Mission Statement

The mission of Butte College Business Education Department is to prepare students to be successful when entering the world of business and to continue in lifelong education. We value our students� success and place respect, accountability, and excellence as our core values. 
 
Vision statements specific to each of the Department of Business Education Programs are as follows:
�  The Accounting Program trains students to effectively record, analyze and utilize financial data.  We teach them marketable accounting skills, enhance their probability of success in any business profession, and prepare them to move forward towards completing their business education goals. 
�  The General Business Program prepares students to be successful as they enter and pursue careers in business fields such as small business management, marketing, and human resources, in both profit and non-profit organizations, operating in today�s global environment.    
�  The Economics Program provides students with intellectual and analytic tools necessary to gain an understanding of economic theory and policy as a way to address issues facing our society. 
�  The Real Estate Program prepares students to take the California Real Estate Sales and Brokers exams and successfully list, sell and invest in real property.

Program Description

The Department of Business Education includes four programs/disciplines:  Accounting, Economics, General Business(Marketing, Management and Small Business Management), and Real Estate.  In addition, the department has two major focuses, both of them central to the College�s mission:  The Business Administration Transfer Program and The Department of Business Education Career Programs.  

�      The Transfer Program offers an A.S. Degree and facilitates transfer to Bachelor of Science programs, such as the two degree programs offered by Chico State�s College of Business:   Business Administration (BADM) and Business Information Systems (BIS).   
�	The Transfer Program also offers and A.S.-T degree in Economics.
�      The Department of Business Education Career Programs (with certificates, Certificates of Achievement and A.S. degrees) develop and enhance students� work-related competencies.  These programs facilitate local economic development and workforce training as they help to create a skilled, professional, entry-level workforce in Butte and Glenn Counties, and offers opportunities for skills enhancement of existing personnel. 

The following certificates are currently available: 
�  Accounting Program Certificates:  Accounting Certificate of Achievement;  Account Clerk Certificate; Tax Preparer Certificate  
�  General Business Program Certificates:  Business Management Certificate of Achievement; Retail Management Certificate of Achievement; Marketing Certificate of Achievement; Small Business Institute Certificate; Business on the Web Certificate; Human Resources Certificate  
�  Real Estate Program Certificates:  Real Estate Certificate of Achievement; Real Estate Sales Person Certificate; Appraiser Certificate. 

The following Associate of Science (A.S.) degrees are currently available:
�  Business Administration AS (transfer degree to Chico State)
�  Business Administration AS-T (transfer degree to CSU schools)
�  Accounting 
�  Business Management (including 2 options:  Business Management and Small Business/Entrepreneurship) 
�  Marketing 
�  Real Estate.

Student Learning/Administrative Unit Outcomes

In reviewing the SLO discussions and actions taken to improve student learning, several specific strategies emerge:
1) Terminology and helping students learn the language of Business, Real Estate and Economics. All of the areas of business introduce students to new terms and we help the students embrace this new language using a variety of techniques including reading, repetition, in class practice, drills, quizzes and homework. Real Estate - Students often have problems with the complexity of Real Estate and how detail oriented you must be when writing up a sales contract, helping your client work thorough the financing of a new home, the Escrow procedures, and more. One instructor works with the students to create detailed notes in the margin of their text books to help them with the mastery of these terms and concepts.
2) Case studies are included in almost every class to bring relevance and news related content to help students see how the business environment affects decision making. In Econ specifically we continue to bring in current events and “Presidential” tweets on these subjects to make them more relevant, timely, and something ridiculously funny to capture the students attention and help with their retention of the topic. One adjunct faculty member reports using many news articles and breaking students into mixed-ability groups to answer economic questions with respect to current events.  
3) Area specific SLOs: 
In Accounting 2 we tend to have really high drop and fail rates (50%) due to the rigor, pace and amount of material we must cover in a semester.  If a student is struggling the first couple weeks of the semester in Acct 2, then we try move students into Accounting 20 - Intro to Accounting. Students who take Acct 20 before Acct 2 have success rates of 80% when taking Acct 2.  
General Business - Instructors indicated that they bring in current events in the form of guest speakers, articles, and real world cases.  This helps students to tie in what is happening in the world with business law in a very real and specific way. One instructor has students conduct a SWOT analysis as part of their culminating group project which allows for in-depth study and analysis of how business operate in an ever changing environment. 
Economics 2 - Students with limited math skills often struggle. However, students in regular attendance do better than those that might skip some lectures.  Additionally, in class practice sessions have been and will continue to be implemented in upcoming semesters.    
A worry is that now that the previous prerequisite of College-level Algebra is not being enforced, we are seeing in the Fall 2019 semester many unprepared and emotionally distraught students not being able to keep up with student with the appropriate preparation in mathematics.  

