Two degrees in the College of Business to be discontinued
Students wanting to teach business in high schools will no longer be able receive that degree from USU.
The College of Business has discontinued the business information technology and education and the market education bachelor’s and master’s degrees, said Clifford Skousen, senior associate dean in the College of Business. The official discontinuation of these degrees will come with the consent of the Board of Trustees at its January 2008 meeting, Skousen said. The proposal was approved last month by the Board of Trustees.
The college decided to suspend the programs in December 2005, according to the Request For Program Discontinuance filed by the college. This decision came after an increase in students in the Management Information Systems program in the 1990s and a decrease in enrollment in the BITE and market eduction programs, Skousen said.
“When the decision was made to suspend the program, we had less than 20 students in the program,” Skousen said.
The students who were already in the program are able to finish and receive their degrees, said Peggy Buttars, academic adviser in the College of Business. Six students are still finishing and will complete the program this year, with some doing student teaching next fall, Buttars said. Each student had an individual plan worked out for them to complete their degree, Skousen said.
Some students were upset about the discontinuation of the programs, Skousen said, noting many of them were in the major and said they really believed in the program. Many of the local and in-state secondary business teachers received their degree from USU, which has a strong reputation, Skousen said.
“Coming out of the program, (the degree) is looked upon as a primary source of highly qualified teachers in this area,” Skousen said.
USU used to offer the only program in the state that allowed students to receive their degree in teaching business at a secondary level, but that is no longer the case, Skousen said. Southern Utah University, Utah Valley State College and Weber State University now offer programs similar to the BITE and market education at USU, and this was one of the reasons the College of Business decided to discontinue the programs, Skousen said.
The increase in student interest and enrollment in the management information systems degree was the other reason the proposal cited for discontinuing the BITE and market education degrees. When the MIS program grew, more money was needed for faculty and the program overall, Skousen said.
“Difficult decisions have to be made with limited resources,” Skousen said.
Amid this discontinuation of degrees, the MIS program received a new name. Formally called the business information systems degree, the college changed its name to the current one, said John Johnson, department head of management information systems. While the name has changed, the requirements for the degree remain the same, Buttars said. This change was mainly to align the program with the rest of the nation, Buttars said.
“It distinguishes (the student) as an MIS professional,” Johnson said.
Most universities have changed their degrees to a management emphasis to make their students more marketable, Johnson said. USU differs from the University of Utah and Brigham Young University in having the MIS in a separate department, as opposed to part of the accounting department.
-alison.baugh@aggiemail.usu.edu