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 focuses on preparing students to become detail-oriented and able to understand and prepare accurate financial data. 
•  The General Business Program prepares students to be successful as they enter and pursue careers in business fields such as retail management, small business management, marketing, sales and advertising, 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 4 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:  Transfer Program and 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 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 3 options:  Business Management, Retail Management and Small Business/Entrepreneurship) 
•  Marketing 
•  Real Estate.

Accountability for Previously Funded Items

Student Learning/Administrative Unit Outcomes

The accounting department meeting discussion resulted in a few planned improvements.  Both the instructors for the QuickBooks classes and the Accounting 20 instructors agreed to spend additional time discussing error corrections.  Tammy Ashba is going to investigate using a list of common errors for discussion in her QuickBooks class.  This will allow for a discussion of how error correction might look different when comparing a standard set of accounting records to a QuickBooks accounting system.  We finalized the discussion with a decision to make more extensive use of recommended pre-requisites for the Payroll class and the Taxation class. This should help to prepare students as they progress to the Accounting Capstone course.  Beth Dunn will be using at least one problem from the homework in her class discussions following the due date of the homework.  The goal will be to encourage more engagement with the homework solutions.
The business department focused on Organizational Management noting the following:
"Going forward, we will continue to offer multiple forms of assessment for SLO E but continue to place an emphasis on “in class projects” so that students can work through problems and be able to receive instant feedback from the instructor.  The instructor will continue to find new management problem sets and case studies to keep the information fresh and relevant for students. "
The economics department focused on Econ 20 or American Economic History noting:
"I am at a bit of a loss about the capital market question and the students’ inability to grasp that concept.  Throughout the entire semester we would repeat, “Can you buy a banana on a capital market?” and the class would yell “NO!”  Then I’d explain the nature of a capital market.  Next semester I have will have create a simulation to pair people with fake investment capital with entrepreneurs who need investment capital to build new factories.  Hopefully a simulation and some active learning techniques will assist their mastery of this concept.   I am satisfied with their mastery of the concept of land resource. Labor market changes in U.S. history are numerous.  It is quite possible students confuse labor market conditions in the 1800s with the 1900s and post-Great Depression as they changed rapidly and with some reversals.  Here again, a simulation of different groups of workers in different times frames may be of use.  I will incorporate such activities next semester when this class is taught again.
The real estate department will continue to provide greater opportunities for students to assess their own student learning.  Jim Heberle noted that each class begins with a quiz so students are able to assess their progress.  After the quiz a fair amount of time is spent explaining why various answers were correct and incorrect.  Other instructors intend to introduce in class quizzes to start class and focus student attention on areas of greatest importance.
 

Standards/Goals for Student Achievement (OSLED Departments)

