Starting this year, Harpur College students thinking about taking business courses through the School of Management’s Management Adjunct program will have to wait for the winter or summer sessions.
With the influx of students into Binghamton University, SOM officials have decided to change the way the program is offered.
The adjunct program will no longer be offered in the fall or spring semesters, but will be available only for the winter and summer semesters. This change was an attempt to enable SOM to accept more students to the program, and for the department to work more efficiently with the adjunct students.
“This change is driven by the current climate in terms of students and budgets,” SOM Dean Upinder Dhillon said. “We looked at how we could best serve the needs of those students from Harpur and other schools.”
As enrollment has grown University-wide, registration in SOM has also jumped.
“The student body has increased, but the faculty and staff haven’t quite been able to keep up,” Vincent Pasquale, assistant dean for SOM, added.
For BU students not enrolled in the School of Management, the adjunct program is a way to get a better understanding of the business field, particularly in relation to their decided majors. In the original program, the adjunct required completion of six courses in a variety of fields offered by SOM.
The students who are already in the program will still be able to take the courses in the fall and spring semesters, but any new students will only be able to apply for the winter and summer.
The amount of credits is also being reduced to four specific, basic courses in order to make the program more efficient.
“What we want, and what we believe the students want, which is more important, is to get a broad understanding of the fields of business,” Dhillon said.
According to Dhillon, there will be one course each in accounting, finance, marketing and management.
Dhillon said SOM officials are also attempting to make the courses available for distance education, although the students may have to stay at the University for a week or two.
“That’s an issue we’re dealing with now; we’re working on offering them primarily online,” Dhillon explained. “We understand these are breaks, but they are also good opportunities to learn.”
The program has been an opportunity for students to supplement their majors with business programs.
“Hopefully the adjunct relates to the arts and science majors,” said Pasquale. “For instance, a foreign language major may be interested in working for an international business.”
According to Pasquale, to be eligible to be normally accepted for the adjunct program, a student must retain a GPA of 3.5, unless there’s an extraordinary number of students who wish to sign up.