A Review And A Look Ahead For CBA
As noted earlier, the College has been involved in international education for almost 30 years. The faculty had planned to expand the international program by drafting a new program in in 1998 to offer MBA students a practical means to become more involved in global education. This new program was developed in recognition that an increasing number of businesses are global, or becoming global, in scope of their operations. The program's aim was to focus on international research methods, legal and ethics issues, economics, finance, accounting, marketing, and management. Throughout several decades of international involvement the College has been active in such countries, as Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Moldova, Romania, and Turkey.
During 1998, China was added to the list of international relationships developed by the College. Nine CBA faculty members traveled to China during a two-year period that began in 1999. Courses provided Chinese students were taught in a manner similar to that now provided the Executive MBA students. Also during 1999, an EMBA group shared knowledge and experiences with students and faculty from a sister university in Siaulia, Lithuania.
However, this faculty-planned international program was discontinued by Dean Hille.
Serving international interests did not occur at the expense of enrolled students. Faculty who traveled overseas as part of one of the College's outreach programs found that the experience enriched their respective reservoirs of knowledge to share in the classroom.
During 1997, Dean Hille initiated a program to recognize both the generosity of CBA alumni and to further acknowledge the leadership of the college's first dean: John W. Lucas. This new program was named The Lucas Society. A special group of financial contributors were named to be charter members of The Lucas Society. The members of The Lucas Society are identified through their pictures on plaques mounted on a wall on the second floor of Roskens Hall. (The College of Business Building was named for Ron W. Roskens and Lois Roskens.) The gifts from members of The Lucas Society are used to prepare CBA students for excellence in the business world and in their communities. During 1999, four outstanding alumni were inducted into the Lucas Society where their names a photographs will be displayed on the wall with other Society members.
The Lucas Society was formed at a crucial time in the College's history since the financial resources provided through the state are insufficient to maintain the level of academic excellence desired by the constituents of the College. Dean Hille has noted that "...members' support of the College comes at a crucial time. 'As we move from a state-supported to a state-assisted mode, it has become increasingly more important to draw on the support of our alumni and community leaders.'"
A significant enhancement to CBA programs occurred in 2000 when the University Foundation received a gift commitment of a half-million dollars to establish a student-managed investment fund. To help students apply their knowledge to managing this fund, a course in portfolio management is being developed. UNO students will have the option to become members of an investment club. Income from the funds will be used to establish the Colonel Guy M. Cloud, Junior, and Patricia Cloud Professor of Investment Services at UNOmaha, and to create scholarships for degree-seeking students in the College.
Business-related courses were first cataloged in 1918, as part of the curriculum of the University of Omaha. That earlier university offered baccalaureate degrees in business in 1926 and the first students to graduate did so in 1931. Since that time, business subjects have become part of a College of Business Administration that achieved that status in 1952. At the time business administration became a college, admission to the college required no more than graduation from an accredited high school. However, students in the upper division were expected to earn at least grades of "C" in upper division courses. Graduation also required 125 hours with an average grade of "C." Unfortunately, in some instances the graduation requirement was interpreted to mean the "best" 125 hours out attempted hours. While students whose academic performance was unsatisfactory could be placed on probation and even suspended, suspended students could appeal their status to the Dean of Men who often readmitted them. Many University faculty members, especially ones in business, felt such a condition could not be helpful to the University's quest for academic respectability. By 1960, several CBA faculty along with other members of the University community took control of academic matters and academic suspension ceased to be part of a "revolving door suspension policy."
The College of Business Administration initially offered 12 areas of specialization: Accounting, Finance, Industrial Management, Insurance, Marketing, Personnel Management, Real Estate, General Business, Business Administration and Law, and Secretarial Science. In conjunction with the College of Education, business students could also specialize in High School Teaching, and Distributive Education. The college also offered two-year associate in business administration programs: Accounting, Marketing, and Secretarial Science. The college had a Department of Retailing that offered a Bachelor of Science in Retailing. This department also made available a two-year program.
