Strategic Plan

Continuing the Trajectory of Academic Excellence
Merrick School of Business Strategic Plan 2011 – 2015

(Approved by the Merrick School Faculty Senate May 2011 and the Dean’s Advisory Board June 2011)

This strategic plan reflects the development process and intent of the Merrick School of Business’ Strategic Plan. An impressive amount of thought and effort by 150 faculty, staff, students, administrators, alumni and business leaders contributed to the development of this Plan. Through focused discussions with our internal and external constituents, MSB explored the thoughts of the community and discovered where each group hopes the business school will be in five years. Not only was our strategic vision formed from these collective voices, but three overarching values deemed critical to our success emerged:

Quality: We must be recognized for the strength of our curriculum, our commitment to learning outcomes, and faculty excellence. Our AACSB International accreditation is a recognized signal of quality in the marketplace. However, we must go beyond these high standards to ensure that our graduates are prepared for the complexities and competitiveness of the global marketplace.

Learner-centeredness: With teaching being fundamental to our mission, business disciplines being a necessary vehicle to organizing knowledge, and scholarship being key to a vibrant learning environment, we must be a learner-centered community comprised of students, faculty, staff and alumni. As a collaborative, inclusive community we value engaged learning, scholarship, responsible behavior, diversity, courageous leadership, global awareness, and innovative partnerships.

Community engagement: The next generation of successful business schools will be characterized by a broad range of community partnerships needed to leverage institutional capacity and enhance quality. Business schools must become more proactive in taking the campus to the community rather than expecting the community always to come to the campus.

As one of four academic divisions in the University of Baltimore, a priority in developing the Merrick School’s new strategic plan was to ensure its alignment with the strategic initiatives of the University and the University System of Maryland. Powering Maryland Forward, the theme of the University System of Maryland’s strategic plan, examines the education, economic and leadership challenges in the state. Developed in 2011, it focuses on helping the state of Maryland achieve its goal of 55 percent college completion while maintaining academic quality; transforming the academic model to enhance student learning and success; and ensuring Maryland’s competitiveness in the new economy. Consistent with the USM 2020 plan, UB’s strategic plan, Expanding the Shared Vision, outlines four key elements:

• Enhancing the learning experience at UB as measured by retention and graduation rates, student satisfaction, and job placement,
• Growing headcount to 8,000 to serve state and workforce needs,
• Achieving national ranking and recognition in select academic areas, and
• Securing the necessary resources to fully implement and support the University’s vision.

The Merrick Vision and Mission

Vision — To be a school of choice for students, faculty, and business leaders.

Mission — To provide exceptional learning experiences that facilitate the transformation and empowerment of students into knowledgeable, responsive business professionals and leaders.

Continuing our trajectory of academic excellence is the focus of this strategic plan. The Merrick School vision is to be a school of choice for students with great potential, faculty with strong research and teaching capabilities, and business leaders with high expectations for thought leadership and talent. As a learning community, our mission is to transform and empower students, while remaining true to our legacy of serving non-traditional and first-generation college students. The key to student success is an intellectual and professional learning environment that brings theory to practice. We at Merrick are dedicated to providing exactly that as we pursue our vision and accomplish our mission by way of the objectives laid out in this Plan.

The Merrick School: Building on Strengths, Responding to Challenges

The Merrick School has continuously been accredited by AACSB-International since 1983, a sign of our commitment to academic excellence. We are 26,000 alumni strong with more than an 85-year history of serving the academic and business communities. We are proud of our unique heritage of serving non-traditional students, many of whom are first generation college students. It is an important ingredient to the rich diversity in population and perspective in the classroom.

