Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/80527
advanced degrees in teaching Eng- lish as a second language, and most have backgrounds in business. This enables students to learn relevant business-specific vocabulary with great depth and nuance. Because we assess students' competencies before and after each semester, we can tell that our individualized approach has yielded strong posi- tive results. Eighty-eight percent of PCA students made significant improvements in their written and/ or spoken English abilities. Most of them also made immeasurable gains in understanding both the American culture and the complex- ities of communication. What's Next? We know we're not the only school looking for ways to help interna- tional students enter American busi- ness culture. At a recent conference for the MBA Career Services Coun- cil, we gave a presentation on the ACE component of our Professional Development Initiatives, and it was clear that many of our colleagues have been experiencing similar challenges with their international students. While we received encour- aging feedback about the approach we've adopted, we will continue to modify our initiatives as we learn more about our students and the changing needs of employers. We are planning a comprehen- sive assessment plan for the ACE program that will consider program goals, learning outcomes, direct and indirect measures, and performance thresholds. We expect to imple- ment the assessment plan during the 2012–2013 academic year, and we'll use the results as part of our continuous curriculum review. But we've also realized that our Professional Development Initia- tives can be used in other applica- tions—for instance, in programs aimed at domestic students who have little professional work expe- rience. These students could surely benefit from enhanced career ser- vices training and pre-internship workplace opportunities. We've seen how transformative the ACE and PCA programs can be. Not only do students emerge with more self-confidence, com- petitive job skills, and useful work experience, they are better pre- pared to communicate their value to potential employers. We believe other business schools can use this integrated approach to energize their programs the way it has ener- gized ours. Suzanne Weiss is assistant dean and senior lecturer at the Stuart School of Business at the Illinois Institute of Technol- ogy in Chicago. Ana Rossetti is the direc- tor of student affairs at the school, and Luigi Pecoraro is director of the Career Management Center. Stacey Draper pro- vided research and editorial support. BizEd September/October 2012 45