STRATEGIC PLAN

“The SJSU College of Business is the institution of opportunity, providing innovative business education and applied research for the Silicon Valley region.”

This is the second annual Strategic Plan, each covering a period of five years. Accompanying each Plan, but the first, is a Performance Evaluation document. It describes the extent to which the actions suggested for the first year of the previous Plan were, in fact, undertaken. The reason for issuing a Strategic Plan each year, even though it covers five years, is straightforward. The environment in which the Plan must be executed is constantly changing, and the Plan must reflect these changes to the extent possible. An excellent example is the hiring freeze that has been put into effect recently throughout the California State University (CSU) system. Objectives that require new staff have to be adjusted to the current reality.

The reason the Strategic Plan covers five years should be equally obvious. Most substantial objectives require several years to develop. These need to be stated, and the steps that must be taken in the short run to achieve them should be sufficiently well defined so that we can determine if adequate progress is being made. Navigators for long voyages frequently check their current position to determine whether or not they are on course.

The Plan has several overarching objectives, and these have not changed: to enhance the reputation of the College of Business (COB) and San José State University (SJSU); to provide programs and services to our students that enable them to learn as well or better than they could at any other post-secondary institution they might attend; to provide graduating students, programs, research results, and other services to the communities we serve that best meet their needs; and to enhance the well-being of our faculty and staff. In brief, we should strive to maximize the value added by the College of Business to our students, faculty, staff, institution and the communities that we serve, subject to resource constraints. To accomplish the above we should strive to increase our resources to the extent possible.

This document commences with an Executive Summary, which states our priorities. Following that are eight sections entitled: Assumptions and Presumptions, The Status Quo, Our Reputation, Students and Alumni, Serving our Communities, Faculty and Staff, Obtaining Resources, and Summary. The distinction is rather artificial as the factors are highly interdependent, as will be obvious in the body of the report. Nevertheless, it provides a basis for organizing the supporting discussion. The Summary attempts to show how the Actions relate to each other.

The current Strategic Plan is still heavily dependent on three separate studies undertaken by various College of Business faculty members: the COB Mission Statement and Strategic Framework of 1995, a Strengths and Weaknesses report, and an Opportunities and Threats report. These can be found in appendices A, B, and C, respectively, of the Strategic Plan: 2001-2006. It can be obtained from our website - www.cob.sjsu.edu - or by contacting the Deans’ Office, College of Business.

This summary presents only the top priorities of the Strategic Plan. The supporting arguments for these, along with many other action plans, can be found in the body of the report, along with the person with ultimate responsibility (many may participate) for assuring a given action is completed by the date(s) specified.

The top priority remains the hiring and retention of excellent faculty. Currently we have 30, yes thirty, vacant tenured and tenure-track positions. Those faculty already here are top notch, but most were hired when the rewards of being a faculty member at CoB, SJSU, when compared to the cost of living, were far greater. We must do everything within our power to retain them, but many are nearing retirement age and others will seek to enhance their careers elsewhere. Hence, hiring top flight faculty who are new to CoB is critical to our success. Many of the proposed actions focus on this issue. A number (see “Obtaining Resources”) concentrate on increasing faculty remuneration. Others are aimed at easing the cost of housing (see “Faculty and Staff: Recruiting”). Still others seek greater support for teaching and research (“Faculty and Staff: Teaching” and “Faculty and Staff: Research”).

There are several other high priority areas of concern. Perhaps the second in importance is our external relationships, particularly with local businesses, the rest of the San José State University community, and the public at large. These are improving, but they can’t be ignored as they are very important to our well-being, especially since we are essentially a service organization. An entire section entitled “Serving Our Communities” states a number of recommended actions designed to improve these relationships.

Another high priority area is COB’s reputation. Obviously this is interdependent with many of the recommended actions. As examples, the better our external relationships are, the better our reputation is; and the better our reputation is, the better our fund raising capabilities are. The better our reputation and fund raising capabilities are, the easier it is to hire excellent faculty, which in turn enhances our reputation and fund raising capabilities. Nevertheless, excellence has to be publicized; and there are several actions listed under “Reputation” that have that as their purpose.

