Concerns about UCLA’s lack of an undergraduate business program may soon be put to rest due to a push by students and support from university administrators to institute a business and management-related minor.
Currently spearheaded by undergraduate student government Academic Affairs Commissioner Addar Weintraub, the effort to institute the minor has seen administrative support from former Executive Dean Patricia O’Brien and Vice Provost Judith Smith.
Executive Vice Chancellor Scott Waugh and other administrators were also present at a symposium for the minor Thursday and acknowledged that while it may take a while to implement, they recognize the student demand and believe it is feasible.
Weintraub said she hopes it is the student voice that carries this effort and makes it into a reality.
“The most powerful thing we have is student voice,” she said.
In an earlier interview, O’Brien said she hoped that students would realize their own power to push for this important change.
“I really applaud the student leadership for taking on an academic issue that’s of importance to the student body,” she said.
Though there seems to be substantial student support, Weintraub said this bottom-up approach now needs support from faculty and more administrators to become a reality.
“I’m really satisfied with what we’ve done this year. What I would really love is a faculty member to stand up and say, “˜I’m going to make something happen.’ … I think they need to realize that it’s not just students being demanding … and that it’s not just good for the student body, it will benefit UCLA as a whole,” she said.
One thing that Weintraub, O’Brien and Smith all agreed on was that the minor would have to involve a partnership between the UCLA Anderson School of Management and the UCLA College.
“They would have key faculty who would have to agree to be partners with others,” Smith said. “The most critical thing is to get a group of faculty who could conceptualize what (the minor) might be.”
As of press time, Dean Judy Olian of the Anderson School was not available for comment.
The College already partners with Anderson to offer a minor in accounting, O’Brien said.
She added that there are already courses available to design a minor, though making these courses available with more frequency and funding a minor might still be difficult.
“Now, the issue of … having the courses on the books and being able to offer them sufficiently regularly to constitute a minor is a different story, and that’s a budget issue, but that’s one that can be addressed and solved. Those are the kinds of challenges we should be addressing,” O’Brien said.
What students need to realize is that the minor should not be looked at as a preprofessional career track, Smith said. Instead, she would like the minor to follow the liberal arts tradition of the UC and look at business management from a more general, theoretical perspective.
“I think what we’d like to do is look at options of proposing a minor that would have components of management but would be a bit broader,” she said.
What students really need and want, Weintraub said, is something to give them experience that will benefit them in their career search after college.
It has been documented by the UCLA Career Center that recruiters will pass up UCLA students because of the lack of practical business experience and training, Weintraub said.
O’Brien said she had heard similar comments from some of the accounting firms that frequently hire UCLA graduates, though she said she believes that professional exposure and a liberal arts education are not mutually exclusive and can be quite beneficial when paired together.
“They feel our students don’t have always the kind of solid grounding that they would like to see in graduates. On the other hand I think giving our students a good, solid liberal arts foundation is also important for whatever career choices you make,” she said.
One possibility is that many students currently in the accounting minor or the business economics major might switch to this new minor, something that O’Brien said could benefit the College.
“From my perspective, it would be healthy to take some of the pressure off the economics department, and therefore I think the College should be willing to contribute to a minor. The students win, I think we kind of relieve some of the pressure on a very popular major and I think it’s just good for the quality of education all around,” she said.
Though the time frame for the minor is still uncertain, Weintraub said she will continue working toward its approval, hopefully coordinating with Anderson and getting a resolution passed by faculty members on the Undergraduate Council of the Academic Senate.
“Things are moving, but they’re moving really slowly,” she said.