Indicator	Source	College			Program
		2014-2015	Standard	Six Year Goal	Fall 2011	Fall 2012	Fall 2013	Fall 2014	Fall 2015	Standard	Six Year Goal
Access
-          Unduplicated Headcount	PDR-ECON	12,690			600	606	620	626	610
	PDR-ACCT	12,690			684	662	661	713	643
	PDR-BUS	12,690			629	583	673	690	646
	PDR-RLS	12,690			36	35	46	32	34
Course Success
-          Overall	PDR	70.6%	70.0%	73.0%
-          Transfer / GE	PDR-ECON	71.7%		73.0%	70.2%	67.4%	71.5%	71.8%	75.4%	65.0%	73.0%
-          CTE	PDR-ACCT	75.3%		77.0%	66.8%	58.8%	63.5%	60.3%	62.9%	60.0%	65.0%
	PDR-BUS	75.3%		77.0%	66.5%	62.0%	63.8%	63.0%	66.2%	60.0%	70.0%
	PDR-RLS	75.3%		77.0%	81.2%	83.2%	82.9%	73.9%	58.2%	72.0%	80.0%
-          Basic Skills	PDR	51.7%		55.0%
-          Distance Ed (All)	PDR	62.6%		64.0%
Persistence (Focused).  Note:  The Persistence (Focused) that is included in the PDR is a different indicator than the three-primary term persistence indicator, from the State Student Success Scorecard that is used to measure institutional persistence.  The Focused Persistence indicator measures the percentage of students that took a second course in a discipline within one year. There is no relationship between the college and program standards in this area.	PDR-ECON	71.8%	67.0%	75.0%	27.9%	31.4%	30.4%	36.8%	35.0%	25.0%	38.0%
	PDR-ACCT				49.5%	47.5%	50.9%	48.8%	49.9%	45.0%	50.0%
	PDR-BUS				36.0%	27.7%	32.5%	34.6%	36.6%	60.0%	70.0%
	PDR-RLS				40.7%	34.9%	50.0%	35.3%	29.6%	36.0%	36.0%
		(Three-Term) Scorecard	(Three-Term) Scorecard	(Three-Term) Scorecard
Degrees - Annual	PDR-ECON	1,421		1,475	-	-	-	-	-
	PDR-ACCT				22	22	33	24	20	20	35
	PDR-BUS AA/AS				80	71	57	60	59	70	130
	PDR-BUS AAT/AST				-	-	12	54	65	70	130
	PDR-RLS				3	1	-	2	1	1	4
Certificate of Achievement (CA) - Annual	PDR-ECON	814		475	-	-	-	-	-
Certificate of Completion (CC) - Annual					-	-	-	-	-
Certificate of Achievement (CA) - Annual	PDR-ACCT				12	18	27	26	16	15	35
Certificate of Completion (CC) - Annual					26	46	40	35	11	25	50
Certificate of Achievement (CA) - Annual	PDR-BUS				9	9	4	2	5	1	10
Certificate of Completion (CC) - Annual					8	3	3	6	5	2	10
Certificate of Achievement (CA) - Annual	PDR-RLS				-	-	-	2	-	1	4
Certificate of Completion (CC) - Annual					-	-	6	4	5	1	6
Developmental Strand Completion
-          English	State	43.7%		45.0%
-          Math	State	33.8%		35.0%
-          ESL	State	42.9%		45.0%
Licensure Pass Rates
-          Registered Nursing	SC	92.0%	85.0%
-          Licensed Vocational Nursing	SC	87.0%	85.0%
-          Respiratory Therapy	SC	97.0%	80.0%
-          Paramedic	SC	85.0%	75.0%
-          Cosmetology	SC	86.0%	75.0%
-          Welding	SC	92.0%	85.0%
Job Placement Rates-ACCT	PIV		70.0%	85.0%
Job Placement Rates-BUS ADM	PIV		60.0%	70.0%
Job Placement Rates-BUS MGMT	PIV		55.0%	80.0%

  1. Accounting – success rates have declined from 66.8% to 62.5% over the past five years. Discuss how to improve success rates in this program. The variability of success rates in accounting is puzzling.  We pulled spring and fall data in addition to what was shown here and found the following: Semester Success Fa11 68.8% Sp12 66.97% Fa12 58.8% Sp13 64.52% Fa13 63.51% Sp14 68.1% Fa14 60.44% Sp15 63.94% Fa15 62.93% Sp16 63.24% Fa16 68.66%   Presented graphically, the decline doesn’t appear significant (less than 1%).  However, since that decline represents students that are not succeeding we are concerned.  We speculate that the variable success rates might reflect the change in staffing as a third full-time instructor went on medical leave and retired before finally being replaced.  When Patrick & LaRee were working double overloads and we were asking less qualified instructors to take sections, it had to have had an effect on success rates.  We think the size of online accounting classes also may have had some impact on the success rates.  Success rates in the online classes are significantly lower than face to face classes due to the lack of immediate feedback and students’ tendency to not complete all assigned work.  However, greater study is probably required to get a better feel for causality.  Regardless, we are heartened to have a new accounting instructor and success rates jumped in her first semester with us.  We will monitor success rates going forward and look for ways to improve student success. 2. Economics – success rates are up from 70.5% to 75.48% over the past five years. Focused persistence is up from 27.9% to 35.0% over the past five years.  Students are taking more subsequent economics courses. The variability of success rates in economics is also somewhat puzzling.  However, the department and instructors are pleased at the uptrend.  We speculate the increase could be due to instructors’ emphasis on meeting the math prerequisite.  While this was not electronically enforced until Fall 2016, instructors began to emphasize the importance of this in class and in some cases required students bring in their assessment results or proof of meeting the math prerequisite.  Another possible reason for the improved success rates is that over this period of time Chico State restricted enrollment and Butte College received more CSUC students.  3. Business – Degree production is up from 80 to 124 over the past five years. There is now a transfer degree in this area. Approximately 1,000 students have chosen a Business degree or certificate as their academic program. Contact information for these students may be found in the Reports Server at the Institutional Research, Program Review, Students in an Academic Program tab. Suggest outreach to these students and dialogue about continuing to increase the number of degrees in this discipline.  New business instructors have tried to emphasize the importance of the new AS-T degree and the benefits of choosing this degree.  The “degree with a guarantee” is quite appealing to transfer students.  The AS-T also made it possible for students to take business law at Butte College rather than Chico State.  Only when students earned the AS-T was this the case because CSUC’s business law class is an upper division course.  We plan to email new business transfer majors our recommended schedule for the AS-T and post large copies of this schedule around the business education building and hopefully at the Chico Center.  There are some differences between our department’s recommended courses and the counseling department’s recommended schedule.  We are meeting to try to reconcile these prior to contacting students and publicizing the schedule. 4. Real Estate – Success rates are down from 81.2% to 58.2% over the past five years. Focused persistence is down from 40% to 30% over the same period.  Students are taking fewer subsequent Real Estate Courses. Discuss what can be done to reverse this trend.  The real estate department has been in a period of transition as a long-time instructor passed away a few years back. Different instructors have begun teaching the real estate classes and this has required some adjustments.  Hopefully, as the real estate sector improves and demand will increase for real estate classes.  In Fall 2016, a real estate section had to be cut due to weak enrollment.  In Spring 2017, enrollments were very weak in Appraisal and Escrow classes (11 & 13 students).  The decision was made to keep those sections open this semester but reduce real estate sections from four to three starting in Fall 2017.  Most real estate students want to take only the classes required to earn their real estate sales agent’s license which requires three classes.  By cutting from four to three sections, it is hoped that enrollment will firm up in the third class.  