Our educational programs are obviously a high priority item, but as they appear to be in relatively good shape, they require less attention than other aspects of the College of Business. Nevertheless, we should never lose sight of the fact that our educational capabilities underlie our external reputation and our ability to serve our students, which is the primary reason for our existence. We must always strive for pedagogical excellence.

The last item to be noted here is the hiring and retention of staff. While academics have a tendency to focus on faculty, we too often forget that the success of our faculty and our relationships with our students are heavily dependent on a highly motivated and effective staff. While several action statements (see “Faculty and Staff: Staff”) are specific to this issue, our ability to execute them is greatly hindered by the CSU system mandated hiring freeze.

Assumptions and Presumptions

Every Plan is based upon certain assumptions and presumptions, and this one is no exception. Therefore it is appropriate to state those that we recognize at the start. One is that San José State University will continue to be primarily a teaching institution where research is important but not the driving force. A second is that our primary concern in terms of student intake will continue to be the San José metropolitan area. Third, financial support from the State of California will continue to be modest and will not increase at a greater rate than increases in inflation and FTES (Full-Time Equivalent Students). Thus real increases in resources must come from other sources. Fourth, Silicon Valley will continue to be a very high cost location in which to live and work.

Fifth, we are an integral component of San José State University and will work with the other components to achieve our own goals and help them achieve theirs. Sixth, we have excellent and dedicated faculty and staff and can build upon this excellence. Seventh, we have a large number of alumni and friends of the University upon whom we can call that are willing to support us in a variety of ways. Eighth, we have the capability and the opportunity to influence our own destiny; and our successes and failures rest more in our own hands than in the hands of others.

The final assumption is that everyone associated with the College of Business, especially its faculty and staff, will be involved. While the Actions denote a person or persons who is (are) responsible for its execution, this is the ultimate responsibility. To quote Harry Truman: “the buck stops here.” This in no way suggests that others are not direct participants and in fact share the responsibility for success. It merely designates the person that in the final analysis must oversee an Action’s completion. However, no Action is the domain of one person. In reality, each is in the domain of all faculty and staff, and many outsiders as well.

Note, all of the “assumptions and presumptions” remain as they were in the preceding year’s Plan. However, many of the action statements have changed. Substantial changes have led to new action statements with unique identifiers. Minor changes retain the identifier from the previous year’s Plan, followed by a “c”. If only the proposed date of completion has been changed, the identifier contains a “d”. All of the action statements from the preceding year’s Strategic Plan that do not appear herein, are discussed in this year’s Performance Evaluation.

The Status Quo

The status quo was detailed in the preceding Strategic Plan (2001-2006). Most of the changes that have occurred are noted in the Performance Evaluation document that reviewed the progress made during 2001. One item is so important, however, that it deserves repeating.

The competition for hiring new faculty and retaining those already on board continues to increase. In virtually every field of business the supply of new Ph.D.s is far below the demand, and forecasts suggest that this will worsen rather than improve over the next five years. In certain areas, such as finance, accounting and management information systems, the imbalance is extreme. This presents a major hurdle, as not only is our salary structure constrained, we also live in an exceptionally high cost-of-living region. We face other forms of competition as well. While the Silicon Valley is an exciting place to be located as it is perceived as the engine of the “new economy,” it is also attracting top ranked Schools of Business, such as Wharton, Harvard and Columbia from other parts of the nation. We now have to present programs and services that are perceived to be competitive at this level. In addition, web-based technology now permits any organization to offer virtually any program or set of courses at virtually any location. Thus the number of our potential competitors has increased many-fold. That is why reputation is so important.

Our Reputation

We start with reputation for it is heavily dependent on the plans for the four sections that follow. In essence, a discussion of reputation sets the scene for them. The ingredients of a College’s reputation include: the quality of its faculty, the quality of its graduating students, the programs and courses offered by the College, and the extent to which the College effectively serves its communities. We have excellent faculty. Many of our graduates have been extremely successful. Most of our programs are very popular and are highly regarded. The College serves the metropolitan community in a great many ways, perhaps the most important of which is that we are a very efficient and effective provider of post-secondary education. No one in the region can do a better job adding value to those whom we educate. However, high quality and excellent performance by themselves are not sufficient. The external world has to be aware of that quality. Hence hand-in-hand with a focus on quality has to be an effective communications plan.

