Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/58910
UTD Biz ed ad 9-06 9/29/06 4:59 PM Page 1 What's your management style? Casual, buttondown or executive three piece suit, The UTD School of Management offers a variety of educational opportunities to fit your style. Full time, part-time, online or on-campus. Degree, non-degree, or professional development. Our bachelor, masters and Ph.D. programs offer concentrations ranging from Medical Management to Accounting, from Finance to Information Technology. With state-of-the art facilties, internationally recognized faculty and an innovative learning environment, we will help you develop your individual management style. For more information on all our programs visit http://som.utdallas.edu THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS SCHOOL OF Fully accredited by AACSB International – The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business UTD is an affirmative action/equal opportunity university MANAGEMENT hope that if we build into the portfolio this type of reflec- tion and capstone experience, students will be better able to identify their passions and talents. They'll be able to see what they like to do and put that into perspective as they set their career objectives. A More Meaningful BBA We are still working through three primary challenges with the My LIFEfolio process. For instance, we currently lack the connectivity that we would like between the portfolio and our career development software. We are working with ePortaro and our career services to make that connectivity possible. Second, we must create a system where students are actively using My LIFEfolio on a continual basis. We realize that the portfolio system will not work if we make it volun- tary. Much of its use must be course-embedded, whether students are taking our business courses or history, math, and political science courses through the university. We are working with faculty throughout the university to make the portfolio an active part of our students' educational lives. And third, we must use the portfolio to keep our students connected to the school while they're working on their co-op experiences. Too often, we've heard our students say that the best thing about being an undergraduate business student at Drexel was our co-op program. That response concerns us— our students were saying that their best learning experiences at Drexel took place when they weren't even on our campus! So, we also want to build elements into the portfolio that will connect students to campus while they're out on co-op, such as online courses they can take while they're working. These efforts, of course, are to enhance both our under- graduate curriculum and our students' satisfaction with their education. Like other business schools, we want to retain each of our students through graduation. Education is a very competitive market, and every student we lose—for financial, personal, or other reasons—is a loss for our school and our faculty. By making our students' experiences more satisfying and meaningful, we better ensure that they will view Drexel as an integral part of their education as students and as alumni. Now that My LIFEfolio is in its first year, our faculty are seeing more possibilities for it, not only for promoting course integration and learning assessment, but also for instilling in students a different attitude toward learning. We want stu- dents to understand that education is not a one-off, course- by-course experience, but a continual, lifelong process. In the end, we want to make our students' experi- ences as meaningful as possible. My LIFEfolio is a tool for learning and a historical record that students can use not just as business undergraduates, but as successful business professionals. ■ z Frank Linnehan is the associate dean of undergraduate studies at Drexel University's LeBow College of Business in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2006 39