Standards/Goals for Student Achievement (All Other Departments)

The college exists to educate and empower students.  Accordingly, instructor time and energies should be focused on teaching.  The department supports and encourages instructors as they work to improve lesson plans, stay current in their fields of expertise, find better examples to explain key concepts, and make class more fun and engaging.  Strong teaching leads to student success and a strong reputation for the department which over the long-term leads to enrollment growth. 

Strategic Direction

To improve student progress, we have been working for the last year on "guided pathways" or means of better communicating with students so they take the right classes in the right sequence to graduate sooner and find employment that supports and fulfills them.  
We have had multiple department meetings about recommended general education courses and discussed these with the guided pathways director as well as multiple counselors.  We are ready to publish our recommended schedule for students that are transfering to Chico State (approximately 80% of our enrollments) but apparently another recommended schedule has been developed by counseling or another committee.  We hope to reconcile these differences as best possible before emailing all newer declared business education transfer majors our recommended schedule.  
The department also worked to improve student equity by supporting a pilot project by Steve Price to provide mentorship and counseling to underachieving demographics.  This project was successful in improving success rates and helping a number of students.

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 and replaced a retiring accounting instructor, but continue to request an additional economics instructor.  However, declining economics enrollments make an additional economics instructor less necessary. 
 
 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.  Work with faculty, counselors has resulted in recommended schedules for most areas of study. The recommended sequence of study for AS-T in business administration will be promoted around the business education building and emailed to new business transfer majors.    
3)      Avoid scheduling classes that straddle two widely used timeslots which could lock students out of other classes.
The two hour “block” accounting classes and need to squeeze in as many classes as possible during prime time make occasional straddling of time slots unavoidable. 
 
 4)      The women’s restroom in the BE building is unsafe and must be repaired and updated immediately!
 
 Remodeling was completed over Summer 2015.  Hooray!!
 
 5)      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 and a yellow warning sign has been placed on the door to reduce likelihood of accident.
 
6)      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 in BE105B and BE105C 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 in these rooms.  During Fall 2016, tables and seating were reconfigured in BE105A to improve accessibility and group work without reducing pedagogical caps.  Facilities has been notified of the issues with ventilation and thermostat and ductwork changes were made in January 2017.
 
7)      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 chair is on double-overload and had a hiring and evaluation nightmares Fall semester).  The department is also leery of soliciting input when it isn’t sure it has the power or will to make requested changes. 
 For instance, part-timers would likely want schedules that were more convenient to them (but which would make it difficult or impossible to staff all sections at the times students prefer).  Part-timers would also want to choose their own books rather than using a common textbook across sections.  While this would allow individual instructors preferred textbooks, the low volume would increase textbook costs, the different textbooks would make ordering more time consuming to the bookstore, and the different textbooks be less conducive to consistency and rigor across class sections.  Perhaps a survey will be administered next year, but our fear is that requesting input and then not acting upon that input is more detrimental to morale than to have never survey.
 
