Fredonia University Senate

Executive Summaries of Subcommittee Reports,
School of Business & Political Economy

Subcommittee: Master Plan
Membership: Hibschweiler (Chair), Jankowski, McKeown, Parai, Seyedian, Stoll

Academic departments housed at the College have a unique opportunity to interact with the local community. This is especially true for accounting and business. Creation of an adequately resourced school, staffed by terminally qualified faculty, would lend itself to the creation of community partnerships that would be beneficial to all participants. For example, labs created to service school students could be used to hold application-training seminars for the community. Additionally, qualified accounting faculty could offer continuing education programs to local practitioners, who now attend programs in requirements. To date, these activities have not been pursued actively by business and accounting faculty, because of inadequate facilities and staffing considerations.

Creation of a school may prove to represent a unique opportunity to improve the offerings and stature of each of the disciplines involved. Nonetheless, creation of a school or an other administrative structure will not serve as a substitute for adequately funding departments.

Subcommittee: Exploring Cooperative Curricula
Membership: Sarkar (Chair), Aghazadeh, Lanze, Plucinski, Greutman (student)

The committee did not identify any additional areas for curricular cooperation. It felt faculty are currently involved in full teaching loads relative to their current disciplines.

Subcommittee: Business Plan
Membership: Krohn (Chair), Foeller, Forbes (student), Goodman, McMahon, Olsavsky

Increasing enrollment & student quality: Any marketing plan for the school will have to address the varied reasons for the declines in the separate departments. The term "school" itself will attract interest since it imparts a connotation of quality. However, careful analyses will need to be performed and targeted publicity materials will need to be developed.

Improving recruitment of faculty: The creation of a school should assist in the recruitment of faculty in all disciplines. However, a major concern is that the creation of a school may involve an increased workload, particularly in the service area.

Facilitating development efforts: The creation of a school should be an asset in the procurement of funds from major stakeholders. A concerted effort will need to be developed between the school and the various on-campus support agencies: College Relations and Information Services, Alumni Affairs, and Editorial Services and Printing.

Promotion of the school: A significant mission of the school will be to create news consistently. This should be accomplished through the incorporation of the qualities of the four departments into a mission that emphasizes the interconnectedness of government and business in relation to the health of the economy.

Subcommittee: By-Laws
Membership: Kraus (Chair), Telly, Foeller, Swinarski

The departments of Business Administration, Economics, and Political Science at SUNY Fredonia establish these bylaws for the proper functioning of a School of Business, Economics, and Politics. The central idea of the School is that the constituent departments are joining together in a School where they will enjoy certain benefits while they retain their separate identity and autonomy to govern their departments. The responsibilities of the School itself are in areas that are general to all departments, such as cooperative academic efforts, recruitment of students, publicity, generation of activities and speakers, and fund raising. We hope that over time the departments and their chairs should work to develop areas of cooperation that support the interests of the diverse departments. The working assumptions behind the bylaws will point us clearly to the meaning of any areas over which disputes arise.

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