Yesterday's meeting

[Photo: 2/10/2010]

About 50 people attended yesterday's event. I'm posting a few notes related to our discussion:

Here's the link to "hammer time," the Seth Godin post that I quoted at yesterday's department event.

Patrik Hultberg discussed these new classes:

New Classes Spring 2010

ECON295
Course Title: International Marketing
Teacher: Michael Ricco
Course Objectives:
•To develop an understanding of international marketing concepts and show how these concepts can be applied to different international environments/situations.
•To examine the major marketing environmental factors influencing the development of international marketing strategies.
•To critically evaluate developments in global economic, technological, political, and social environments.
•To examine marketing mix configurations in terms of their strategic orientations and market relevancy.
•To evaluate the ethical dimensions of international marketing involvement.
•Create solution-oriented proposals for successful global marketing implementation and competitive advantage.
•To develop effective teamwork skills and strategies.


ECON 295
Course Title: Project Management
Teacher: Loren Ballard
Course Description: A comprehensive introduction and exposure to the field of project management and its application to a broad range of fields and industries. This course explores standard practices that contribute to effective project management. Topics include goals and objectives, planning, scheduling, resource management, communication, finance, monitoring, evaluation, and project closure. Students will gain first hand experience managing a project.

Course Objectives: Explain key project management concepts and standard process steps. Review the application of project management in various industries and be exposed to the Project Management Institute – the leading professional association for project management. Identify the skills and responsibilities of a project manager and put them into practice. Perform exercises that develop effective communication, presentation and leadership skills. Demonstrate an improvement in these areas.


ECON277
Course Title: Negotiation and Persuasion
Teacher: Patrik Hultberg
Course Description:
The Negotiation and Persuasion course gives you a competitive advantage in situations that require you to influence others. Using case studies and exercises, you will learn important skills that enhance your ability to influence, negotiate, and manage conflict. It is an important and fun course.

Course Objectives:
How do you get people around you to act or think in a certain way? This course will attempt to answer this crucial question and in the process the course will, hopefully, enhance your ability to influence others, negotiate favorable outcomes, and communicate your ideas in an effective manner. No matter how smart you are or how many great ideas you come up with, if you are not able to sell your ideas to others and negotiate their implementation it will not make a difference. This is true in work, politics, as well as in family life. The goal is therefore to teach you some skills that are important in your future career and life (and have fun while doing it).

ECON295
Course Title: Business Decision-Making
Teacher: Ed Bernard and Patrik Hultberg (team-taught course)
Course Description:
This course brings real business to life. It provides an overview of the many and varied issues faced by business owners and managers by putting students in decision-making situations. Students will thus be asked to examine, evaluate, and propose “real” solutions to situations. These situations will range from daily issues, difficult problems, as well as strategic planning. Topics addressed span issues related to advertising, marketing, personnel decisions, retail locations, distribution, and purchase of foreign-produced apparel.

The case method will be used in the teaching of this course. Involvement and input from each student will be a critical component for success. Constant discussion and analogies, while trying to solve the issues presented, will make for an interesting learning environment and the development of key decision-making skills.

Course Objectives:
How do you create a decision-maker, a leader? We believe that only by being confronted with real-life challenges, wrapped in complicated and sometimes insufficient information, will a student’s leadership skills progress. The objective of the course is to give students many opportunities to grapple with challenging business scenarios. Through this struggle, we hope that the student will improve her:
1. Critical thinking skills
2. Collaboration skills
3. Communication skills
4. Decision-making skills


ECON316 (Core Course for the Major in Business)
Course Title: National Income and Business Cycles
Teacher: Yang Li
Course Description:
An intermediate macroeconomics course that provides essential background for students interested in the area of business and train students to think more systematically about macroeconomic phenomena. This course explores broad aggregate concepts, such as the overall performance of a nation's economy, modern theory of employment, interest rate determination, price and inflation, economic growth, as well as business cycles. It also examines the appropriate role of government with regard to the evolution and implementation of fiscal and monetary policy and how public policy affects behavior of market participants.
Note:
Students CANNOT take both ECON306 and ECON316. Also, if you are a major in Economics, then ECON316 does not count toward your major (please take ECON306 instead).

ECON490 (Core course for Senior majors)
Course Title: Special Topics: Exploring Financial Crisis
Teacher: Hannah McKinney

ECON490 (Core course for Senior majors)
Course Title: Special Topics: Environmental Sustainability in the Corporate World
Teacher: Ahmed Hussen

You may also be interested in the core classes for Economics or Business