Seidman develops business talent that advances sustainable growth in
West Michigan and the Great Lakes Region.
Through the exchange and application of knowledge from global and
diverse perspectives, we prepare learners to make ethically-informed
decisions that positively impact the economy, environment, and society.
Our distinctiveness is grounded in strong community collaborations,
applied scholarly contributions, innovative approaches to learning,
and a supportive culture.
Vision
Seidman sets the standard for business education by connecting
communities through multi-dimensional learning opportunities.
Values Statement
PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE: We continuously strive for
the highest quality in our personal, professional, and organizational endeavors.
Our three core values are: Learning, Accountability, and Engagement.
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
Sustaining a culture for the open exchange of ideas
Preparing learners to adapt to the future of work and society
ACCOUNTABILITY
We hold ourselves to:
Act in an ethically-informed manner
Be socially responsible
Welcome the diversity of ideas, people, and cultures
Promote an environment of transparency, trust, and cooperation
ENGAGEMENT
We intentionally connect and collaborate in an effort to:
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
Promote economic development
Planning Process
Seidman begins our planning process by gathering feedback from a
variety of stakeholders in the year leading up to initiation of a new
plan. Stakeholders include faculty, staff, students, alumni, and
members of the business community including members of our 12 advisory
boards. In our last planning cycle, we facilitated input sessions with
each of these stakeholder groups via Zoom to increase participation.
Feedback was reviewed and summarized from which draft strategies were
identified. Another round of feedback was solicited from stakeholders.
Through the shared governance feedback loop, administration, faculty,
and staff discussed drafts resulting in final agreement for the plan.
In total, four strategic initiatives were identified for the
2021-2026 plan. Faculty and staff were encouraged to sign up to work
on whichever initiative(s) they felt an affinity for and teams of
10-16 were formed for each initiative. These Action Teams as they are
known, are each led by a unit head who is ultimately accountable to
the Dean for their work. The Dean’s Office staff help monitor and
document progress as well as convene opportunities at College Wide
Meetings for input.
Collaboration
We regularly look for opportunities to collaborate with others within
the university when it makes sense. An example is an exploration we’ve
been leading at Seidman related to our Learner Success initiative and
implementing a new tool called Suitable which encourages student
engagement in meaningful co-curricular activities. We’ve brought the
idea to the university and are hopeful that there will be a broad
interest in adopting the tool which will amplify our pilot of the tool.
Another example that is still in the early stages is our work to
develop a new graduate program which will offer an opportunity for
mostly non-business majors to add skills and business acumen to
prepare them for contribution to the business community. This relates
to our initiative called Develop Distinctive and Relevant Curriculum.
Also related to this strategic initiative is our plan to map
recommended gen eds for business students. This likely will require
collaboration with other parts of the university.
Our initiative titled Multi-Dimensional Approaches to Learning will
require collaboration with groups like e-learning and FTLC at GVSU in
order to continue training our faculty for changing learning styles.
One early collaboration with e-learning was our “build-a-thon”
workshops to assist our faculty in preparing to teach effectively in
Blackboard Ultra.
Building Capacity
This is a perennial challenge especially given how lean Seidman is
with both faculty and staff at this time. We continue to advocate for
filling necessary positions so that we are not in a position to
contemplate shrinking the college in order to maintain accreditation
standards. Within our existing staffing levels, we ask for people to
engage where their interests align rather than force effort. We find
this leads to greater engagement and enthusiasm for the work. However,
these two strategies are often not enough.
Over the past few years, we have trimmed our Seidman committee work
such as eliminating the strategic planning committee, in order to
focus our energy on key priorities. We continue to look for places to
prune our efforts and making our internal processes more efficient. We
also accept slower progress on non-high priority work while we
expedite a focus on work that’s crucial such as developing our
societal impact efforts which is an imperative for AACSB as for the
communities we serve.
