Global Business, Entrepreneurship majors being phased out

By Jenna Rossiter | November 8, 2016 8:21am
global_business

School of Business Dean Robin Anderson demonstrates the "T-Shaped" skills he hopes his students will leave the University with.

Media Credit: Annika Gordon / The Beacon

The global business and entrepreneurship majors are being phased out and will be discontinued after the Class of 2019 graduates. Both programs will continue as a minor, and the Entrepreneurship Scholars Program (E-Scholars) will continue as well. Current sophomores were the last to declare either as their major.

Many freshmen came to UP with their minds set on majoring in global business or entrepreneurship, like freshman economics major Camille Bismonte, who planned on double-majoring in economics and global business, already with credits and aspirations to minor Spanish.

“Here I was taking Spanish 301 with the idea that I was taking the class to get ahead, because to graduate with global business one of the requirements is to study abroad with the language you had been studying,” Bismonte said.

Bismonte applied last month to study abroad next year in Spain.

“My parents aren’t as willing to let me study abroad since it’s less necessary than it was with global business,” she said.

Those freshmen who are questioning what their major will be can turn to any of the academic advisers in the business department for help. And Robin Anderson, dean of the School of Business, predicts that both minors will increase in quantity of students and quality of courses over the next years.

Part of this decision was made because Anderson felt the majors were not giving students the “T-Shaped” education the School of Business strives for, where students gain a wide range or “breadth” of technical skills, and then focus on one area in “depth”.

Senior Global Business major Katie Heitkemper was able to experience all that the Global Business major had to offer.

“I understand the reasoning behind a ‘T-Shaped’ education, where the curriculum is centered on a more technical major like accounting or finance, but I do not think it is necessary to remove the major,” Heitkemper said. “The Global Business major, and E-Scholars program aligned perfectly with my passion for travel and entrepreneurship, and it was a large factor in attending the University of Portland.”

Anderson and his fellow faculty teaching these entrepreneurship classes say that most students create their businesses many years past graduation. Initially, they need the skills from operations and technology management, financing or marketing majors to start their career and get the depth and breadth of the “T-Shaped” education.

Previously, global business was only offered as a major to business students, but it is now being offered to all students as a minor, making it accessible to those with more credit hours in international studies.

Faculty limitations were another reason for getting rid of the entrepreneurship major, Anderson said.

“The faculty in our group, which we call entrepreneurship and innovation management, also teach the business classes in our core, three classes that they’re responsible for,” Anderson said. “We felt like we really did not have the capacity to do an excellent job of the business core, the graduate program, and the major, but we could do so with an excellent minor.”

According to Anderson, there were two options for making entrepreneurship top-notch on campus — either adding more faculty, which was unlikely, or focusing on the minor, which they chose as the best option.

The E-Scholars Program will also be increasing from 20 members to 50, as a result of redirecting past attention given to the major.

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