Vision

The Business and Accounting programs will be students’ preferred choice for a high-quality business education delivered in a liberal-arts environment.

Combined Mission for Business and Accounting programs

The Business and Accounting programs graduate ethically-aware prospective business and civic leaders who are effective communicators, team leaders, critical thinkers, and problem solvers.

We fulfill the mission by:

• Admitting high-potential students from the Midwest and beyond;
• Offering programs that embrace the knowledge, skills, and perspectives of the liberal arts;
• Using effective teaching and learning strategies with appropriate technologies to prepare students for rapidly evolving business careers;
• Engaging with business professionals, civic leaders, and community members to enhance student learning and readiness for the workforce, and;
• Emphasizing faculty scholarly activity related to contributions to practice and teaching/learning with a secondary emphasis on discipline-based scholarship.

Core Values

• Student Learning
  • Faculty use effective pedagogies to address the varied learning styles of students.
  • Assignments, projects, and other learning activities reinforce the development of creative and critical-thinking skills, effective communication skills, technological proficiency, ethical awareness, and life-long learning.
• Excellence 
  • Faculty members maintain high standards of achievement for student performance.
  • Students demonstrate high levels of achievement on learning outcomes through course performance and results on nationally-normed examinations.
  • Faculty members demonstrate excellence through their teaching and learning, scholarship impacting practice and pedagogy, and service to the profession and community.
• Accountability
  • Faculty exercise responsible stewardship of the curriculum, maintaining its relevance to current and future business practices.
  • Faculty remain current in their disciplines and use effective instructional methods to enhance student learning.
  • Faculty assess student achievement of defined learning outcomes and implement changes to the curriculum and pedagogy to improve student learning.
• Collegiality
  • Faculty, staff, and students build an atmosphere of mutual respect.
  • Faculty and staff share ideas, support others’ efforts, and interact with others professionally.
• Social and Corporate Responsibility
  • Curriculum design and course assignments address the significant issues facing society and businesses, such as ethnic and cultural diversity, environmental sustainability, human rights, sustainable development, and other emerging issues
  • The School provides resources to hire and/or develop faculty prepared to conduct research and provide instruction related to social and corporate responsibility.
• Ethics and Integrity
  • Students, faculty and staff interact with others in an ethical and professional manner.
  • Faculty teach approaches to ethical reasoning.
  • Students demonstrate ethical-reasoning skills.

Separate Mission for the Accounting Program

Building on a liberal arts and sciences education, accounting graduates will integrate analytical, research, communication, interpersonal and critical thinking skills with business and financial knowledge to be effective financial professionals and prospective leaders.