In 2008, we launched an effort to significantly increase research output, develop new program offerings, create minors and certificates as alternative access points to business and management education, and expand the experiential learning opportunities for our students, all while solidifying our long history of traditional strengths and rising undergraduate and graduate enrollment. As a direct result of this effort, the Merrick School gained national recognition by US News & World Report for both our undergraduate and graduate programs. This unprecedented growth and national recognition during difficult economic times has brought new challenges requiring creative solutions and new opportunities requiring strategies to mine. This Strategic Plan is responsive to these challenges and opportunities, as well as the changing landscape of the 21st century business education. Essential to achieving our Mission of transforming and empowering our students will be our response to the following challenges and opportunities:

• The faculty is the primary driver of success in achieving our Mission. It is essential that the School’s faculty is at full strength in order to better enhance existing programs and to develop innovative new programs. The Merrick School remains committed to recruiting, developing, and retaining a faculty recognized for both innovative academic programs and rigorous research relevant for the advancement of theory, practice and teaching pedagogy.
• Non-traditional and first generation students, important to the diversity of perspective in the classroom, need support in navigating their college experience. Significant support services include career services, advising and mentoring, internships, international study and other experiential learning initiatives. Our ability to deliver these services is dependent upon the adequacy of resources necessary for the effective design, development, and delivery of these initiatives.
• Our curricula and faculty are expected to yield talented professionals who can solve complex business problems that transcend disciplines and geographies. Traditional models of teaching and learning will require adaptation to meet this challenge.
• Students, faculty and administration are increasingly expected to participate in the global higher education community when resources to support such participation are more difficult to obtain.

Plan Priorities

Five equally important priorities drive the Strategic Plan. They are inherently interwoven and mutually reinforcing. They collectively position the Merrick School to achieve its Mission of transforming and empowering its students. The priorities are to:

1. enhance students’ academic performance and career growth;
2. attract and retain top, diverse faculty;
3. create a culture of innovation that delivers distinctive programs responsive to market needs;
4. prepare students to succeed in a global market place; and
5. secure the financial and corporate support that is needed to advance the Mission of the School.

Garnering additional finance resources is central to the pace of the implementation of the strategic plan. Implementation has already begun in some cases and the School will strive to bring along the implementation of all the priorities on an equal footing as additional resources are identified to support the plan. Continued institutional support is essential as is an increased level of philanthropic support from alumni and friends.

Priority 1: Enhance Student’s Academic Performance and Career Growth

The complexities and competitiveness of the global marketplace demand that our graduates enter the workforce fully equipped, well-rounded, and focused on their proposed paths to success. Functional skills are not enough for success; to be competitive, students must be critical thinkers who can comprehensively explore issues and ideas before formulating an opinion. They must be able to think creatively and communicate effectively. They must have a high degree of emotional intelligence including the ability to take responsibility for their emotions and understand how the choices they make affect their professional relationships. The primary objectives aligned with this strategic priority include:

1. Create a culture that demands and rewards rigorous and effective teaching.

• Demonstrate continuous improvement in course design, delivery and content to inspire student learning.
• Develop a series of ‘master teacher’ workshops to support faculty development.
• Assess course rigor and incorporate it into annual faculty performance reviews. 
• Streamline assessment to measure student learning outcomes and expedite the curriculum development process to support continuous improvement.

2. Provide a collaborative and rich learning experience. 

• Promote critical thinking, complex reasoning, and communication skills in all courses.
• Develop curricula that build and reinforce skills required to solve complex problems that transcend disciplines and geographies. Promoting cross boundary investigation of important business challenges and embracing interdisciplinary thinking are critical in accomplishing this objective.
• Augment the applied orientation of the curriculum by enhancing real world managerial content of all courses, engaging students in applied projects, and featuring guest speakers.

3. Ensure that undergraduate students have the requisite skills and competencies to succeed in the business program.

• Set competitive undergraduate admission standards targeted at the median for business schools in the University System of Maryland and enforce a strong pre-requisite structure, with the potential for higher standards in the more technical, complex majors.
• Build and implement honors programs offering value-added co-curricular activities for high potential and high achieving students.
• Promote business minors as an access point for students not meeting admission standards for an undergraduate degree program in business.
• Redesign undergraduate gateway courses to ensure students have the necessary analytical and communication skills for success.
• Conduct a cross-disciplinary program for all new undergraduate business students to orient them to the study habits, conduct and mindsets that are necessary for academic and professional success.