RC1c - Develop a communications plan for the College of Business.
Dean. 1 April 2002

RC2c – Establish the ability to handle public relations and to execute the

communications plan by means of a long-term relationship with a person and/or

Two other items might be added to the list, resources and the reputation of the university; but the flow is more often in the reverse direction. While an increase in resources can enable a College to enhance its reputation, equally often the enhancement of the reputation of a College enables it to obtain greater resources. And while the reputation of a university has a favorable effect on the reputation of its components, it is the schools and colleges that comprise a university that give it its reputation. Physics at Berkeley, engineering at MIT and Cal. Tech, business and liberal arts at Harvard, medicine at Northwestern, arts and sciences at Williams and Swarthmore (and the list could go on and on) do more to enhance the reputation of the university of which they are a part than vice versa. Hence, outcomes of an improved reputation of the College of Business should be better access to resources and an improved reputation of San José State University, which in turn will further the goals of the College of Business.

The primary sources of the reputations of our faculty in the community at large are their research results and publications and the impact of these. This suggests several courses of action. One is to expand the opportunities for those who have the capability of doing excellent research to do research. This implies that we provide them with the time, facilities, research assistants, and perhaps money that are needed to enable them to conduct research and publish their findings (this is covered more thoroughly later). In addition, we need to ensure that our research success stories are communicated to the world at large.

We also need to ensure that outstanding teaching is recognized and communicated to the external world. The College of Business is blessed with a large number of excellent teachers, as should be the case for a university that is primarily a teaching institution. Nevertheless, except for the exposure of our students to these faculty members, few others are aware of their capabilities. Therefore, we must increase public recognition of our top teachers, and we must ensure that the College’s teaching excellence as a whole is promulgated to the community at large.

RF2 – Ensure that the communication plan incorporates the need and means to

RF3 – Ensure that the COB website provides access to the fields of expertise and

Turning to students, our alumni are our best ambassadors. Or, they could be our worst ambassadors if we did not serve them well when they were students. While the grapevine is not as global as an excellent communications campaign, it is likely to be more effective in terms of affecting behavior. For example, a study of what influenced high school graduates to go to a particular university indicated that the number one factor was feedback from friends currently going to that school. As a consequence, if we want to improve the quality of our intake, it behooves us to ensure that our current students, especially our top students, have a very positive experience with respect to the actions of the College of Business. This indicates that we should not only foster an excellent environment for learning, but should provide services outside of the classroom that reflect favorably on the College. Important among these are admission, registration, advising, counseling, and job placement services. Specific recommendations will be detailed in the section entitled “Students and Alumni.”

Another essential element in regard to our alumni being our ambassadors is a strong and active alumni association. The College of Business Alumni Association facilitates our reputation by the events it sponsors, networking by its members, and the distribution of its newsletter. Alumni provide access to most Silicon Valley corporations, as the College of Business has more alumni employed in the Valley than any other College on campus or business school in the country. And alumni are key to our fund raising activities. Actions to be taken with respect to our alumni will be described under “Students and Alumni.”

Many an institution, whether it be a university or a college within a university, has developed its reputation based on very few programs, programs which attract attention because of their quality, their uniqueness and/or their delivery system. The halo effect of a perceived outstanding reputation in two or three areas is to the advantage of the rest of the College, as reputation enhances fund raising, our ability to hire and our ability to attract top students.

In serving our community the College of Business has to remain rather broad in its approach, as the demands of students and employers are varied. At the same time, that does not prevent us from establishing excellence that would attract wide attention in one or more areas. In fact, referring back to the argument noting that universities and their component parts benefit from the reputation of each other, the programs throughout the College of Business would benefit by the noted excellence of a few. Hence, it behooves us to establish several niches where we can be seen to have an advantage over virtually all of our peers. This we have done. The niches selected are: Entrepreneurship and Intra-preneurship, High Technology Management, and Global Enterprise Management. These reflect the demands of Silicon Valley and our ability to satisfy them.

RP3 – Ensure that the content of existing programs adequately reflects each of the

The most important element in serving our communities is to provide programs and courses that best meet the needs of these communities. It has to be made clear at the start that the communities we serve are far from homogeneous. One comprises potential students from the metropolitan area who come from a wide variety of ethnic environments and mother tongues, with an equally wide variety of motivations with respect to education. A second contains a large number of potential employers who are seeking a multiplicity of skills to meet their specific needs. A third is the surrounding socio-political-economic entity that has certain expectations in terms of participation, values, ethical behavior and knowledge on the part of our graduates. Fourthly, there are the taxpayers who want to minimize the costs of a system that is to provide appropriate educational opportunities for all who are capable of taking advantage of them.

