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Strategic Plan for Seidman College of Business

Context For Planning

Seidman College of Business is comprised of five academic units - School of Accounting, Economics Department, Finance Department, Management Department and Marketing Department. We utilize a cross-disciplinary process for developing and managing our strategic plan. Annual strategic initiatives are evaluated each year for relevance and priority. The Seidman Strategic Planning Committee provides ongoing strategic management of the plan. Each year, the Dean's Office updates metrics for the prior year and provides a college wide reporting to the GVSU strategic plan. 

The College's current plan has provided guidance since 2016. We have five major strategic priority areas. They are:
  • Develop distinctive curriculum
  • Attract/retain/support students
  • Grow/strengthen engagement with stakeholders
  • Increase professional development
  • Build the Seidman brand
Significant effort during the 2016-2021 Seidman Strategic Plan has been devoted to updating our MBA programs as well as innovating around undergraduate BBA. This work is intended to ensure relevancy and embed applied learning for Seidman students. We will continue to innovate as we identify new ways to serve the adult, lifelong learner and meet the talent needs of the communities we serve.

Mission

Seidman develops business talent that contributes to the economic growth of West Michigan and the Great Lakes region. Through the exchange and application of knowledge with a global perspective, our students learn to make informed decisions, act ethically, and take initiative. Our distinctiveness is grounded in strong community collaborations, applied scholarly contributions, innovative approaches to learning, and a supportive environment.

Value Statement

Pursuit of Excellence : We continuously strive for the highest quality in our personal, professional, and organizational endeavors. 


Learning: We foster the intellectual curiosity of our Seidman, local, and global communities by: 
creating, expanding, and applying knowledge; 
enhancing and encouraging critical thinking; 
developing a global perspective; and 
sustaining a culture for the open exchange of ideas.

Accountability: We hold ourselves responsible to: 
act in an ethical manner; 
be socially responsible citizens; 
welcome the diversity of ideas, people, and cultures; and 
promote an environment of transparency, trust, and cooperation. 

Engagement: We intentionally connect and collaborate in an effort to: 
continuously reflect on ethics in our personal and professional lives; 
emphasize mutual understanding; support diversity of thought; 
foster intellectual curiosity and innovation; provide opportunity and professional growth; 
honor our strong and lasting business and community relationships; and 
promote economic development.

Strategic Priorities, outcomes, and key objectives

Strategic Priority Area 1: Actively engage learners at all levels.

Outcome A: Grand Valley's learning environment is personal, challenging, and transformational, supporting excellent academic programs and co-curricular opportunities.

Objective 1.A.1

Attract/Retain/Support Students - Increase Professional Development Opportunities (Student Non-Credit)

Baseline

2016 = 666 attendance (partial program, first year rollout) 2017 = 2819 attendance (first full year rollout)

Progress

2021 Status
Substantive Progress
During 2021, we were still returning to a new normal following the height of the COVID pandemic. We offered the TRACKS programming; however, student attendance was abysmal for all events except for the Career Fair.

2020 Status
Achieved
The TRACKS program quickly moved to virtual delivery for most of 2020 due to the pandemic.

Objective 1.A.3

Attract/Retain/Support Students - Coordinated Seidman Tutoring Support

Baseline

2019-20 will be the first full academic year we will have data on student usage

Progress

2021 Status
Achieved
The 2021-22 academic year reflects a "return to normal" function of our tutoring function. It is the third academic year that we have had Seidman tutoring coordinated out of Allendale as part of the overall GVSU tutoring offering. This collaboration has worked well and ensures greater consistency of tutor selection, training and reporting. We continue to offer drop-in tutoring at the L. William Seidman Center for students taking ACC 212, ACC 213, ECO 210, ECO 211 and FIN 320.

2020 Status
Achieved
The 2019-20 academic year was the first full year to have Seidman tutoring coordinated by the CLAS Academic Advising Center. This creates efficiencies and ensures consistent processes for students. CLAS also monitors usage for us. This has proven to be a workable solution moving forward.

