Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs
The following Business Degree Programs: BS Accounting, BS in Business, BS in CIS, BPS, AS in Business and the AAS in Computer Applications are nationally accredited by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (www.ACBSP.org)
What are the Standards?
Measurement & Analysis of Student Learning
Educational & Business Management Process
STANDARD 1. Leadership
Administrators (chief academic officers, deans, department chairs) and faculty must personally lead and be involved in creating and sustaining values, business school or program directions, performance expectations, student focus, and a leadership system that promotes performance excellence. These values and expectations must be integrated into the business school’s or program’s leadership system; and the business school or program must continuously learn, improve, and address its societal responsibilities and community involvement.
STANDARD 2. Strategic Planning
The business school or program must have a process for setting strategic directions to better address key student and program performance requirements. The strategy development process should lead to an action plan for deploying and aligning key plan performance requirements. It should also create an environment that encourages and recognizes innovation and creativity.
STANDARD 3. Student and Stakeholder Focus
A business school or program must have a systematic procedure to determine requirements and expectations of current and future students and stakeholders, including how the business school or program enhances relationships with students and stakeholders and determines their satisfaction. Stakeholders may include parents, employers, alumni, donors, other schools, communities, etc.
STANDARD 4. Measurement and Analysis of Student Learning and Performance
Business schools and programs must have an outcomes assessment program with documentation of the results and evidence that the results are being used for the development and improvement of the institution’s academic programs. Each business school or program is responsible for developing its own outcomes assessment program.
Assessment Report
Peregrine Reports
STANDARD 5. Faculty and Staff Focus
The ability of a business school or program to fulfill its mission and meet its objectives depends upon the quality, number, and deployment of the faculty and staff. Hence, each institution seeking ACBSP accreditation for its business school or program must:
1) develop and implement policies and plans that ensure an excellent faculty, including a staffing plan that matches faculty credentials and characteristics with program objectives;
2) evaluate the faculty based on defined criteria and objectives;
3) provide opportunities for faculty development to ensure scholarly productivity to support department and individual faculty development plans and program objectives; and
4) foster an atmosphere conducive to superior teaching.
STANDARD 6. Educational and Business Process Management
In order to prepare business graduates for professional careers, the curriculum must encompass not only business subjects, but also subjects dealing with the specifics of the global work place and the more general aspects of global society. Since business graduates must be equipped to interact with other members of society, adapt to societal changes, and serve as business advocates, students must be encouraged to study global topics that will prepare them for these challenges.
Given these academic demands, business schools and programs are encouraged to be innovative and to provide flexible curriculum options. Two of the major goals of the curriculum should be the development of intellectual curiosity and the creative capacity for independent thought and action. However, regardless of their major, all business graduates are expected to have received a general exposure to economic institutions, the complex relationships that exist between business, government, and consumers, and a basic knowledge of the functional areas of business.
Thus, business students share common professional requirements. For this reason, certain common subject matter (the Common Professional Component, or “CPC”) as well as areas of specialization are expected to be covered in baccalaureate degree programs in business.
The CPC is an implicit graduation requirement for graduate-level business programs as well, whether required for admission to a graduate program, or delivered within a program as added coursework above the base of graduate program credit hours.
Financial resources, physical facilities, library and other learning resources, equipment including computing hardware and software, and resources at off-campus sites must be adequate to support a strong curriculum and excellence in teaching.
Each business school or program must have policies and procedures addressing the areas of recruiting, admitting and retaining its students.