4. Ensure that graduate students have the requisite skills and competencies to succeed in the business program.

• Set competitive undergraduate admission standards and review course waiver policy to ensure that student have the requisite knowledge and skill sets.
• Develop and promote post-baccalaureate certificate programs for students not wishing to pursue a formal, degree program.
• Redesign graduate foundation courses and/or the course waiver policy to ensure students have the necessary analytical and communication skills for success.
• Conduct a comprehensive orientation program for all incoming graduate students to orient them to the study habits, conduct and mindsets that are necessary for academic and professional success.

5. Enhance support for the professional development of our students. This includes equipping them with social networking skills to better navigate their academic and professional careers.

• Enhance expectations and standards for students, including inculcating a code of civility and conduct that supports a culture of respect for life-long learning, for their profession, and for the local and global communities of which they are a part.
• Expand professional advising services to provide more personalized experiences.
• Build strategic partnerships with regional, national, and global employers that source the Merrick School for talent.
• Expand proactive outreach to students to increase their involvement in a larger array of opportunities such as student government and school decision making, study abroad programs, and academic support.
• Expand student participation in internship programs and practica.
• Increase student participation in faculty research, particularly for students wishing to pursue graduate and advanced degrees.

6. Continuously raise student performance and satisfaction.

• Develop and implement improved measures of student satisfaction and student learning outcomes.
• Cultivate a culture focused on driving student performance as documented in our assurance of learning plan.

Priority 2: Attract and retain high quality, diverse faculty

The faculty is the primary driver of success in achieving our Mission. Faculty add significant value to our students and their employers with world-class teaching; to the community at large with generating knowledge and providing national leadership in this pursuit; and to the business community, non-profit organizations, and the government by providing service. Attracting and retaining high quality and diverse faculty requires clear identification of appropriate peer and aspirant schools that reflect the Merrick School’s balance of undergraduate and graduate programs and our vision to enhance our national reputation. It also requires the alignment of faculty incentives consistent with national norms and our aspirant schools and the configuration of faculty workload portfolios to better leverage individual strengths in teaching, research and service. The primary objectives aligned with this strategic priority include:

1. Transition to a culture of meritocracy.

• Implement a variable portfolio model for tenured faculty in 2011-12 and revise it as appropriate in view of our five-year goal of being a top ranked business school.
• Enhance our national visibility and national rankings by creating strong incentives for publications in leading journals and for national leadership roles. Publicize our national visibility and national rankings to build our credibility with students, employers, and the community.
• Revisit relative values assigned to our current journal categories, particularly to those in A and B categories, to ensure that they reflect national and peer-school norms.

2. Promote faculty excellence.

• Promote excellence with innovative course content and pedagogy designed to ensure that our students receive comprehensive business education.
• Allocate resources and provide incentives that promote high performance in teaching, research, and service to the local and national communities.
• Explore approaches for recognition based on excellence in long-term performance in teaching, research, and service.

3. Reward research and service contributions that enhance our national visibility, research contributions that make an impact on the business community, and teaching and service contributions that enhance our credibility with the local community.

4. Attract and retain high-quality, diverse faculty.

• Work to align faculty salaries commensurate with their long-term performance and AACSB norms for accredited public universities.
• Increase research infrastructure support to include additional research assistants, databases, journal and software libraries, and technical support for carrying out research.
• Provide supplemental financial support for assistant professors through the tenure decision.
• Develop a competitive summer research program to support high-value research.

5. Exercise creativity and commitment in recruiting criteria and flexibility in salaries to attract minority candidates; have our top faculty (from another discipline, if necessary) nurture and mentor them.