 8)      Untapped potential exists for enrollment growth in the department. Modest growth in the number of Introduction to Business courses and in Economics is merited. The college and department should also collaborate with Chico State to move Business Law to lower division as is common practice.
Staffing economics sections has been extremely difficult.  Two instructors were let go in Spring 2016 due to ongoing instructional quality issues and Steve Price was involved in student equity projects in 2015-2016 and received release time.  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.  Enrollments for Fall 2016 were quite weak in economics and we cancelled two sections.  A new online Introduction to Business (Bus 20) section was added Fall 2016.  We also added a couple Bus 20 and Bus 8 sections over the last couple years.  The online Bus 20 class has been successful and another section was added in Spring 2017 to help offset class cancellations elsewhere.  This second online section filled quickly.  An online Acct 4 class has been added to the Fall 2017 schedule as well.
We continue to work with Chico State regarding moving business law to a lower division class.  While this hasn’t happened yet, CSUC does now accept Butte’s Bus 8 from students earning the AS-T degree in place of its upper division business law class.  It is expected that Chico State’s business law class will be moved to lower division in 2018.
 
  9)      Increase in Real Estate offerings may now be appropriate as well. To accomplish such growth, however, expansion of the faculty and possibly facilities will be necessary, as addressed elsewhere in these recommendations.
 
With Thurza Andrew’s death, different instructors have begun teaching the real estate classes and this has required some adjustments.  Hopefully, as the real estate sector improves and demand will increase for real estate classes.  In Fall 2016, a real estate section had to be cut due to weak enrollment.  In Spring 2017, enrollments were very weak in Appraisal and Escrow classes (11 & 13 students).  The decision was made to keep those sections open this semester but reduce real estate sections from four to three starting in Fall 2017.  Most real estate students want to take only the classes required to earn their real estate sales agent’s license which requires three classes.  By cutting from four to three sections, it is hoped that enrollment will firm up in the third class.
 
 10)   Continued discussion needs to occur between disciplines that require the same courses for students to obtain a certificate or degree. It is evident that disciplines differ in the amount of time they may feel they need to focus on specific content. So, a determination should be made related to the required unit value of specific courses such as Excel.
 
The BCIS Department created a one unit Excel for Business class that allows accounting students to gain exposure to the Excel without requiring them to take the regular three unit Excel class.  
 
 
 11)   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.  Beginning in Spring 2017, we began articulating a personal finance class from Lassen High School and a small business management class was added in Fall 2017.  

Department Goals

Focus department and instructor resources on providing an outstanding education in the most convenient and efficient manner possible.  In improving convenience and efficiency, we intend to promote our recommended schedule for business transfer majors (the majority of our enrollments) and also to pursue development of an online AS-T degree.

Future Development Strategies

Requested Non-Financial Resources

Current Financial Resources

Augmentation Requests

Original Priority	Program, Unit, Area	Resource Type	Account Number	Object Code	One Time Augment	Ongoing Augment
Description	Supporting Rationale		Potential Alternative Funding Sources		Prioritization Criteria
1	Business Education	Personnel			$0.00	$109,877.00
Economics Instructor	An additional economics instructor would allow us to staff all sections and add additional sections if there is student demand.				Maintaining core programs and services Supports Previous Program Review Recommendations Meeting standards and working to achieve goals for course success, retention, degree achievement, certificate completion, transfer, and credentialing Make progress toward 75% full-time faculty Recruiting, hiring, and retaining a diverse workforce Directly supporting meeting department standards/goals for student achievement and/or supporting the college in meeting its student achievement standards and/or goals Aligning the instructional schedule with Guded Pathways
2	Ongoing Advertising on NSPR for part-time economics instructors	Operating Expenses			$5,000.00	$0.00
Ongoing advertising for part-time economics instructors on NSPR	The loss of a few part-time economics instructors requires either new part-timers or a full time economics instructor. Sustained advertising campaign on NSPR seems to be the most efficient use of resources. Last year we begged and pleaded to advertise and then the ads only ran a week or so and generated no new leads. We've contacted everyone teaching part-time at Chico State as well as Yuba College.				Maintaining core programs and services Aligning the instructional schedule with Guded Pathways Meeting standards and working to achieve goals for course success, retention, degree achievement, certificate completion, transfer, and credentialing Recruiting, hiring, and retaining a diverse workforce