Any chance of expanding the JD qualification to include business ethics 
and social responsibility?

Norm Hawker

On Thursday, September 20, 2001, at 01:43 PM, Fran Zollers wrote:

> Colleagues,
>
> AACSB's Blue Ribbon Committee on Accreditation Quality has come out 
> with draft standards. This is the group that Dean John Kraft discussed 
> at our plenary breakfast in Albuquerque and about which I wrote in the 
> spring newsletter. I will use this email to tell you about the 
> standards and to enlist your support on a number of fronts.
>
> If you want to read the working draft, go to the following link and 
> click on Working Draft of Business Accreditation Committee.
>
> http://www.aacsb.edu/accred/blueribbon/index.html
>
> Let me summarize a few points. The JD is still in as a terminal degree 
> for teaching business law, legal environment, or taxation (p. 16). 
> There are no curriculum content standards for the undergraduate degree. 
> Rather, the standards are expressed in terms of skills such as 
> communication abilities, analytic skills, ethical understanding and 
> reasoning, etc.(pp. 19-20). More on that in a moment. The graduate 
> level standards are expressed in terms of content and we are not there 
> (pp. 20-21). It is primarily to this area that I address my remarks.
>
> The Executive Committee is going to propose that the content areas be 
> amended to include an understanding of the political, legal, and 
> regulatory environment of business. We are in the "notice and comment" 
> period and hope to effect a change between draft 1 (this one) and draft 
> 2. I am working with a group of  present and former ALSB deans and 
> associate deans. Those who have responded have recommended the above 
> action.
>
> Let me ask that, in an effort to speak in one voice,  you let the 
> communication be between AACSB and the Executive Committee. Let's use 
> this listserve to discuss approaches, strategies, verbiage, etc. (or 
> you can contact me or Ginny Maurer directly), but please let the final 
> response come from one place. As time progresses, I may ask you to 
> speak to friendly deans, but just for now, let's talk to each other 
> about what the best response should be. We know from last time that 
> organized letter writing campaigns not only did not work, but created 
> suspicion about the groups who organized them.
>
> Here are two things to do. First, look at the draft and think about how 
> we can lobby effectively for our position. I don't think we should mess 
> with the undergraduate standards; focus instead on the graduate 
> standards. Second, take a look at your syllabus. If your learning 
> objectives do not include most of the skills listed in the 
> undergraduate standards, I would suggest that you add them in the next 
> iteration.
>
> I look forward to a frank and robust discussion. It is time to convince 
> others about the truth of one of our Core Purposes--that law is 
> foundational to markets and to business and must be incorporated into 
> the curricula for business and management students.
>
> Fran Zollers
>  
>  
>


Norman Hawker, Associate Professor
Haworth College of Business - FCL Dept.
Western Michigan University
1903 West Michigan Avenue
Kalamazoo, Michigan 49008-5120