Baruch’s Zicklin School of Business is accredited by The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB ). This accrediting body is internationally recognized for requiring rigorous standards challenging educators to develop learning goals for their programs, to assess whether the learning is taking place, and to make recommendations for continuous improvement. The Zicklin School benefits from the reputation of being among those accredited by AACSB, and our students are the true beneficiaries because the objectives are to ensure that students are learning what the mission of the school indicates will be taught. This process is called Assurance of Learning (AOL), and every program within the Zicklin School of Business is required to demonstrate that a systematic, routine assessment program is in place. There are several graduate programs within the Zicklin School of Business and this summer, Zicklin School Associate Dean Linda Friedman and Director of Graduate Student Services Maria DiBenedetto led a faculty development summer seminar intended to jumpstart assessment activities related to Graduate Assurance of Learning in the Zicklin School’s MS programs.

This Zicklin Summer Seminar focused on oversight of assurance of learning in our Master of Science (MS) programs. The group made use of a Google website for sharing materials and information, and discussed issues such as: how do our MS program learning goals fit with the mission of the Zicklin School and of Baruch College? Can we devise a top-down way of looking at learning in our MS programs, say, a framework? Can we envision any efficiencies in assessment, once we have such a framework? The group met for two full days this summer and is still working. Outcomes from this seminar include, for each MS program: updated learning goals; learning objectives; rubrics for assessment; assessment instrument(s); and an assessment plan looking forward to the next AACSB maintenance of accreditation visitation in 2014.

Faculty participating in this initiative are: David Cenedella (MS Taxation), Paquita Davis-Friday (MS Accountancy), David Frame (MS Real Estate), Aloke Ghosh (Executive MS Financial Statement Analysis), Andy Grein (MS Marketing), Marios Koufaris (MS Information Systems), Ray LaManna (Executive MS Industrial & Labor Relations and MS Entrepreneurship), Gwen Webb (Executive MS Financial Risk Management) and Avner Wolf (Executive MS Finance). Also participating are Associate Provost Dennis Slavin, Associate Dean Phyllis Zadra, Dean John Elliott, and John Choonoo, Director, Institutional Research & Program Assessment. Two programs - MS Statistics and MS Quantitative Methods and Modeling - were not able to identify representatives for the summer seminar and so did not participate in this go-round.

Through the hard work and dedication of the faculty who worked over the summer, and continuing efforts on their part as well as on the part of faculty colleagues in their respective disciplines, we expect to put an assessment plan in place which, in addition to satisfying the requirements for maintenance of our accreditation with AACSB, will provide faculty with information about and insight into learning outcomes specific to these concentrated graduate programs.