Cedarville Magazine Spring-Summer

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But Ark offered a glimmering thread
of hope within his bleak view of American
higher education: “In an ideal world,
business students would learn how to
succeed in business by actually running
their own businesses — Cedarville
University (based in Cedarville, Ohio)
is allowing them to do just that.”
(To see the story, go to
)
Exemplary Program
The program Ark lauded is the School
of Business Administration’s Integrated
Business Core (IBC). Led by Jeff Guernsey,
Associate Professor of Finance, and Dr. Jon
Austin, Associate Professor of Marketing,
the IBC is a three-hour elective practicum
(BUS-3280) taken fall of junior year, in
conjunction with finance (FIN-3710) and
management (MGMT-3500) courses.
Students taking IBC have successfully
completed a specially designed Principles
of Marketing course (MRKT-3600) during
spring of their sophomore year.
At the beginning of the practicum,
students put together a business plan, a
document that describes what product or
service they plan to provide, and how they’ll
go about providing it. Then the business
teampresents its plan to Cedarville’s version
of the Shark Tank: a loan committee made
up of business professionals and alumni
working in the business world.
“They evaluate the loan proposal; give
them feedback; and give a red, yellow,
or green light for a loan,” Austin said.
“Sometimes they may send a
teamback tomake adjustments
to the proposal before they
give it the go-ahead.”
The capital for their venture
comes from in-house funds
generated from a portion of
past IBC business profits.
Students must repay the loan
at the end of the semester.
“I think the value [of IBC]
is extremely high,” noted
Dr. Steve Parscale, Chief
Accreditation Officer for
the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs
(ACBSP). ACBSP accredits business, accounting, and business-
related programs at the associate, baccalaureate, master, and
doctorate degree levels worldwide, including Cedarville, which
has maintained ACBSP accreditation since 2005.
“Any time you can learn through application, it sticks with you,”
said Parscale. “When you’re learning from lecture, my experience is
you take a test and brain-dump anything you learned in that class
on the way out. But when you actually take it and apply it, it stays
in your nervous system.”
Students come out with a unique and noteworthy learning
experience. “They tell us they’ve put IBC on their résumé and
they have meaningful conversations during a job interview about
it,” Austin said. “It resonates with prospective employers because
our students have done things business-wise that most undergrad
students don’t do.”
Cedarville Stands Out
That’s what Ark discovered also. “When I was preparing to
write the article, I researched programs that seemed to offer a
modicum of actual live business experience for business majors,”
Ark explained in an interview with Cedarville Magazine. “I
was kind of frustrated by what I found. There were a couple of
programs doing what you’re doing, but I didn’t find anybody other
than your program offering a real shot at doing anything business-
related before actual graduation.”
Christine Krapohl ’13, an account representative with
pharmaceutical ad agency GFW Worldwide in Columbus, Ohio,
learned the uniqueness of her IBC experience when she was job
hunting. “During interviews, I’d hear how this doesn’t really happen
on the undergraduate level, at least in the Columbus, Ohio, area,”
she said.
“Business programs don’t promote that kind of entrepreneurship
during an actual class,” Krapohl continued. “And it’s not a business
plan competition, and it’s not just theory, but you put it together,
test it out, and see if it works.
16 | Cedarville Magazine