Undergraduate Business Program

Consistent with our stated mission to develop leaders of distinction in commerce and public affairs, our strategic objective is to become the “premier, undergraduate business and economics program in the Intermountain West.” This lofty goal demands that we provide relevant and rigorous content for our undergraduate students. Our students are able to select from among a total of seven majors as they identify and pursue their unique learning paths. Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation of our undergraduate program covers six of the seven undergraduate majors (economics is separately evaluated) by focusing on a common set of competency goals and objectives for our undergraduate students.

Learning Goals and Objectives

As we strive to accomplish our mission, four strategic pillars guide us in our efforts: Analytical Rigor, Entrepreneurial Spirit, Ethical Leadership, and Global Vision. These strategic pillars have heavily influenced our thinking and form the foundation of our stated competency goals and associated objectives, which are found below.

L1: Analytical Rigor – Students will be able to apply appropriate decision-making approaches to solve contemporary business problems.

  • L1.1: Students will understand how to analyze and interpret financial information to inform decision-making.
  • L1.2: Students will understand and use data-driven approaches to evaluate the merits of strategic business decisions to realize value from different stakeholder perspectives.
  • L1.3: Students will persuasively communicate the results of their analyses.

L2: Global Vision – Students will demonstrate understanding of the role of global context on organizational decision-making.

  • L2.1: Students will demonstrate an understanding of relevant issues that influence the global enterprise.
  • L2.2: Students will demonstrate an understanding of how global issues affect decision making.

L3: Ethical Leadership - Students will demonstrate understanding of the ethical dimension of leadership and decision making.

  • L3.1: Students will demonstrate an understanding of principles of effective leadership and its practical applications.
  • L3.2: Students will demonstrate understanding of legal and ethical lenses through which decisions are made.

L4: Entrepreneurial Spirit - Students will embrace opportunity as a vehicle to create value.

  • L4.1: Students will understand the role of value creation in a market economy.
  • L4.2: Students will demonstrate competence in identifying and evaluating alternative market opportunities through the lens of creating customer value.

Outcomes Data

We have gathered data for competency objectives utilizing several of our business acumen courses. The business acumen is made up of courses that undergraduate business students are required to take, making these courses ideal for evaluating progress on our strategic pillars and mission, as well as for our AACSB accreditation. One or two courses are identified to track progress for each objective in the undergraduate program. Specifically, instructors gather measurements to compare to performance benchmarks. When multiple measurements are obtained for a particular objective in a given course, these measurements are combined, when possible, to provide an overall assessment, allowing for a simplified display of progress. By utilizing a simplified, uniform display, we aim to allow potential outcome data users (faculty, students, parents, accreditors, etc.) to easily assimilate our progress.

Links to outcome data are provided below. Users can also hover over each display to obtain more details on the assessments.

Undergraduate Program: All Locations
Undergraduate Program: Statewide Only

Closing the Loop & Continuous Improvement

When assessments of program objectives are submitted, the submission form provides an opportunity to add “closing the loop” discussion, including changes that could be made. Importantly, we do not consider it a failure when students do not perform at benchmark for a particular objective; rather, we believe we can utilize this information to pursue improvements and ultimately help ensure student success.

Our closing the loop efforts focus can be summarized in two categories: changes to improve student performance and changes to improve the gathering of assessment measures.

For student performance, instructors have identified a variety of potential changes to spur progress. Examples of these include:

  • Re-structuring course delivery
  • Spending more time on objective-relevant content
  • More use of active learning, application of course material, and practice in low-risk scenarios
  • An effort to improve the understanding of who needs course information and why they need it
  • Introducing new assignments and
  • More emphasis on connecting content

In terms of improving the gathering of assessment measures, instructors have identified a variety of potential changes to this process. Examples of these include:

  • Consideration of adding measures
  • Re-writing assessment measures
  • Changing when to gather measures
  • Obtaining additional measures to effectively identify statewide campus participants
  • Standardizing incentives to ensure participation

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