Priority 3: Create a culture of innovation that delivers distinctive programs responsive to market needs

While pockets of innovative practice exist within the Merrick School, there remains a habit of incremental change based on established academic practice. Given the expected uncertainty of the global marketplace and the significant shifts occurring in the American higher education system, MSB must reorganize itself to encourage and reward both incremental and radical innovation in its programs and their delivery. These programs and processes must add significant value to students and the markets in which they will operate. Increasing scarcity of resources requires continuous redesign of courses, degrees, and organizational processes, as well as the creation of new initiatives that may disrupt or displace existing MSB organizational structures. The primary objectives aligned with this strategic priority include:

1. Promote and reward innovation within the Merrick School.

• Introduce “contribution to MSB innovation” as a component in all MSB faculty and staff annual performance reviews.
• Conduct continuous environmental scanning and benchmarking of best practices in management education and disseminate this knowledge within the academy.
• Promote a culture of collaboration and experimentation where internal and external constituencies form ‘communities of practice’ around innovation, and continuously share ideas and initiatives through workshops and other media.

2. Support innovative research in pedagogy and in emerging fields of study.

• Promote an R&D approach to curriculum through research about management education as a field and about innovative pedagogical approaches. Initiatives include encouraging faculty reflexivity by doing scholarly work on their teaching, attracting recognized external speakers on the scholarship of teaching, and hosting a regular faculty teaching seminar emphasizing underlying theory.
• Advance frontier research in existing disciplines and knowledge creation in emerging fields through research seminars and an MSB working papers series.
• Promote cross-school (within UB and between UB and other universities) investigation of emerging business challenges.

3. Encourage the innovative use of technology in teaching and learning.

• Ensure that online courses meet ‘best-in-class’ standards (e.g., Quality Matters).
• Attain 100 percent utilization of the online learning platform (Sakai) in all MSB courses.
• Install Skype (or alternative comparable software) in each classroom and office, and explore its use in curriculum development and delivery.
• Encourage students to build e-portfolios to showcase their learning, skills and academic accomplishments.

4. Ensure ‘best-in-class’ delivery of course offerings and programs.

• Develop and maintain a bank of state-of-the art, world-class teaching resources (in collaboration with CELT, Langsdale, e-Learning Center, etc.), and encourage faculty awareness and adoption of those resources through workshops and other media.
• Rethink the economics of course offerings, e.g. lower class sizes to run courses, fewer preps when new courses are being offered, and heavier weighting in performance evaluation for new and honors courses.
• Implement fast track approval of curricular changes through rapid prototyping and increased use of modularity (e.g., promote new honors courses and certificate programs to test market new offerings).
• Enhance the focus and visibility of course offerings through innovative techniques, such as faculty video clips that introduce courses and their key objectives.

5. Encourage the emergence of a distinctive, leading edge curriculum.

• Support program enhancements and maintain programs in line with continued relevance and market demand. Bi-annual review of programs with the support of the appropriate sectors of the business community is necessary to meet this objective.
• Link curricula, where appropriate, to valuable professional certifications, e.g. Chartered Financial Analyst.
• Develop and expand degree and non-degree certificate programs designed to provide specialty, cutting-edge, in-depth knowledge to professionals in the field.

Priority 4: Prepare Students to Succeed in the Global Marketplace

The world’s economies are increasingly interconnected. Business is not just affected by globalization; it is a driving force behind the process. Thus, to be prepared for a career in an increasingly competitive globalized business environment, students must have well-developed global perspectives as part of their business management education. In addition to learning the technical skills that facilitate the globalization of business, students also require an awareness of the socio-economic and political conditions that drive globalization. Our students must develop the capacity to build partnerships and collaborate across borders and to expand their cultural awareness and sensitivity so that they can successfully compete in a global marketplace. The primary objectives aligned with this strategic priority include:

1. Launch the M.S. in Global Leadership program

• Acquire the necessary funds to provide staff support and resources necessary to promote and deliver a high quality M.S. in Global Leadership program.
• Grow the M.S. in Global Leadership program from 5 students in fall 2011 to at least 15 students in fall 2013.
• Engage the support of government, business and non-profits, and multi-lateral agencies in the region.

