1. The Case for An Active Association of Collegiate Schools of Business
- Author
-
Orme W. Phelps
- Subjects
Procurement ,Casual ,business.industry ,Nothing ,Business education ,Political science ,Disclaimer ,Public relations ,business ,Objectivity (science) ,Curriculum ,Accreditation - Abstract
T HE questions which are raised in this paper are two. First, do not the problems connected with professional business education justify the creation of an active, full-time agency to help in their solution? And, second, should not that agency be the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business? In practical terms, affirmative answers mean suggesting that the Association convert from a more or less casual society of deans of professional schools, on a mininum-budget basis, meeting annually for purposes of acquaintance and discussion, to a more operational form of organization. Such an organization would have a permanent home-office address and a minimum permanent staff available to members on call; it would also have recognized responsibilities for the procurement and dissemination of information, for the explicit formulation of standards, for formal and informal accreditation, and for accredited representation before public, semipublic, and private bodies. The argument for the action proposed above rests principally on the premises of size and complexity of the industry known as business education, especially on the college level. At this point it may be well to disclaim explicitly any conclusion that size of enrolment is the sole or even the primary measure of the importance of a field of concentration in college or university work. No such implication is intended. Admittedly, there are other standards than registrations by which significance is measured. The trouble with most of them is their lack of objectivity and the great difficulty of obtaining agreement on premises derived from them. This may be illustrated by examining the criterion of "function," which would probably rank high on any list of measures of value. The futility of attempting to settle the relative importance to society of the lawyer, the teacher, the business administrator, the doctor, or the minister is immediately apparent, to say nothing of the problem of determining the places to be occupied by the members of the nineteen other professional groups listed in the American Council on Education's Guide.2 The disclaimer entered above, however, does not eliminate student enrolments as a criterion. While not, perhaps, the sole or the primary standard, it is still a very important measure of significance-more important, possibly, in the private views of some college and university administrators than they would be willing to admit publicly. Also, it has the virture of objectivity. The general argument may therefore be stated somewhat tentatively as follows: (a) business administration, as a discipline, is sufficiently institutionalized to be incorporated into the curriculums of professional schools of college or university
- Published
- 1946