Weekends as a Resource

Much of the curriculum is offered Monday-Thursday.  One long-standing idea has been to better spread course offerings out over the week to improve facility utilization and to maintain social density on campus over the weekend.  An alternative idea might be to accept the dominance of the M-Th pattern and make deliberate use of Friday and Saturday for ancillary educational programs.  These could include continuing education, executive education, community outreach, workshops, etc.

This is basically just a scheduling idea, but it might partner up with other ideas as diverse as career re-entry programs or online courses.

Undergraduate Business Program with Adult Degree Completion Online Option

Proposal

Development of Undergraduate Business Program with Adult Degree Completion Online Option

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Forbes.com and Princeton Review the most popular and fastest growing major in the U.S. over the past six years is Business which is also the most popular major for women. Aslanian Market Research reports that there are almost 40 million people in the U.S. with some college work completed but without a bachelor’s degree. With the Business Economics undergraduate program and an MBA program there is an opportunity to explore adding a general undergraduate Business major with varying emphasis such as leadership, marketing, energy and environment and accounting. Business Economics is currently the seventh most popular major at Mills. Many of the traditional business foundation courses are currently offered at Mills through existing programs. There is an opportunity here to attract new undergraduates as well as support or “feed” our MBA program, specifically through 4+1 opportunities.

This also has the possibility as an additional revenue stream as an adult learner program offering courses year round on evenings and weekends, or preferably online, for our resumer population and/or working adults. Over the past 5 years an average of 20% of our new transfer students have been resumers defined as students over the age of 24 with some work experience. This would allow us to support Business major emphasis which may be under-enrolled as the program grows by expanding to a new market of prospective students not currently pursued by Mills.

We can develop a robust adult learner population with creation of a portfolio review program to grant course credit for professional training and certifications as well as formal work experience. We can also explore concurrent enrollment agreements with local community colleges allowing students to complete outstanding general education coursework outside of Mills as their schedule allows but still access financial aid as a full time student.

Scripps College does not currently offer a Business major other than Economics. Mount St. Mary’s overs a program similar to that proposed however Mills tends to attract students of a different academic demographic than MSM which leaves open the possibility of establishing ourselves as the premier women’s college on the west coast for business.