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Your Turn Education for the Undergrad Business schools do an excellent job of educating their own students, whether at the undergraduate or graduate level, but they're failing in their responsibility to make sure nonbusiness students at their home universities are receiving a proper education. That's because, when universities develop their core cur- ricula, so few business faculty take part in the process. At most schools, the core cur- riculum is packed with requirements from the arts and sciences fields, while business topics are largely over- looked. But considering how many graduates business schools turn out, this lack of representation doesn't make sense. For instance, the Nation- al Institute for Educational Statistics says that, in the 2003–2004 school year, more than 905,000 bachelor's degrees were awarded in the U.S. Of those, nearly 178,000 were busi- ness degrees—close to 20 percent of the total. By comparison, 25 percent went to arts and sciences students in a wide array of fields, including literature, language, humanities, math, philosophy, and history. At some individual universities, business schools actually graduate the highest percentage of students. But while there's a far greater concentration of students majoring in business than in any arts and sci- ences discipline, business schools are not well represented in discussions on undergraduate education, at least in the U.S. For instance, none of the ten members of the Boyer Commis- sion on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University have a busi- ness school affiliation. 68 BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008 My own school, the University of Kentucky, reflects this imbalance in micro- cosm. Approximately 20 percent of the bachelor's degrees given out by the uni- versity are awarded by the Gatton College of Business and Economics and 25 percent by the College of Arts and Sciences. However, none of the 14 members of UK's University Studies Committee for 2005–2006 was a faculty member of the Gatton College. Of the 13 members of the school's General Education Reform and Assessment committee, seven were faculty—but until 2007, none were from Gatton. Our associate dean for undergraduate affairs now serves on the university's General Education Steering Committee. Perhaps, in the past, business school faculty and administrators have been too busy or too apathetic to agitate for a chance to help devel- op the curricula at our schools. But not only does this mean our topics are sorely underrepresented in gen- eral education, it also means we are shirking our responsibility to educate all students. Graduates with baccalaureate degrees will enter a world that is amazingly complex. Computational power is growing at a phenomenal rate, data is increasingly abundant, and research laboratories—big and small, American and international— are brimming with inventions. Research constantly reveals more secrets about life and even challenges what life is. The sublime creativity of humans is reflected in ever more bold and subtle art forms. Distances mat- ter less. Conflicts are about larger and larger matters, but even though many by D. Sudharshan are rooted in histori- cal events, most of these conflicts are about contemporary power. All undergradu- ate students should have a platform from which to live in such a world. All undergraduates should know how to build better lives through innovation, how to understand their consump- tion choices, how to develop and foster the best economic institutions, and how to create enough wealth to achieve the standards of living they desire. I believe that if business faculty participate in undergraduate curriculum development, we can pre- pare all students—not just business students—to succeed at these tasks. What can business schools offer to undergraduates? I see five areas where we can enrich their lives. n First, we can expose them to the experience of conducting business research. Researchers develop curiosity, awareness, openness, and adaptability as they test, explore, and innovate. These skills will help graduates under- stand their world and navigate change, no matter what their situations. n Second, business schools can make sure that all students are busi- ness literate. Undergraduates may not know where their career paths will take them. If, for instance, they choose to live in the U.S., they will be immersed in the American capital- ist system. They will have to maneu- ver through this system for both per- sonal and professional purposes, and they should know how it works. For example, currently about half of the U.S. population owns shares in publicly traded companies. By the year 2025, this number could reach 65 percent. Furthermore, more