School of business still in reaccredidation process

The School of Business at CSUS is nearing the end of a three-year continuation period to meet reaccredidation standards.

Although still accredited, the School of Business was given an extension on the reaccredidation process to allow it time to reevaluate certain new criteria set by the American Assembly of the Collegiate School of Business.

According to Richard Guarino, professor of organizational behavior and environment, the School of Business has been putting a framework in place to help it meet the new criteria.

“They did not have processes in place that demonstrated that they met criteria,” said Guarino.

“We must be committed to improvement and continue to require a process by which we periodically evaluate how we are doing,” said Guarino.

Reaccredidation of the School of Business began five years ago, but this is the first time that it is being evaluated using a new process adopted by the AACSB.

“The CSUS School of Business is ahead of many institutions in terms of assessment of their program,” said Lawrence R. Takeuchi, professor of management. Several other CSU business schools are on continuation, too.

To meet the new criteria, the School of Business has revised its mission statement three times and reconstructed the committee system by combining the undergraduate and graduate committees. It also has developed new standards for currency and academic qualifications for faculty.

In addition, policies and procedures now in place are under review to see how well they support the new mission statement of the School of Business.

The mission statement for the CSUS School of Business is to develop an excellent undergraduate program.

“There are approximately 2,000 business schools in the U.S. and only about 400 are AACSB accredited,” said Guarino.

AACSB accreditation is a measure of the quality of the school of business. Accredited schools draw more new students and have stronger post-graduate programs that employers will support by sending employees there for additional business training.

Also, if students already attending CSUS want to transfer to another college, their units are more likely to be accepted at the next college.

Along with developing new processes, CSUS must also examine how they know they are achieving their goals. One way is to gather and evaluate information through questionnaires aimed at students and employers.

“There is a trend towards total quality management regionally based,” said Takeuchi.

The final self-study report for reaccredidation is due by October 1999.