Cedarville Magazine, Spring/Summer 2015

“Everyone competing for a job has internships, good grades, and extracurriculars. This was one more thing to put on my résumé that differentiated me from others.” Dr. Dan LeClair is Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President for the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). AACSB accredits business schools at universities such as The Ohio State University, Stanford, Harvard, and Yale. “Many schools have programs that integrate fields,” LeClair said. “Certainly there are many schools where students write a business plan. And there are schools that have students run actual businesses. There are schools where students make pitches for venture capital to start and run a business. But I don’t know how many have a combination of all those factors.” But why aren’t there more programs like Cedarville’s? “It takes a visionary faculty member to put it in place,” Parscale noted. “It takes a leader to take on the responsibility of developing it and implementing it for the students. And most faculty don’t have the time or take the time to do something like this.” Why It’s So Valuable The primary goal of IBC is to help students break out of the silo that defines their particular business discipline and see how their field interacts with others in a business laboratory. Hence, the first word in the practicum’s name: integrated. “IBC is not focused on any one discipline,” said Austin. “Students may have overseen accounting, or marketing, or implemented an event. In IBC they’ll gravitate toward things related to their professional interests. “But it’s not just their discipline; these areas have to work together,” he added. “They don’t see that if they take these classes separately. We aren’t claiming they know all those relationships, but we’re opening their eyes that business isn’t just their area of specialization.” Besides paying back the loan, the student business also donates 100 percent of its profits to a local charity of its choosing. Team members also volunteer for at least 10 hours during the semester with a local charitable organization. “We felt it was important for them not to get focused on who can make the most money,” said Austin. “We wanted them to learn how to be good stewards of resources at the same time.” Coaching Is Key For IBC, Austin and Guernsey view their roles more as coaches than instructors. Consultation and review are critical to students getting the most from the experience. “The first weeks of the class we do much more leading to get things going,” said Guernsey. “But then we start backing off, let them run it, and we serve more as guardrails.” Professors and students have two scheduledmeetings each week. “We’re consulting as things come,” said Guernsey. “They might come to us and say, ‘We just ran into this roadblock and don’t know what to do.’ That’s where learning happens. It’s preparatory for the workplace.” About mid-semester, it’s typical to hear complaints by students in one part of a business against their co-workers in another part. “They’ll come to us and say, ‘We don’t knowwhat’s going on,’” Austin related. “Those problems are the biggest learning experiences where they see the need to communicate.” “Here’s a phrase we use — this is a student-led activity that is faculty-guided,” noted Guernsey. “You will get out of it what you as a collective group put into it.” The Hardest Class You’ll Ever Love Reflecting on Cedarville’s program, LeClair was struck by its challenging requirements. “Students are not just setting up lemonade stands,” he said, “but trying to be creative in starting a business that might actually have legs to it, that could turn into something quite real. It would be quite a challenge to do this with the set of expectations and in the period of time they have. And they somehow combine that with experience in a nonprofit organization. And they’re starting from scratch, with no money put into it. That seems like a hefty expectation.” Austin and Guernsey would agree. And cheer. “At the end of the class we have students write individual reflection papers,” Guernsey said. “Frequently, they share comments that it wasn’t what they learned about business, but what they learned about themselves, or their team. ‘I know what accountants do now, and I understand marketing better, but mostly I learned a ton about myself.’” That was a major takeaway for Krapohl, who has served on the IBC loan committee. She spent 14 hours in Milner Hall on homecoming Saturday her junior year, putting together a loan proposal with another classmate. “In the middle of the process, I thought it was a complete and utter disaster,” she said. “In hindsight, it ended up being a great experience. Nothing taught me more about myself than IBC did.” Clem Boyd is Managing Editor of Cedarville Magazine . “ Everyone competing for a job has internships, good grades, and extracurriculars. This was one more thing to put on my résumé that differentiated me from others. ” Cedarville Magazine | 17