Standards/Goals for Student Achievement (Instruction Departments)

In looking at the Business Educations retention and success our numbers are as follows:
Accounting  


                      
Economics   
                    
Business 
                         
Real Estate  
                      
In looking at our numbers, Econ has the highest retention and success rates for our area. One thing to consider is that Econ offers GE Transfer courses and students must pass them before moving on in a transfer degree. Students often persist in transfer classes so they can limit the number of additional courses they have to take to transfer. This is also one of the reasons the college has such high retention and success numbers overall.
General business has very good retention rates and the success rates have an opportunity for growth.  Several factors, including AB 705 (and the elimination of placement testing) as well as the level of rigor in articulation courses contribute to the success rate.  Most of our students taking general business courses intend to transfer yet instructors teaching these courses are reporting decreasing writing skills from our students.  Without these critical writing skills, students struggle.  In pursuit of a solution, our department will be investigating the creation of a business writing skills unit in Canvas that could be assigned to students in all general business programs.
Real estate also has a good retention rate, and the success rate isn't bad at 71%. One thing to consider with our Real Estate classes is the extremely small size of this program and its classes. This size impacts the percent change when only one or two students do poorly or drop the class. 
In Accounting, our lowest retention and success area, we have two things to consider: 
1) Accounting is not a GE-transfer course and so students are not required to take these courses unless a business or accounting major. In this sense, students are more willing to "try" a class and see if they like it and then they may drop the class as "too hard," "too much homework," or just too many life events happening to them and they can't keep up with the work. 
2) Accounting is a rigorous topic and we have a lower success rate due to students not staying current with their homework and thereby dropping over the course of the semester. These are also 4 unit classes that can create a scheduling problem for some students due to the 2 hour block for the class.
In terms of degrees and certificates, econ, general business and real estate have seen a steady increase in awards confered.
With the addition of the new AST in General Business, awards conferred in Accounting have declined in the 2017 and 2018 academic years.

Standards/Goals for Student Achievement (All Other Departments)

N/a

Strategic Direction

The Business Education department supports the college in meeting its strategic direction and priorities by: 
Implementing Guided Pathways - The Business Education department originally had in our catalog a recommended sequence of study that was eliminated several years ago. As Guided Pathways has re-envisioned this same idea, we worked with Counseling office to outline our recommended sequence of study again. This has not been put onto the Butte College website as of today. We as a department are currently promoting the guided pathways decision tree and supporting degree and certificate information in several ways including billboards, banners and brochures in our building. This decision tree and recommended sequence of study has been available on the Business Education department web page for almost two years. We have also, recently, reviewed our strategic scheduling to ensure we are offering students a fair number of classes on MW and TTH, in mornings, afternoons and evenings. We have even conducted a recent student survey to ask our students for their feedback on our courses and the scheduling of our courses.  
Meeting enrollment targets and student achievement goals: Business Education works with our advisory group and our accounting discussion group to discuss ways to increase our course offerings and increase enrollments. We are currently going through program review and we are looking at enrollment, retention and success rates and how we might impact these in a positive way. We are also looking at ways to market our programs to the students more effectively on our website and at the college.
Fostering a Culture of Inclusiveness - In Business Education we work with our associate faculty to create consistency in our instruction and what the students experience in our courses. As an example of inclusiveness we are going through program review and recently surveyed our associate faculty who instruct our Business Law courses. We wanted their input on which course we should include in our program - Business Law, or the Legal Environment of Business. During the recent curriculum review, we held meetings and sent email communications to ask for their collaboration on changes to the textbooks and course outlines. We have also asked for student input into our program by creating a student survey to ask for their input.