Outcome B: Grand Valley is diverse and inclusive.

Objective 1.B.1

Attract/Retain/Support Students - Increase pathways for non-traditional students: Strengthen Community College Engagement The goal of this work is to identify administrative obstacles students transferring from community colleges to Seidman experience and work to mitigate those obstacles.

Baseline

2017 Data: Of the GRCC transfer students who transferred to GVSU between fall 2014 and winter 2017 and who were declared business majors when they started at GVSU, 41.1% had graduated from GVSU as a business major; 43.4% had graduated from GVSU as either a business or other major and 31.6% were still attending GVSU as a business (28.2%) or other major (3.4%).

Progress

2021 Status
Achieved
We regularly monitor the graduation rate of our transfer students and continue to post good results. Another ongoing aspect of this objective is to develop articulation agreements with community colleges to increase pathways for transfer students to continue their education at Seidman College.

2020 Status
Achieved
The intent of this effort was to learn more about the impediments and/or roadblocks for students wishing to transfer from a CC to GVSU. Significant progress has been made understanding transfer student success at Seidman, deepening our relationships with members of the GRCC Business Department and ultimately signing a transfer agreement. In 2019 we identified a need to define a new metric likely based on analysis of a cohort. The COVID-19 pandemic up-ended this work. However, the team persisted in their work with GRCC which included a signed transfer agreement this winter.

Outcome C: Grand Valley has mutually beneficial relationships, partnerships, collaborations, and connections with local, state, national, and world communities.

Objective 1.C.1

Grow/Strengthen Engagement with Business and Community - Connect Academics with Seidman Business Centers

Baseline

Data for 2018 (CEI, VAGTC, FOBI, SBDC West Michigan and KBEI): # faculty collaborating with Seidman Centers (Research or Student Projects): 28 (duplicated number...a faculty may be collaborating with more than one Center) # students attending center events: 413 (duplicated number...a student may have attended more than one Center event) # classes where Center staff or reps are engaged in the classroom with Seidman students: 23

Progress

2021 Status
Substantial Progress
The Seidman Centers are an integral part of Seidman's distinctiveness - strong community collaborations and innovative approaches to learning. We continue to identify new ways to engage students in applied learning opportunities offered through the Centers.

2020 Status
Substantial Progress
The Seidman Outreach Centers - like the rest of the College - had to adjust plans significantly in 2020. Therefore, rather than report on the same metrics which took a beating due to the impact on events during the pandemic, we'll highlight successes and innovations for the year.

Outcome D: Grand Valley supports innovative teaching, learning, integrative scholarly and creative activity, and the use of new technologies.

Objective 1.D.1

Develop Distinctive Curriculum - Core Curriculum Review & Revision

Progress

2021 Status
Substantial Progress
The Core Curriculum Review & Revision Task Force has devoted significant energy over the past year to reviewing and revising the core competencies for the Seidman pre-core and core curriculum as new/revised course pilots slowed for the year.

2020 Status
Substantive Progress
We continue to learn through pilots and push ourselves to package content in new ways. Significant progress has been made embedding Excel into the business core via CIS 221. COVID made it harder to interact with students for recruiting into BUS 180 and BUS 280 for 2020-21, and neither course ran this academic year. Our use of BUS 380 special topics classes has matured based on our learning of what topics resonate (e.g. work styles, working in teams, personal finance) and what doesn't (e.g. Friday classes). A revamped MST program was launched utilizing stackable badges.

Strategic Priority Area 2: Further develop exceptional personnel.

Outcome C: Grand Valley has mutually beneficial relationships, partnerships, collaborations, and connections with local, state, national, and world communities.

Objective 2.C.1

Grow/Strengthen Engagement with Businesses & Community - Businesses

Baseline

While more work needs to be done to develop metrics to track engagement with the business community. An initial measure is the number of companies that recruit at our "Careers in _________" events which all of our academic units offer. The baseline for this measure is 2017 with 127 companies recruiting.