Now, 50 years later, the College of Business Administration has emerged as the leading regional business college. Admission to both the University of Nebraska at Omaha and its College of Business Administration is no longer automatic to graduates of accredited high schools. Admission standards now take up several pages of the University's general undergraduate catalog. Suspended students no longer have easy access to be readmitted on probation. In effect, the CBA academic standards are on a par with other high quality institutions.
Throughout its fifty-year history, the structure of the college has undergone many changes. It has had its earlier departmental structure changed into a programmatic structure and back to one based on departments. And today, the remaining departments have been collapsed into four: Professional Accounting; Finance Banking and Law; Economics, Real Estate and Land Use Economics; and Marketing/Management.
Business Administration has two other main parts: Graduate and the Nebraska Business Development Center. Four masters degree programs exist: The Master of Business Administration, The Master of Economics, The Master of Public Accounting, and the Executive Master of Business Administration. The Nebraska business Development Center stands alone among the graduate and undergraduate programs.
The College of Business Administration could not maintain its many high levels of achievement without support from within and without. Within the College are the rarely mentioned secretaries whose diligence makes professors look good. During the early years, (all of the 1950s and 1960s up to the time of the merger) the College had only one secretary in the Dean's office. On rare occasions, a member of the faculty might get some typewriting done. Budget constraints did not permit hiring departmental secretaries. In fact, Dean Lucas often said to faculty who wanted departmental secretaries to decide whether they wanted salary increases or a secretary. Later years changed all that.
At one time the University provided a central stenographic pool where examinations could be submitted for both typing and duplication. Faculty were not too pleased with this arrangement because of a time factor. The administration's argument was that uniform quality of work would be the result. A week's preparation time was commonly required by the stenographic department. With little doubt, faculty were dissatisfied with so little ancillary support for both their teaching and research objectives. The Municipal University of Omaha had limited resources and budget stretching by everyone was constantly stressed.
College status brought new resources to the campus and one of these was additional secretarial support. Dean Lucas took advantage of the change and assigned departmental secretaries. Dean Heather changed that to a pool of secretaries since he felt this would better balance the individual secretary's workload and eliminate jealousy where one secretary would complain of working harder than were her (there were no male secretaries in the college at that time) counterparts. He felt that having the secretaries in one room with one faculty member having supervisory responsibility would do much to eliminate feelings of envy. His solution fostered resentment from both faculty members and the secretaries. Faculty have individual styles of writing and a secretary who works with the a person on a regular basis soon learns what kinds of changes in writing should be corrected and which ones were to stand. The existence of a secretarial pools siphoned away that kind of symbiotic relationship. Most of the secretaries felt more comfortable when working out their own problems of balancing workloads. Then and now, it is common for secretaries to help one another when requested. In short, personal relationships stand above bureaucratic edicts.
Today's College of Business Administration has departmental secretaries. It also has ones assigned to take care of special problems such as preparing papers that have to meet technical specifications of professional societies.
The early history of the College had the administrative requirement that faculty include student counseling responsibilities among their other obligations. Unfortunately, not all faculty with such assignments looked upon their counseling roles seriously. The unwanted side effect was more than one student missing a graduation essential and having to wait another semester to remove a graduation requirement deficiency. Dean Lucas recognized the seriousness of the problem and made student counseling a two-part process. One faculty member was assigned all lower division students. Academic advisers in each department undertook the academic counseling of upper division students. The theory was that faculty would be more careful in working with students who were majoring in their departments. The lower division part of the counseling worked well, but the upper division still depended on a faculty member taking time to make a check of a student's progress. Today's approach is one of serving students with full time academic counselors.
The UNO College of Business Administration exists today as a strong academic institution and one that has national, if not international, respect. Its fifty years of growth can be viewed as but a prologue to a stronger future.