All of these groups are concerned about the nature and quality of the educational programs and courses we provide. The more effectively our programs are perceived to meet the needs of the various communities, the better our reputation will be. However, this presumes that these programs and the courses that comprise them are of high quality, and we may not be in a position to supply what is demanded. Nevertheless, we need to be seen as making an effort to move in the direction of supplying high quality programs in the areas of greatest demand. This requires that we act in ways that are consistent with this perception, and that our actions are made known to our publics. Specific actions will be noted under “Serving our Communities.”

Students and Alumni

Since our two primary groups of students, undergraduates and graduates, differ substantially in terms of their abilities and requirements, they will be considered separately. Other students, such as those who take our courses under the “open university” concept, will be treated under “Serving our Communities.”

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The vast majority of our undergraduate students come from the metropolitan area in which we operate. Given the mandate of the California State University System, this is not likely to change in the reasonable future. This yields both advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, we are truly “the institution of opportunity.” We have a captive audience, as many who matriculate have neither the financial resources nor the outstanding grades that would permit them to go elsewhere. The population in Silicon Valley is continuing to grow despite the very high cost of housing, as is the demand for an education in business, perhaps partly because of the cost of living. Thus, it is highly probable that the demand for an undergraduate education in business at SJSU will grow over time rather than shrink. This will be especially true for fields that feed the local high-tech industries such as management information systems, e-commerce, the management of technology and entrepreneurship. Even a recession is unlikely to reduce demand significantly. The number of high school graduates is forecast to grow substantially over the next decade, and we will remain the “low cost alternative.”

Another plus is the diversity of our students to the extent that no one ethnic or cultural grouping comprises a majority. This brings a richness to our courses that could not be achieved in a more homogeneous environment, and adds an international dimension to our undergraduate program. This particular plus, however, also presents a challenge since for many of these students English is not their mother tongue. Thus, their ability to communicate in English is often below what is required to succeed in the business world.

The flip side to being the “institution of opportunity” is that the College of Business at SJSU is viewed too frequently as the court of last resort, as the place to obtain an undergraduate degree in business if no other opportunities are available. And there are other problems in terms of how we are perceived by our students. The vast majority of our graduates are transfers from the Community College system. Thus we don’t have the same period of time to build loyalty as do colleges where the majority of students do all of their undergraduate work at the same institution. It is the exception rather than the norm when a student takes a full course load, as the majority are working 20 or more hours a week. As a consequence our students have split loyalties. Furthermore, when a student spends that much time at work, s/he is unlikely to devote the time to studying that ought to be done to learn the material well.

The above factors pose problems, but they also lead to opportunities. While educating our undergraduates is not as simple a matter as it would be in Ivy League schools, it does mean that we can make a tremendous difference in their lives. We provide them with opportunities they might not otherwise have, and we are in the position to provide tremendous value added, not only to our students but to society in general. And our ability to add substantial value, most likely far greater than that provided by our neighboring institutions such as Stanford and Berkeley, is a point that we have to publicize over and over again.

To provide the appropriate value added we must maintain standards of excellence that we wish to associate with graduates of our College of Business. This has three implications: One is that we ensure, to the extent possible, that our entering students have both communication skills in English and the basics of mathematics that are needed to succeed in business. The second is that we offer, if necessary, remedial instruction in both English and mathematics so that our students can obtain these skills before they graduate. The third is that students should not get passing grades in courses where they clearly demonstrate they do not have the communication and/or analytical skills required.

US3c – Develop and provide an effective means of remedial education for those who

US4 - Provide remedial education for those who fail the analytical skills test.

US5d - Establish standards, and the means to assure they are met, for communication and analytical skills in all upper division courses where relevant (e.g. communication for marketing, analytical for operations management).

