Proposal for a Master of Business Administration (MBA) Degree Program

EXPEDITED PROGRAM APPROVAL

SUBMITTED TO THE

MASSACHUSETTS BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Submission Date: August 17, 2006

FRAMINGHAM STATE COLLEGE

100 STATE STREET

FRAMINGHAM, MASSACHUSETTS

An organization chart is given in Exhibit 32.

The DGCE Dean is responsible for graduate programs and faculty at the College, and directly reports to the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs (“AVPAA”)   An MBA Program Coordinator will be appointed to oversee curriculum, assessment and other academic matters. The organizational structure for the program is presented in the chart below. The AVPAA as well as Department Chairs report to the Vice President for Academic Affairs (“VPAA”), who oversees all academic operations and functions of the College, including full-time and adjunct faculty.

Within DGCE, the Dean is assisted by the Associate Dean, who oversees graduate admissions, implements policies, certifies students for graduation, and assists the Dean and Program Coordinators in the recruitment, hiring, and orientation of DGCE faculty. DGCE serves approximately 1,600 matriculated graduate students. The Division is supported by nine additional full-time staff members and by several part-time contract employees and advisors who have enjoyed lengthy tenure with the college. The Division oversees marketing, student recruiting, admissions, registration, advising, faculty hiring, and graduation audits. Student records, including transcripts, are maintained by the Office of Registrar. The Business Office handles student accounts and the faculty payroll.

Exhibit 32 - Organizational Chart (MBA Program Section)

DGCE faculty are governed by a separate collective bargaining agreement from the day faculty, known as the Agreement between the Board of Higher Education and the Massachusetts Teachers Association/NEA - Massachusetts State College Association - Division of Graduate and Continuing Education (referred to as the “contract”).

Each graduate program is assigned a coordinator, who receives a stipend from DGCE and works closely with the Dean. The Coordinator is responsible for scheduling courses, evaluating faculty, chairing the department graduate committee, and ensuring the overall quality of the program. The Chair of the Economics and Business Administration Department is currently the Coordinator for the graduate program in administration. We anticipate creating the position of MBA Coordinator upon implementation of the program.

According to the agreement between the BHE and the full-time Day Division faculty (Articles VI and VII), departments that sponsor graduate programs are required to establish a Departmental Graduate Committee to oversee such programs.

Governance for graduate programs is provided by the Graduate Education Council ("GEC"), which oversees graduate policies, curriculum and the graduate catalog. The council consists of the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs; the Dean; the Associate Dean; five full-time faculty members who are voted upon by their peers, and a graduate student representative. The College Registrar is an ex officio member of the Council, which meets monthly throughout the academic year. The GEC considers recommendations from the Departmental Graduate Committees, Council members, as well as from other sources.

The Dean or designee establishes and publishes the course schedule each semester. By contract, the DGCE Chair or Coordinator recommends the assignment of specific courses, faculty and class sizes to the Dean. By contract, the College President has final approval of all faculty appointments.

All DGCE faculty are currently hired as adjuncts, on a per course basis. The terms and conditions of employment are stated in writing to the faculty member through the Uniform Letter of Appointment, which is signed by the Dean on behalf of the VPAA; a copy of the letter, together with accompanying documents, is provided as Appendix W.

There are two forms of evaluation of DGCE faculty: student evaluations, which are conducted at the conclusion of each course, and evaluations of teaching effectiveness, which are conducted by the Chair/Coordinator or Dean, based on classroom visitations (including virtual classrooms).

According to the contract (Article IX), evaluations are conducted for the purposes of making personnel decisions, encouraging and assessing professional and pedagogical experimentation, and assisting members of the academic community in the improvement of performance and programs.

Student evaluations are typically conducted during the next to last class, by a student designee who distributes the evaluation to the class and returns the completed evaluations to the DGCE office. The instructor is not present while students complete the evaluation forms. See Form D-2 in Appendix X. Online courses are evaluated by an online version of the form. Summaries of the results of all student evaluations are sent to the Dean, Chair or Coordinator and to the instructor.

The following criteria are used in the evaluation of DGCE faculty:

Teaching effectiveness in lectures, seminars, internships, independent studies and otherwise;

Course advising, as it is prescribed in Section A(3) of Article VIII; and

Other instructional obligations, as they are prescribed in Section A(1) of Article VIII.

Faculty members are evaluated during the first instructional period of teaching in the Program of Graduate and Continuing Education. Thereafter they are evaluated during the instructional period in which they are teaching any fourth subsequent course in the Program of Graduate and Continuing Education. See the form for classroom evaluation and Form D-4, the evaluation form, given as Appendix Y.

The faculty member has the right to submit a written response to the evaluation. Thereafter, the DGCE Chair or Coordinator submits a written report with supporting materials to the Dean. The Dean has significant leverage with regard to faculty evaluations; according to the contract, “The Dean shall thereafter take such action with respect to the evaluation as the Dean deems appropriate.”