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Business in Society Course Syllabus, Fall 2016 Instructor: Ray Pfeiffer BUSI 20970, #81900, MWF 9:00 – 9:50, Rees-Jones Hall Room 113 3 Credit Hours

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Business in Society Course Syllabus, Fall 2016 Instructor: Ray Pfeiffer BUSI 20970, #81900, MWF 9:00 – 9:50, Rees-Jones Hall Room 113 3 Credit Hours First-Year Seminar: Business in Society Course Syllabus, Fall 2016 Instructor: Ray Pfeiffer BUSI 20970, #81900, MWF 9:00 – 9:50, Rees-Jones Hall Room 113 3 credit hours The TCU Mission To educate individuals to think and act as ethical leaders and responsible citizens in the global community. The Neeley Mission To develop ethical leaders with a global perspective who help shape the business environment. Brief Course Description This brand-new course is designed to help you to gain a broad perspective on what business is, how it fits into the rest of society, and how the study of business connects with the rest of the learning that you are doing as a liberally educated student at TCU. Why take this course? Business is an increasingly impactful participant in our lives. Business affects society and society affects business. This course will give you the opportunity to build a framework for understanding the dynamics of this relationship. This framework is an essential foundation for your further study of business. Also, in the practice of business, there are seldom “right” answers to important questions. The ability to identify alternative approaches and to find, explain, and defend the best one is a key skill for the study and practice of business. This course will focus intentionally on helping you to develop this skill (“critical thinking”). BUSI 20970 First-Year Seminar: Business in Society, Fall 2016 Syllabus Finally, this course gives you the chance to engage with the Neeley School and at least one of its professors more deeply than you otherwise would, given that you don’t have the opportunity to take business courses until the second year. That engagement will help you to get a head start in getting your bearings and getting going on your pursuit of a business education. Learning Objectives: The learning objectives for this course stem from the overall objectives of the Neeley undergraduate program. As noted in the TCU Undergraduate Catalog, “The M.J. Neeley School of Business offers a program of study to prepare its students to contribute to the professional business world and the larger community. The Neeley School emphasizes a unified program of basic studies—humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, mathematics, economics and business. The concept of a balanced curriculum extends to the business studies. Although students may concentrate in a particular field of business, they all study the principles of accounting, business information systems, finance, entrepreneurial management, supply and value chain management, and marketing…Additionally, the Neeley School seeks to provide its students with the distinctive competencies needed to compete and lead in the business world: effective communication skills, the ability to utilize business technology, an understanding of the global nature of business and a sense of the value of making ethical business decisions.” The role of this course in meeting these objectives focuses in particular on several aspects of the programmatic goals, most notably: (1) connections between the business world and the larger community; (2) a focus on integration of the study of the liberal arts and of business; and (3) several distinctive competencies, including communication, critical thinking, and ethics. When you successfully complete this course, you will be able to: 1. Clearly articulate what “business” is and why it exists as an institution in our society. 2. Explain how and why business practice has evolved over time to the present 3. Describe how business concepts, theories, and practices relate to the liberal arts. 4. Articulate the connections between business and other institutions and stakeholders in society — how business affects society and how society affects business. 5. Apply ethical reasoning in concert with your values to business decisions. 6. Effectively employ critical thinking tools and approaches to reason through business scenarios that lack a single correct answer. 7. Be able to clearly and effectively communicate your thinking in writing and orally. 