Establishing standards is not sufficient. Some faculty members, especially junior faculty, may be afraid to enforce them, fearing that to do so would substantially reduce their SOTEs (Student Opinion of Teaching Effectiveness), thus harming their chances for tenure and promotion, and merit increases in salary. However, not to establish high standards may lead to “watering down” courses to the lowest common denominator so that virtually everyone in the class can do well. This does not accomplish our objectives of maintaining quality programs and graduates. Thus we need to do whatever we can to assure faculty members that the maintenance of quality standards is to their advantage, not their detriment, by making such actions act as positive contributors to tenure, promotion and merit increase decisions.

US6c – Continue to encourage and support those faculty members who require their

students to adhere to established communication, analytical and grading standards.

An undergraduate business curriculum must have a group of required core courses that assure that graduates have a basic understanding of the critical functions of business. We set the course content for those students who enter our program as freshmen or who transfer early enough in their studies that they take the core courses from CoB faculty. However, the majority of our students take many of their core courses in community colleges. While we cannot exercise direct control over course content in these schools, we can work with their staff so that the transition for students from community college to CoB is as smooth and effective as possible.

US7d – Hold annual meetings between the appropriate SJSU and local community

college faculty to ensure that course content in articulated courses is equivalent.

Our upper division courses should provide our students with the knowledge and skills they need to be of an immediate benefit to their employers and to enable them to continue their learning so that they can progress on their career tracks. This requires both appropriate upper division courses and appropriate course content. While faculty generally have the best interests of their students in mind, and are usually aware of the most recent trends in the fields that they teach, academics are not always in touch with the realities of industry. One way of improving communication with the “outside world” so that either side can better understand the needs and constraints of the other is to establish a meaningful forum for such an exchange.

US8d – Establish a committee of influential alumni and faculty members to conduct

US9 – Establish the means to obtain periodically feedback from employers of our

There are two additional ways we can increase the quality of our graduates. One is to motivate our students to achieve excellence by recognizing outstanding performance with named monetary awards. The other is to increase the quality of our incoming students by offering them scholarships sufficient in size to permit them to attend SJSU on a full-time basis. Everything we can do to encourage our students to attend to their studies is likely to be worth the effort.

US11d – Increase the number of “full-cost” scholarships for entering students.

Graduate programs yield a number of benefits. First, we have much greater freedom to define their content and to refine them for particular audiences. In other words, they can be developed for specific niches. Second, we have much greater control over admission standards. Third, graduate programs in general, and MBA programs in particular, are highly significant factors in the reputation of a school of business. Fourth, they can be a source of considerable additional revenue that permits us to support programs and activities that are not funded or are under-funded by the State. Fifth, they provide us with an excellent cadre of alumni. Sixth, they yield research opportunities for our faculty.

Since we have considerable control over the graduate business programs that we offer, and since they offer many benefits, including additional income, in an ideal world we would expand these programs as long as there is sufficient demand to cover fully loaded costs at the margin. There is a very significant constraint, however. We have a limited number of tenured and tenure track faculty, and these are the people that staff such courses. Hence, we have to make the best use of such faculty, being careful not to cause undue burdens. Recommended actions with respect to faculty will be detailed later.

Given constraints, we want to maximize our return on scarce resources. There are three basic issues here. One is to maximize our net revenue subject to constraints. For this we need careful cost/benefit analyses. A second is to enhance our reputation. Here we need to determine the competitive advantages and disadvantages of existing and proposed programs. The third is the extent to which a program serves our communities, especially employers. These lead to several actions. Others will be noted under “Serving our Communities.”

GS1d – Conduct a cost/benefit analysis of each existing and all proposed fee-based

GS3d – Maximize the net revenue obtained from fee-based graduate programs.

As mentioned above, our alumni are our best link to the “outside world.” They can provide us feedback on what we have done and what we are doing now. They are willing to participate in the classroom. They provide entrees to the organizations that employ them. And they donate both time and money on behalf of the College of Business. Since alumni are our number one source of external support, we in turn have to provide support for the infrastructures that enhance alumni activities.

Past experience and discussions with alumni indicate that many of them are interested in supporting the institution that provided the education that helped them get where they are. This takes many forms, and there is substantial evidence to suggest that it is generally wise to take small first steps that get them involved before asking for major commitments of time and money. Perhaps the most effective first step is to invite them into the classroom to relate their experiences and how their education had an influence on their careers. A second step may be involvement in alumni activities, or counseling students, or serving on panels at new students’ orientations, or teaching a class or two. These, and other activities, such as serving on the Board of Directors of the COBAA or the International Board of Advisors of the College of Business, establish the bonds, providing the activities are meaningful, which lead to major commitments in the future. This progression suggests several actions.

