B.A. in Management and Leadership: Curriculum

Understanding human behavior begins with understanding yourself. Learn how your personality type or learning style affects the way you process information and make decisions. Use projects, small group discussions, and class activities to discern the best way to build teams and manage people, who have different styles of leadership, motivation, and problem-solving. This course dives into management functions, motivation styles, team building, and change management concepts.

Learn what it means to be an entrepreneur while exploring foundational concepts in management, marketing, economics, and finance/accounting. Create a full business plan for a small business in class, making daily decisions about the business in a dynamic environment.

This course examines the administrative and common law regulation of business. Constitutional Law, Title VII and product liability are covered. Students also examine contract law and the Uniform Commercial Code provisions on sales and secured transactions.

Students are introduced to the principles of financial accounting. Topics explored include the accounting cycle, transaction analysis, journal entries, adjustments, financial statement preparation and analysis, and closing entries. Students learn the basics of common financial statement accounts, including current assets, fixed assets, current liabilities, long-term debt, equity, revenue, and expense are covered. (Students must earn a minimum grade of C in order to progress to ACC 202 and ACC 311

Explore the fundamental concepts of accounting and finance within an organizational context, including terminology, financial statements, ratio analysis, budgeting, time value of money, along with ethical and global considerations. Apply standard financial and accounting tools to make business assessments and financial decisions important for managers in any organization.

This course provides an introduction to the study of marketing in business and other organizations. Topics that will be addressed in this course include the marketing environment, marketing ethics, information gathering, product development, pricing strategies, distribution strategies, the promotional mix, decision making, nonprofit marketing, social marketing and international marketing. (Prerequisite: junior standing)

Learn how team functions affect organizational effectiveness. Through hands-on team exercises, practice developing team culture, decision-making, increasing productivity, providing critical feedback, and resolving conflict in groups. Students develop strategies to lead and build productive teams. (Prerequisite: Minimum grade of C- in BUS 380)

Develop the skills needed to support innovation and improvement in organizations. Design an organizational change plan, create a vision, manage the communication, and identify the barriers to effective implementation of the change. Explore the impact of change on the day-to-day work experience of organizational members, and discover how culture, management philosophy, and individual performances are influenced by change. (Prerequisite: Minimum grade of C- in BUS 380 or HRM 382)

Enhance leadership skills by applying effective project management tools and techniques to initiate, plan, execute, monitor, control, and close a project. Practice project management leadership techniques that will help teams meet organizational goals. Topics include project scope, cost, time, integration, quality, communication, risk human resources, and procurement management. (Prerequisite: Minimum grade of C- in BUS 380 and MAL 402)

Develop strategies to manage organizational conflict effectively and lead collaborative negotiations. Learn how positive dialog and effective communication can change organizational conflict from destructive to constructive. Master the art of win/win collaborative negotiations while preserving relationships using principled dispute resolution strategies. Improve negotiating skills by practicing strategies and tactics to conduct collaborative and competitive negotiations. (Prerequisite: Minimum grade of C- in BUS 380 or in HRM 382)

Learn to construct a strategic plan for a business aligning the vision, mission, and strategic objectives, while developing concrete action plans for success. Incorporate performance analysis using strategic decision-making tools and write recommendations that reflect critical and ethical thinking. This course brings the skills, tools, and analysis learned throughout the program together into a culminating capstone project; thus, this course should be taken at the completion of the major. (Prerequisite: BUS 388, ACC 201 or ACC 384, and a minimum grade of C- in at least two 400-level courses in the major.)

Learn the key aspects and best practices of data analysis by exploring the fundamentals of gathering and analyzing data. Create visualizations and dashboard reports utilizing large data sets associated with an industry of choice, such as, finance, health, sports, criminal justice, among others. Microsoft Excel and Tableau will be utilized throughout the course for data visualizations while a basic understanding of the R and Python languages will be explored. A basic understanding of statistical measures may be helpful for this course but not mandatory for successfully mastering these concepts.