, helping them to think creatively about taking their ideas to market. It’s not always business students who win our annual Business Plan Competition!
We depend on experts inside and outside of our community to contribute fresh and timely business insights that educate and inspire. You will see the relevance and impact of such expertise highlighted in an article on the Hoops Tax Institute forum and in a feature showcasing Kimberly Houser and Debbe Sanders’ research on the IRS unfairly mining data and probing social media during tax audits. Additionally, several features detail how alumni guest lectures and panel presentations, such as the discussion on career opportunities for women in underrepresented fields, benefit not only business students but anyone who participates.
We will continually offer opportunities to all WSU students, the WSU community at large, and the public, that honor our commitment to bring premier business education to all who seek it.
Have a great spring, and Go Cougs!
Chip Hunter, Dean