2. Expand students’ global awareness and cultural competencies

• Enhance the global content of core and major courses.
• In collaboration with the other academic divisions within UB, identify and develop courses to strengthen the cultural competencies of our students.
• Promote and fund international student events to enhance student awareness of cultural, social and political issues that impact business and society.
• Increase students’ foreign language proficiency in collaboration with the College of Arts and Sciences and other institutions if necessary.

3. Provide a rich menu of international options for students by expanding global field study courses, global business pratica, and international internships that provide both academic rigor and cultural exposure.

• Increase student participation in study abroad and global practica.
• Identify and increase student participation in internship opportunities involving an international component.
• Identify and select more prospective venues for study abroad programs and international internships, with a focus on emerging markets.
• Expand student exchange programs with international universities.

4. Advance MSB faculty members’ global research and professional development.

 

• Increase funding to support the faculty’s global research initiatives.
• Increase faculty participation in global initiatives such as field studies, practica, Fulbright Scholar programs and sabbaticals.
• Increase the number of collaborative global research opportunities among MSB faculty, and between MSB faculty and universities abroad.
• Develop strong relationships with selected international partners in business, non-profit, academia, or government.

5. Increase international student enrollment to promote better cultural awareness and mutual understanding in the classroom.

• Increase international student enrollment in cooperation with the Division of Enrollment Management.

• Increase the availability of dormitories for international students in cooperation with UB’s Housing Department.

• Increase the number of international events on campus in cooperation with student associations and other relevant units at UB.

Priority 5: Secure the financial and corporate support to advance the mission of the School

The strength of a business school is intimately linked to its connectivity to its alumni and the broader business community. The School’s drive to become the very best in class is only possible through the hard work, dedication and support of alumni and the business community. Whether by making opportunities or jobs available to students, endowing faculty positions, providing scholarships, funding the Speaker Series and databases for research and instruction, and supporting the school’s learning infrastructure, the strong ties maintained with alumni and the business community greatly benefit the School. The primary objectives aligned with this strategic priority include:

1. Strengthen partnerships in the business community.

• Fully utilize the 120+ members of our business advisory councils for greater participation in the life of the School (e.g., guest lectures, student internships, faculty externships, adjunct faculty, applied learning projects for the classroom, mentoring, etc.)
• Encourage connectivity of MSB faculty to the business community with the intention that it would generate innovations for industry as well as case studies for academia and class projects for students.
• Develop an interactive program that unites individual MSB faculty members and individual business professionals with the purpose of creating collaborative partnerships, professional development and intellectual contributions.
• Publicize (and/or translate) key research findings, incentivize faculty to write op-ed pieces, develop media expert guides, increase faculty participation on external boards etc.
• Expand the scope of the Merrick Speaker Series by continuing to attract more high profile speakers, providing event podcasts, VIP receptions, etc.
• Increase the number of employers who view UB as a ‘preferred choice’ for recruitment and expand internship opportunities among these employers.

2. Expand outreach to alumni and promote their involvement in the Merrick School.

• Highlight their success through a variety of media, including the MSB web page, Merrick Exchange and case studies.

3. Leverage the Merrick School’s Centers of Excellence to build strong partnerships in the public and private sectors.

• Expand community outreach and programming through the Entrepreneurship Center.
• Promote the Jacob France Institute and its capabilities for business and economic research.

4. Secure the necessary funding to support the Merrick School vision.

• Broaden the base of philanthropic support for the Merrick School and increase the number of alumni who give to their alma mater.
• Increase the Merrick School’s endowment per student.
• Pursue target areas of funding, including:
  • Raise $100,000 to fund ground-breaking, scalable pedagogical innovation in business education.
  • Endow the Entrepreneurship Center.
  • Secure financial support for endowed faculty positions and professional development activities.
  • Increase financial support for learning infrastructure such as advanced technologies, software, labs (Applied Finance Lab), web-enhanced teaching, streaming lectures, etc.
  • Increase funding for need-based and merit scholarships, stipends for internships and study abroad education, textbooks and supplies, and other resume enhancing activities such as the Merrick Ambassador program, business plan competitions and clubs.