2 BUSI 20970 First-Year Seminar: Business in Society, Fall 2016 Syllabus Accomplishing the Objectives To achieve the learning objectives, you can make use of the following resources: ▫ 43 50-minute class periods during which we will discuss, present, and exchange views about class topics; ▫ Reading materials, including chapters from books, articles, cases, and items drawn from the news (and social) media. o The (required) course materials can be purchased at the following link: http://www.study.net/r_mat.asp?crs_id=30090802. The cost is approximately $150.00. ▫ Short homework assignments to help you reflect on the advance preparation materials ▫ Opportunities to hear from experts in various fields, both in person and online; ▫ Use of your FrogFolio to enhance your learning by developing a habit of reflection; ▫ Chances to deepen and cement your knowledge and understanding in short papers, quizzes, and tests; ▫ Your classmates, who can help you with your thinking as you help them with theirs; ▫ A course website;1 and ▫ Office hours, where I will be available to work with you one-on-one. Measuring success and providing useful feedback How will we know if are successfully meeting the course objectives? ▫ Each day in class, you will have the opportunity to assess the extent to which you are successfully able to understand and participate in the conversation about the material that you prepared for that day’s class. ▫ In addition, I will provide numerous opportunities to give you more formal feedback on written assignments, quizzes, tests, and participation in class discussions. Grades I will determine your grade for this course based upon evidence of accomplishment of the course objectives from each of the following inputs: 1 The course website can be found at http://d2l.tcu.edu. I will use the website to distribute assignments, post grades, address commonly asked questions, and convey any other pertinent information. To use TCU, login with your regular TCU credentials. 3 BUSI 20970 First-Year Seminar: Business in Society, Fall 2016 Syllabus Item Weight Homework 20% Participation and preparedness 20% Exam I 15% Exam II 20% Final exam 25% Total 100% Letter grades will correspond to percentage grades as follows: A 94 – 100% C 73 – 76% A– 90 – 93% C– 70 – 72% B+ 87 – 89% D+ 67 – 69% B 83 – 86% D 63 – 66% B– 80 – 82% D– 60 – 62% C+ 77 – 79% F < 60% Because I know what you are capable of achieving, I hold very high expectations for your performance. As a result, a grade of ‘A’ to me represents exceptional performance. However, I am committed to helping each of you reach that level of performance, and I believe that you are all capable of getting there. HOMEWORK: As a means of helping keep you up to date on readings and prepared in advance for our class meetings, I will be administering short homework assignments that you will complete prior to coming to class. These will typically consist of a few thought-provoking questions designed to help you reflect on assigned readings and to help you discover what questions you have that you will want to have answered in class. I will grade them on a pass/no credit basis; that is, if you do these assignments on time with evidence of a sufficient level of effort, you will receive full credit. If you do not complete the assignment or do not complete it on time, you will get no credit for that assignment. Your grade on this component is thus equal to the percentage of assignments for which you receive credit. If you miss an assignment because of an unavoidable situation, you can appeal to me for an opportunity to make up the missed assignment. I’ll grant makeup credit based on the merits of the appeal. PARTICIPATION AND PREPAREDNESS: The success of this class and the amount each of us will learn from it depends heavily on the extent to which we have high quality and broad participation in the discussion. That engagement requires both preparation and participation. 4 BUSI 20970 First-Year Seminar: Business in Society, Fall 2016 Syllabus By preparation, I mean doing the required out-of-class work that I assign, thinking about the underlying issues, and formulating questions, comments, and your own thoughts and opinions about the issues prior to coming to class. While in class, I expect that you’ll participate actively, ask thoughtful questions, and encourage your classmates to do the same. At the end of each class session, I’ll ask you to assess your own participation using a scoresheet that I’ll provide you. While I will try to honor your self-assessments, I will read them after every class and reserve the right to raise or lower your score based on my own observations of your participation and preparedness. If you’re absent, you cannot make up participation and preparedness points. Learning is not a spectator sport; you need to be engaged and present to be successful. EXAMS: On October 7 and November 4, we will spend class time on exams. In those exams, you’ll be given the opportunity to demonstrate the extent of your learning of the material that we’ve covered up to that date. These will likely be essay-type exams. On December 14, we’ll have a comprehensive final exam covering everything that you learned during the semester. Electronics in the Classroom During class, we will be engaged in a conversation with one another. Just like in a face-to-face conversation, it is impolite for someone to interrupt such a conversation by engaging in conversation (via text) with someone else. Our Learning Community University courses are, by design, taught to groups of students rather than one-on-one. One of the reasons for this is that there are benefits to learning in groups.
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