Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/139946
Curricular Outcomes Once we gathered feedback from our board, students, and partners, we delivered it all directly to the competence teams, which then made proposals for new curricular structures and frameworks. After 33 months of planning, the first student cohort enrolled in the new curriculum in the fall of 2010. 48 July/August 2013 BizEd The biggest changes reflected in HAAGA-HELIA's new curriculum include: Customized Programs: While all of our students must take required courses, they now are encouraged to take courses from other disciplines—for example, students in sports management are free to take courses in hospitality if it suits their educational goals. All electives are offered at times when they are available to all students, regardless of the discipline. Approximately 60 percent of the students take advantage of these elective options. Entrepreneurship: The Finnish government is a strong supporter of entrepreneurship, so we now require each course description to include explicit entrepreneurial content, and all first-year students must enroll in a required five-credit course on entrepreneurship. In addition, students have the option to develop business ideas into companies in our business incubator and participate in Startup School, a coaching and mentoring program. Internationalization: All individual course descriptions must include explicit content that supports international business. Moreover, students are required to take courses to become proficient in at least three languages, as well as a course in cross-cultural management. Research, Development, and Innovation (RD&I): Finally, all students must take courses in methodology and applied research. They also can opt to complete a 15- to 30-credit RD&I project to commercialize an idea for a product or service; in some situations, RD&I projects can replace traditional courses. Since the new curriculum's first year, the number of students completing RD&I projects has gradually increased—approximately 10 percent now include an RD&I project in their personalized study plans. Ongoing Effort Now in its third year, our revised curriculum has received enthusiastic feedback from partner companies, students, faculty, and staff. More important, our faculty have increased their corporate contacts by approximately 30 percent. These additional contacts have led to a number of small-scale projects. Our next challenge is to increase the size and scope of those collaborations. Through our focus on entrepreneurship and RD&I projects, we also have created more "landing spots" for corporate participation. Students have worked with companies on a range of RD&I projects, including an analysis of how Scandinavian businesses can increase their activity in Russia, a plan to better market Scandinavian design, and a report on ways to promote Arctic tourism. As we had hoped, our curriculum brings corporate involvement to the forefront of our activities. We will continue to organize workshops with executives to discuss our courses and keep them involved. By integrating such ongoing, formal activities into our curriculum, we can sustain and grow our corporate relationships and keep our programs dynamic, relevant, and deeply connected to business. Teemu Kokko is vice president of HAAGA-HELIA—University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki, Finland. DAVI D AR KY/G LOW I MAG ES for specific competence areas. These participants asked us for more content related to project management, accounting skills, and intercultural communications. They wanted our courses to focus on practical issues, such as the legal requirements and implications of international marketing. They also thought we should place greater emphasis on areas such as internationalization, project management, cultural knowledge, online marketing, entrepreneurship, law, and logistics. By including industry in our curriculum redesign, we strengthened our bond with partner companies, so that we receive corporate input on an ongoing basis, not just during a program re-evaluation. Now that they're more familiar with our offerings, they initiate thesis projects, offer a greater number of internships, and provide more case studies to our students. Most important, many make the effort to keep in touch with us—we no longer have to be the first to contact them. That is exactly what we hoped for when we began this process.