Mission Statement

The mission of Butte College Business Education Department is to prepare students to be successful when entering the world of business and to continue in lifelong education. We value our students� success and place respect, accountability, and excellence as our core values. 
 
Vision  statements specific to each of the Department of Business Education Programs are as follows:
�  The Accounting Program believes focuses on preparing students to become detail-oriented and able to understand and prepare accurate financial data. 
�  The General Business Program prepares students to be successful as they enter and pursue careers in business fields such as retail management, small business management, marketing, sales and advertising, in both profit and non-profit organizations, operating in today�s global environment.    
�  The Economics Program provides students with intellectual and analytic tools necessary to gain an understanding of economic theory and policy as a way to address issues facing our society. 
�  The Real Estate Program prepares students to take the California Real Estate Sales and Brokers exams and successfully list, sell and invest in real property.

Program Description

The Department of Business Education includes four programs/disciplines:  Accounting, Economics, General Business(Marketing, Management and Small Business Management), and Real Estate.  In addition, the department has two major focuses, both of them central to the College�s mission:  The Business Administration Transfer Program and The Department of Business Education Career Programs.  
 
�  The Transfer Program offers an A.S. Degree and facilitates transfer to Bachelor of Science programs, such as the two degree programs offered by Chico State�s College of Business:   Business Administration (BADM) and Business Information Systems (BIS).   
�  The Department of Business Education Career Programs (with certificates, Certificates of Achievement and A.S. degrees) develop and enhance students� work-related competencies.  These programs facilitate local economic development and workforce training as they help to create a skilled, professional, entry-level workforce in Butte and Glenn Counties, and offers opportunities for skills enhancement of existing personnel. 

The following certificates are currently available: 
�  Accounting Program Certificates:  Accounting Certificate of Achievement;  Account Clerk Certificate; Tax Preparer Certificate  
�  General Business Program Certificates:  Business Management Certificate of Achievement; Retail Management Certificate of Achievement; Marketing Certificate of Achievement; Small Business Institute Certificate; Business on the Web Certificate; Human Resources Certificate  
�  Real Estate Program Certificates:  Real Estate Certificate of Achievement; Real Estate Sales Person Certificate; Appraiser Certificate. 

The following Associate of Science (A.S.) degrees are currently available:
�  Business Administration AS (transfer degree to Chico State)
�  Business Administration AS-T (transfer degree to CSU schools)
�  Accounting 
�  Business Management (including 2 options:  Business Management and Small Business/Entrepreneurship) 
�  Marketing 
�  Real Estate.

Student Learning/Administrative Unit Outcomes (Optional)

Standards/Goals for Student Achievement (Instruction Departments) (Optional)

Standards/Goals for Student Achievement (All Other Departments) (Optional)

Strategic Direction (Optional)

Program Review (Optional)

To follow are the program review recommendations and a status update on each:
 1)      Hire a new full-time general business instructor and another economics instructor.

We hired a new general business instructor, but continue to request an additional economics instructor.

 2)      Investigate why catalog no longer shows recommended sequence of study for each business major. 

Certificates and degrees requirements are now listed in recommended sequence of study.  The new educational planning module the school is working to implement will further highlight recommended sequence of study.   

 3)      Avoid scheduling classes that straddle two widely used timeslots which could lock students out of other classes.

The two hour “block” accounting classes and need to squeeze in as many classes as possible during prime time make occasional straddling of time slots unavoidable. 

4)      The women’s restroom in the BE building is unsafe and must be repaired and updated immediately!

Remodeling was completed over Summer 2015.  Hooray!!

5)      The door on the men’s restroom opens into the hallway; this is unsafe. This safety issue needs to be fixed ASAP!

Facilities has been notified of the issue.

6)      BE rooms 105 a, b, c are small, overcrowded & not well ventilated. Student seating is not conducive to efficient group work. It is recommended that seating be re-arranged and to not schedule classes that incorporate group work into BE 105 a, b or c.

Seating could only be changed if instructors are willing to lose board space or reduce the number of seats.  Since instructors want maximize enrollment and accounting and economics classes require lots of board space, no changes have been made yet to seating arrangement.  However, facilities has been notified of the issues with ventilation.

7)      Staff and associate faculty morale survey is recommended to fully incorporate their input into unit planning and program review processes.

Associate faculty input is solicited on institute night and throughout the semester as instructors see one another.   A formal survey hasn’t been implemented in part due to time constraints (the chair is on double-overload and had a hiring and evaluation nightmares Fall semester).  The department is also leery of soliciting input when it isn’t sure it has the power or will to make requested changes. 

For instance, part-timers would likely want schedules that were more convenient to them (but which would make it difficult or impossible to staff all sections at the times students prefer).  Part-timers would also want to choose their own books rather than using a common textbook across sections.  While this would allow individual instructors preferred textbooks, the low volume would increase textbook costs, the different textbooks would make ordering more time consuming to the bookstore, and the different textbooks be less conducive to consistency and rigor across class sections.  Perhaps a survey will be administered next year, but our fear is that requesting input and then not acting upon that input is more detrimental to morale than to have never
 8)      Untapped potential exists for enrollment growth in the department. Modest growth in the number of Introduction to Business courses and in Economics is merited. The college and department should also collaborate with Chico State to move Business Law to lower division as is common practice.

Staffing economics sections has been extremely difficult.  Two instructors were let go this semester because of ongoing instructional quality issues and Steve Price has been involved in the student equity project.  It has been very difficult to hire part-time instructors to replace these sections.  After too many hours on the phone, Linkedin and surfing the internet looking for qualified instructors, we were able to staff Spring 2016 schedule.  To grow the enrollments we would need another full-time instructor or more part-time instructors available during peak hours.
A new online Introduction to Business (Bus 20) section was added Fall 2016.  We also added a couple Bus 20 and Bus 8 sections over the last couple years.  The online Bus 20 class is expected to be in high demand.
We continue to work with Chico State regarding moving business law to a lower division class.  While this hasn’t happened yet, CSUC does now accept Butte’s Bus 8 from students earning the AS-T degree in place of its upper division business law class.

 9)      Increase in Real Estate offerings may now be appropriate as well. To accomplish such growth, however, expansion of the faculty and possibly facilities will be necessary, as addressed elsewhere in these recommendations.

With Thurza Andrew’s death, different instructors have begun teaching the real estate classes and this has required some adjustments.  Hopefully, as the real estate sector improves and demand will increase for real estate classes.

 10)   Continued discussion needs to occur between disciplines that require the same courses for students to obtain a certificate or degree. It is evident that disciplines differ in the amount of time they may feel they need to focus on specific content. So, a determination should be made related to the required unit value of specific courses such as Excel.

The BCIS Department created a one unit Excel for Business class that allows accounting students to gain exposure to the Excel without requiring them to take the regular three unit Excel class.  

 11)   Currently there do not appear to be any courses within any of the business programs that articulate with the high schools in the surrounding areas. The expectation is not for the department to accept agreements that don’t benefit students, but rather look into why agreements have not been renewed and pursue those discussions with high schools in an effort to offer agreements that do benefit students.

We have contacted Delia Buzatu who is responsible for articulation with local high schools and expressed our interest in articulating high school accounting classes for our Introduction to Accounting (Acct 20) class.  She speculated that some vocational education programs were defunded during the worst of the California budget crisis and so a number of these classes were dropped.  The department remains open to articulating classes with equivalent subject matter.  Currently, we are discussing the articulation of a personal finance class from Lassen High School.  

Department Goals

Consistently provide the best education possible for our students given various constraints.

Future Development Strategies

Requested Non-Financial Resources

Current Financial Resources

Augmentation Requests