Progress

2021 Status
Substantive Progress
Career Services has taken over running most of the Seidman Careers In... events for our academic units (e.g. ACC, ECO, MKT) so recruiting figures below are aggregated and provided by Career Services for these events as well as other Seidman events coordinated through Career Services (e.g. FIN). We are beginning to review FAP information in Digital Measures to get a handle on community involvement of our faculty such as board membership. Our Seidman Series of webinars has slowed due to declining attendance as the community "re-opened" following the pandemic.

2020 Status
Substantive Progress
Unfortunately due to COVID-19 meeting restrictions, our Careers in... events were not held in 2020. However, Seidman College has been very busy in 2020 responding to pressing needs in the business community brought on by the pandemic. Examples include: new webinar series in partnership with the GR Chamber, connecting students with businesses to provide free project support through LendGR, ramp up in resources offered by the State SBDC Office and the West Michigan SBDC Region Office in helping connect businesses with Federal Aid.

Outcome D: Grand Valley supports innovative teaching, learning, integrative scholarly and creative activity, and the use of new technologies.

Outcome E: Grand Valley strategically allocates its fiscal, human, and other institutional resources.

Objective 2.E.1

Increase Professional Development Opportunities - Scholarly Effort

Baseline

0 Teams

Progress

2021 Status
Achieved
Our Research & Scholarship Learning Community is active and growing. It now numbers twelve regular attendees with others dropping in as topics interest and time allows.

2020 Status
Achieved
Although this objective has been achieved, it is worth noting that we have seen steady engagement in our Research & Scholarship Learning Community.

Objective 2.E.3

Increase Professional Development Opportunities - EMBA We must build our pipeline of faculty prepared to teach in the EMBA if we are to be successful growing this offering.

Baseline

12 faculty

Progress

2021 Status
Minimal Progress
Given the market conditions, we did not plan to offer the EMBA in 2021. As we resume the program in 2022, building bench strength to teach in the EMBA will be priority.

2020 Status
Substantive Progress
We continue to build our faculty "bench" to teach at the graduate level. We do this through professional development and new hires. We are currently at 16 faculty who are prepared to teach in the EMBA program.

Strategic Priority Area 3: Ensure the alignment of institutional structures and functions.

Outcome D: Grand Valley supports innovative teaching, learning, integrative scholarly and creative activity, and the use of new technologies.

Objective 3.D.1

Develop Distinctive Curriculum & Attract/Retain/Support Students - Increase flexible scheduling options for students

Progress

2021 Status
Substantial Progress
The hybrid Professional MBA program is a key part of our graduate offering. Enhancements to several Seidman classrooms have enabled these hybrid courses. In order to ensure effective technology usage, we invested in "Modality" student workers. As a result, we have maintained a higher level of hybrid delivery post-pandemic.

2020 Status
Substantial Progress
COVID drove a rapid and expansive move to online delivery in March 2020 which persisted through the fall '20 semester. Seidman College made the transition fairly smoothly aided by our prior work through the Learning Communities to engage faculty in deepening and sharing expertise in hybrid/online teaching.

Objective 3.D.3

Develop Distinctive Curriculum - New MBA Program The MBA program was revamped to become a cohort based offering with a lock-step curriculum which ensures that they can complete their MBA in 22 months. Previous data suggested a significant range in completion times with some extending beyond six years. All courses are now delivered in a hybrid format which required development of all courses. The first graduates will complete in June 2020.

Baseline

0 MBA hybrid courses offered 48 fall starts (fall 2016)

Progress

2020 Status
Achieved
The re-designed Professional MBA program continues to be well received. We graduated our first three cohorts in 2020 - two in the summer and one at the end of the fall semester. Feedback was gathered from these first graduating cohorts. We're working on continuous improvements in response to the input.

2019 Status
Substantial Progress
The Professional MBA program has been well received and continues to increase enrollment with plans to go to two cohorts starting each fall and winter semester starting in 2020-21.

Strategic Priority Area 4: Enhance the institution's image and reputation.

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