AA1c – Provide the financial resources needed to support the College of Business

Alumni Association infrastructure so that it can be an effective source of alumni

activities.

Dean. 1 January 2002 to 1 January 2004

AA3d – Establish a liaison between alumni interested in participating in the

AA5d – Survey alumni five years after graduation with respect to their perceptions

Serving our Communities

In this section we restrict our discussion to external communities, as students, alumni, faculty and staff are covered elsewhere. We examine our relationships with the remaining communities by placing them in four groups: local businesses; SJSU; our sister institutions, especially those within the CSU system; and the public at large, including government.

The job market for our students has changed dramatically this past year. Supply now exceeds demand, which means we have to educate our students in a way that makes them as attractive as possible to the business community. Simply put, we have to listen more carefully than ever to what business leaders are saying regarding the skills and knowledge they require of their employees. We have recently taken a major step in this direction with the establishment of the International Board of Advisors. Members of the Board are alumni and friends of the College who have distinguished themselves in business, and senior executives of firms that are major employers of our graduates. The primary purposes of this advisory group is to examine the Strategic Plan for its relevance to the business community and to critique our programs and curricula for the relevance of their contents.

While increasing the quality of our graduates is of great importance to local industry, increasing the educational level of existing employees is of equal importance. This we are doing by expanding our part-time MBA programs. Degree programs, however, are not the only way to provide appropriate educational services. A number of senior executives have mentioned that many of their technically trained employees need management education, but have neither the time nor the willingness to complete an MBA, at least not at present. An alternative is to work with major employers to develop certificate programs, of perhaps four or five courses, tailored to the needs of these employers. These would be fee-based courses, arranged in packages that would lead to a “Certificate.” Furthermore, we would permit these courses to be applied to an MBA degree at some future point in time should the candidate be interested in completing that degree. Whether these would be core courses, or courses designed to educate one in particular aspects of management, such as the management of technology, remains to be determined.

SB2 – Develop and implement a graduate level Certificate program for local

industry, the courses of which could be applied toward a graduate degree at a later date.

Another way of working with and supporting the local business community is to develop consortia of firms (really boards of advisors), the members of which benefit from educational and research opportunities offered by the College of Business and through working with each other. An excellent example is the Manufacturing Advisory Board (MAB), a consortium of manufacturing executives throughout Silicon Valley, who meet regularly to discuss common problems. MAB is led by a member of our faculty. It provides an excellent network to better understand the needs of local businesses, and it provides research, student internship and consulting opportunities as well. Generally such advisory boards are disciplined based, but they could be more broadly construed. In particular, it would be highly desirable to develop boards of advisors for each of the three niche areas. These could be used to establish research and internship opportunities for faculty, to develop special educational programs for their members, and to provide advice on how the niche in question might be imbedded most effectively in our curricula. In addition they might provide both financial and teaching support for programs of interest. Likewise, each academic department would be well served if it had an advisory board, for the very same reasons.

SB4c – Develop a board of advisors that will foster educational, research and

SB6 – Establish at least one Advisory Board for each Department for one or more majors.

There are two aspects of the College of Business’s relationship with San José State University. One concerns the University as an entity; the other concerns relations with its individual components. With respect to the first, we must appreciate the fact that the College of Business is an integral part of SJSU. Our faculty, staff and students benefit from the many facilities and services provided by the central administration, most of which are far more efficiently provided collectively rather than at a college level. The University benefits from the quality of our faculty, staff, students and the popularity of our programs. With respect to the latter, we continue to exceed our FTES quota, and the increasingly pragmatic orientation of the student population suggests that the demand for our programs will increase in the years ahead. The biggest constraint is our ability to attract and retain faculty (see “Faculty and Staff: Recruiting”). All other colleges benefit when we expand, as the State support revenue we bring to SJSU for each additional FTES (Full-Time Equivalent Student) exceeds the amount which the College of Business receives in turn in a greater proportion than is the case for any other college. This is because we have the highest student-to-faculty ratio and lowest cost per student of any college within San José State University.

