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“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
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