Strengthening Professional Development - all Business Education faculty stay up-to-date on continuing education using both external courses, articles, etc., and internally using our professional development offerings at Butte and at our department meetings where we have discussions on podcasts and books that are helpful and relevant to our area.

Program Review

To follow are the program review recommendations and a status update on each:
 1)   Hire a new full-time general business instructor and another economics instructor.

We hired a new general business instructor, but continue to request an additional economics instructor.

 2)   Investigate why catalog no longer shows recommended sequence of study for each business major. 

Certificates and degrees requirements are now listed in recommended sequence of study. The new educational planning module the school is working to implement will further highlight recommended sequence of study.   

 3)    The door on the men’s restroom opens into the hallway; this is unsafe. This safety issue needs to be fixed ASAP!

Facilities has been notified of the issue.

4)BE rooms 105 a, b, c are small, overcrowded & not well ventilated. Student seating is not conducive to efficient group work. It is recommended that seating be re-arranged and to not schedule classes that incorporate group work into BE 105 a, b or c.

Seating could only be changed if instructors are willing to lose board space or reduce the number of seats.  Since instructors want maximize enrollment and accounting and economics classes require lots of board space, no changes have been made yet to seating arrangement. We are exploring alternative desk/chair combinations (used at Chico State) to make the seating more conducive to group work. Facilities has been notified of the issues with ventilation.

6)Staff and associate faculty morale survey is recommended to fully incorporate their input into unit planning and program review processes.

Associate faculty input is solicited on institute night and throughout the semester as instructors see one another.  A formal survey hasn’t been implemented in part due to time constraints. The department is also leery of soliciting input when it isn’t sure it has the power or will to make requested changes. In discussions with Associate faculty the overall comments are positive regarding collaboration, consistency and the helpfulness of full-time faculty. We strive to ensure our Associate faculty feel part of our team and we offer mentoring to new associate faculty as well.  

7)  Untapped potential exists for enrollment growth in the department. Modest growth in the number of Introduction to Business courses and in Economics is merited. 

Staffing economics sections has been extremely difficult. Two instructors were let go in 2016 because of ongoing instructional quality issues and one econ instructor was involved in a student equity project.  It has been very difficult to hire part-time instructors to replace these sections. After too many hours on the phone, Linkedin and surfing the internet looking for qualified instructors, we were able to staff Spring 2016 schedule. We have also lost one of our top Economics Associate faculty to Chico State which pays better. One of our current Associate faculty drives from Sacramento to teach here. To grow the enrollments in Econ we would need another full-time instructor or more part-time instructors available during peak hours. This was recommended by our prior Program Review, but this staffing has never occurred.

8)  Currently there do not appear to be any courses within any of the business programs that articulate with the high schools in the surrounding areas. The expectation is not for the department to accept agreements that don’t benefit students, but rather look into why agreements have not been renewed and pursue those discussions with high schools in an effort to offer agreements that do benefit students.

We have contacted Delia Buzatu who is responsible for articulation with local high schools and expressed our interest in articulating high school accounting classes for our Introduction to Accounting (Acct 20) class.  She speculated that some vocational education programs were defunded during the worst of the California budget crisis and so a number of these classes were dropped. The department remains open to articulating classes with equivalent subject matter.  Currently, we are discussing the articulation of a personal finance class from Lassen High School.  

Department Goals

Current goals -
1) Focus on teaching to improve retention and success for students. 
2) Continue to support associate faculty and include them in department discussions, curriculum and textbook decisions as we are doing in program review. Discussion with Acctg faculty on QB, Acct 128, P/R; with Business faculty on text books, course name changes and curriculum (Bus 8), etc.
3) Support students learning environment with proper seating.
4) Support instructors by providing the current tools (computers, podiums, overhead projectors) to do their work.
 5)   Marketing to the working professionals (connect students to certificates to build students skills)
6) Support students in our Start Up Club and Accounting Club with speakers, company tours and conferences.
7) Continue to build external relationships and reputation with the business leaders of Butte and Glenn counties.
8) Continue to explore an online AS-T degree and increase online course offerings to create a fully online degree.

Future Development Strategies

Requested Non-Financial Resources

Current Financial Resources

Augmentation Requests