ALSBTALK:
What does a damn fool look like? All too often it looks like a b-school prof. Aren't we b-school profs?
Lowenstein's excellent post is an excellent way to make clear to some fools what path they suggest the school tread. Since, all too often we are dealing with fools, I have found it helpful to ask for personal vocalization of the end state as the desired state. To wit: "I want my college to lose AACSB accreditation." Some will, some won't say it: far fewer will.
But, Lowenstein's detailed outline shows -a- path that leads to accreditation, not -the- path. Merely putting a course called "accounting" in the core does not satisfy AACSB. Nor does excluding from the core a course called "marketing" prevent accreditation. The core course in accounting needs to contain (as detected by assessment [more on that later]) the accounting called for in the AACSB Standards. And, if in the infinite wisdom of your colleagues they chose to design a curriculum with zero courses called "marketing", that does not trouble AACSB if the assessed program provides evidence that the marketing required of the AACSB Standards is located in some one or more courses deposited across the curriculum.
The Standards are output focused. While many times AACSB requires some inputs specifically to be tracked, the real concern is program output.
AQ and PQ have become SA, PA, SP, and IP.
http://www.aacsb.edu/accreditation/business/standards/2013/academic-and-professional-engagement/standard15.asp
AACSB's concern (??your school's concern??) is that the warm body in the classroom needs to be "qualified" to teach the content of an individual course. So, ask your b-school colleagues, if law is removed from the list of core courses, and those legal issues are deposited in other core courses, then how will your b-school will adjust its teacher assignment (e.g., team teaching) and/or not change teaching assignments and instead change the research and "professional development" efforts of those faculty assigned a course that includes legal issues so as to document for AACSB your b-school's provision of "qualified" faculty?
Next, shift your focus to assessment. If an AACSB required curriculum topic is not delivered in a stand-alone core course (for example, if marketing is thought to be so critical to the success of business that it MUST be taught in every single course across the curriculum), then the assessment efforts are not reduced: instead they are increased. Start with your b-school's existing assessment rubrics of Learning Goals, Learning Objectives, and Learning Traits. Take a specific trait and ask in which course will the faculty member be responsible for generating the output of the program embodied in that trait?
At its heart, the desire to eliminate law has nothing to do with law. It has to do with making more room for "my" stuff. Also, it is a desire magnified by a lack of understanding. The understanding that is lacking is that getting rid of the law course does not get rid of the law. It just makes the other faculty pick up the legal issues in a manner that both can be detected by AACSB that a genuine input was devoted to law and that a measurable amount of law output was generated by your b-school.
It's like that old Army saying. The Army can not make you do anything. It only can make you wish you had. The brighter ones avoid such wishes. So, are your colleagues bright or fools?
Michael
Professor Michael J. O'Hara, J.D., Ph.D.
Mammel Hall 228
Finance, Banking, and Real Estate Department
College of Business Administration
University of Nebraska at Omaha
6708 Pine Street
Omaha NE 68182
http://cba.unomaha.edu/faculty/mohara/web/ohara.htm
402_554_2823 voice fax 402_554_2680 (not private)
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Co-Editor, The Earnings Analyst
www.A-R-E-A.org
Book Review Editor, Economics & Business Journal
http://ecedweb.unomaha.edu/neba/journal/home.htm
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