Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/139946
ANY TIES a half years to complete, with the first half of the program focusing on core business disciplines; and the second half, on electives, field study, and professional experience. In 2007, HAAGA-HELIA's board members laid out several general criteria for our curriculum redesign. First, they wanted HAAGA-HELIA to offer a minimum number of courses in applied research and language studies. Second, they wanted to allow students to personalize their programs. And, third, they wanted to standardize our course structures and module sizes so that credits could be exchanged across departments to support more customized curricula. More important, given our role as a university of applied sciences, board members wanted us to deepen our commitment to industry by doing more to help our faculty and staff maintain current corporate contacts and reach out to new potential contacts on a continui ous basis. In response, we formed 11 "competence teams" that each include lecturers within a given discipline, such as marketing and sales, human resource management, and foreign languages. Our competence teams coordinate development work within their own disciplines and between different disciplines. They also encourage faculty to develop their corporate connections throughout the year. Then, during our annual development meeting, each competence team reports the new industry contacts faculty and staff have made over the past year. Getting Industry Involved In 2008, we began our redesign efforts in earnest. The competence teams and a six-member task force, headed by the vice president, began their analysis of the present curriculum. They sent more than 2,600 questionnaires to current students and former graduates and surveyed d t' current students. Our students' most common request was to have more freedom of choice in their courses. In addition, so many students asked that we add new course content on the topic of purchasing management that we created a new course within our logistics module. We also invited 78 representatives from our partner companies to participate in one of two threehour workshops to discuss our programs. Most were from Finnish SMEs, but others were from larger companies such as Nokia, social game and online community firm Sulake, insurance company Fennia, and several major Finnish banks. During the workshops, we asked them questions such as "What can our curriculum do better?" and "What do you expect from us in the future?" We also formed disciplinespecific delegations of businesspeople who offered additional guidance BizEd July/August 2013 47