The College of Business is currently offering a combined MBA/MSE degree with the College of Engineering and a Hospitality Management degree jointly with the College of Applied Sciences and Arts. The degree program in Industrial Technology requires Business as a minor. Industrial Design and the Health Science’s concentration in Health Care Management require two or three business courses. Several other programs suggest business as a possible minor. This is just the tip of the iceberg of possibilities. At the undergraduate level there are a number of majors that would benefit from having business minors or joint majors. These range from fine arts and economics, to computer science and engineering. As we are continuing to discuss various possibilities with other departments and colleges, we will retain action statement SU3.

SU3 – Pursue opportunities with other Colleges regarding joint majors and/or

business minors, subject to COB’s ability to obtain the resources required to offer them.

Dean, Assoc. Dean Academic & Undergrad. Affairs and Chairs. 1 January 2002 on

The demands for business education are so varied that no single institution, no matter how large, can meet them all. Thus, while we have to provide a broad spectrum of programs and courses to our undergraduate student body, and do so without significant variations in quality, we, as other Colleges of Business, need to focus our efforts on relatively few areas for which there is a significant demand and in which we can excel. We have established niches. So have many of our sister institutions. It is unlikely that any institution can fulfill all the requirements for its niches using just its own faculty. As a consequence, we will need to seek faculty from other institutions, and in turn they will offer opportunities for our faculty. On the surface, this is welcomed as we can all expand our niches beyond our own capabilities. However, this also uses our scarcest resource, our probationary and tenured faculty. Therefore, since most of the teaching that is done outside of one’s own institution is for revenue generation purposes, we need to establish a basis upon which such teaching can be done. Simply put, there needs to be an appropriate net revenue distribution plan. We suggest the following:

SC1 – All faculty who teach in our fee-based programs that hold positions in other

Colleges within SJSU or in other Universities, will entail a 50:50 split of the net

revenue generated by the course taught between COB and the Unit to which the

SC2 – All courses taught by COB faculty for other Colleges within SJSU or for other

Universities, for fee-based programs, will entail a 50:50 split of net revenue

We are essentially serving the public at large through our educational programs, our research and the service our faculty provide to the local, national and international communities. These activities are covered elsewhere, and do not require action statements here. There is one community, however, that we would like to serve better for both reputation and revenue generating reasons. These are the executives of local, national and international businesses.

Many schools of business offer “Executive” MBA programs. These are usually shortened versions of traditional MBAs, offered on a part-time basis. While the popularity of such programs continues to climb, especially when the economy is booming, there are many critics who argue that the value of EMBAs is significantly inferior to their cost. The key, therefore, if one is to enter the market is to ensure high value. Given the great interest throughout the world in the technologies of Silicon Valley, it would appear prudent to make these, and their impacts and implications for management, the subject of programs that we might offer senior executives. Hence, we are in the process of developing a program with the University of Texas (Austin is considered as a second Silicon Valley). And we feel that with our contacts and joint expertise we should do well.

Current planning suggests that the program would take place over a three month period, with one week spent in each of three locations: San José, the Far East (the specific location remains to be determined), and Austin. Between the times of the in situ classes, extensive use would be made of the web, which is consistent with the subject matter. The topics are the strategic, organizational and management implications of today’s and tomorrow’s communication and information technologies. Or, it might be called “what one needs to know about technology to have and retain a competitive advantage.”

SP4 – Implement “what an executive needs to know about technology program,” in

There are specific ways we can increase our service to the international community. One is by increasing the international content of our programs, which we are in the process of doing. Another is to engage in joint programs with foreign educational institutions. We have already signed a memorandum of understanding with O-HARA College of Business, Japan. The intention is to offer our MBA with three-quarters of the courses being offered in Japan, in English, partly with their instructors and partly with ours, with the final term taking place in San José. Details remain to be worked out to the mutual satisfaction of both sides. We have explained the basis of this program to others, and interest has already been expressed from organizations in India and Taiwan.

SP5 – Launch a San José State University international MBA program with a

Dean and Assoc. Dean of Grad. Studies and Research. 1 January 2003

Another way we serve the public at large is through funded educational/research centers. An excellent example is the Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI), funded through contracts and grants, mostly from governmental agencies. It offers a master’s degree

Preface

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