Elective courses are designed to allow students to delve more deeply into topics of interest, to explore new fields, or to select courses complementary to the student’s emphasis in the Full-time MBA Career Acceleration Modules (CAMs). Electives simliar to those listed below are typically available in the spring semester. While elective offerings change a bit each year, the following list of electives offered in the most recent spring semester gives an indication of the type and scope of offerings.
BUAD 514 Cost Administration and Financial Control Systems (3.0 hours) – David Gosselin
Topics include standard cost systems and cost variance analysis, profit planning and budgets, cost-volume-profit analysis, cost allocation and transfer pricing, and cost analysis for corporate planning and control.
BUAD 515 The Influence of Taxation on Business Decisions (3.0 hours) – James Smith
The course provides the student with an overview of the influence of Federal income taxation on the business decision- making process. A conceptual foundation is established that links Federal income taxation and cost/benefit analysis in terms of the impact on business decisions. The student will understand tax terminology, develop and awareness of tax reduction techniques, and utilize tax planning in applying these techniques in a business setting. Differences in financial reporting objectives and the related financial statements versus those associated with tax reduction techniques are identified.
BUAD 517 Government and Nonprofit Accounting (3.0 hours) – Susan Morris
This course is designed to introduce students to the concepts, principles, and procedures of accounting for state and local governments and other nonprofit entities. Emphasis will be placed on financial reporting and control; including fund accounting systems, budgetary controls, and the preparation and analysis of financial reports. Students will also gain an understanding of the accounting and reporting significance of the organizational and operational differences between nonprofit entities and for-profit entities. Topics to be covered will include: principles of accounting and financial reporting for state and local governments and other nonprofit entities; budgets, budgetary accounting, and budgetary reporting; financial reporting and accountability; and audits of state and local governments.
BUAD 527 Data Base Management (3.0 hours) – Chon Abraham
Database management systems must effectively store, access and manipulate data as well as provide data security, data sharing, data concepts and integrity. This course introduces the fundamentals of the modern database concepts and database development skills and emphasizes on both theories and hands-on experiences. The course work includes a term project in which students design and implement a database system to solve practical business problems. Furthermore, students will be able to use SQL to create complex queries. The MS Access and Oracle will be used by students to gain hands-on experience. Other database packages such as DB2, SQL Server, etc. will be discussed as well.
BUAD 532 Corporate Financial Policy (3.0 hours) – Scott Gibson
This course is intended to give the students a forum to investigate both the theory and practice of finance in a corporate setting. It covers a broad spectrum of issues facing a financial manager including: planning and financial control; working capital policy; analysis of financing alternatives; capital structure and equity management policy; investment analysis; resource allocation policy; and corporate restructure and merger analysis.
BUAD 533 Securities Analysis (3.0 hours) – Frank Knuettel
This course is designed to give students an understanding of the principles of security analysis as applied to stocks, equity options, and futures, in the context of portfolio management in a global capital market. Topics include expected utility analysis, return and risk measurement and forecasting, portfolio theory, capital asset pricing, earnings forecasting, portfolio performance measurement, Black-Scholes option valuation, spot-futures parity, and international interest rate parity. Students should emerge from this course with the ability to measure and evaluate the risk/return tradeoffs associated with the decision to buy or sell equity securities, and to articulate reasons for their recommendation.
BUAD 536 Portfolio Management (3.0 hours) – Vladimir Atanasov
This course is designed to give students an understanding of the principles of portfolio management in a global capital market. Emphasis is placed on mutual fund management. Topics include individual and institutional investor behaviors, international diversification, latest developments in trading, fundamental analysis and technical analysis, performance measurement, mutual fund structures and management, risk management and hedging. Students will emerge from this course with an understanding of the portfolio management process, and with the ability to evaluate the performance of portfolios with respect to different investor objectives and to articulate recommendations for changes.
BUAD 538 International Financial Management (3.0 hours) – Deborah Hewitt
Covers important concepts in international economic and financial analysis, and stresses their use in the financial management of multinational corporations, in international portfolio management, and foreign direct investment decisions.
BUAD 542 Marketing Strategy (3.0 hours) – Scott Swan
Focuses on analyzing market threats and opportunities, assessing competitive advantages, forecasting patterns of market evolution and developing marketing strategies that are consistent with these assessments.
BUAD 576 Decision Processes Under Uncertainty (3.0 hours) – Hector Guerrero
Considers the effects of uncertainty on decision-making with emphasis on decision theory, risk analysis techniques, Bayesian learning, and decision complexity.
BUAD 581 International Business Practicum (Global Business Immersion – SE Asia) (3.0 hours) - Don Rahtz
The objectives of this course are: 1) to introduce students to the interactive concepts of marketing and culture, 2) to enable students to understand the cultural issues at the corporate, national and transnational levels, 3) to provide insights on effective marketing and management decision making in unfamiliar or cross-cultural settings, particularly with respect to various international contexts, and 4) most importantly to give students unique experiences with cultural immersion. This year the course focuses on Southeast and East Asia.
BUAD 583 Non-Profit Organizations (3.0 hours) - Herrington Bryce
This course is designed for MBAs, JD, Public Policy, and Education students who are interested in the legal, tax, financial, and strategic foundations for operating, managing or participating as trustees in the governance of nonprofit organizations regardless of size or mission. The course covers corporate law as it applies to nonprofits, corporate and individual tax laws and estate planning laws as they contribute to the design of strategies for financing of nonprofits, endowment and business venture strategies as they relate to nonprofits, and the various tax and liability risks to which nonprofits are exposed and for which strategic planning must be done.
BUAD 586 Real Estate Perspectives (3.0 hours) – Henry Mallue
Introductory view of real estate from four perspectives--business, legal, economic, and financial. Emphasis is placed on housing, income-property investment, and public policy decision-making, and the role real estate plays as an engine for economic growth and in determining the quality of life.
BUAD 587 Managing & Financing Smaller Business Enterprises (3.0 hours) – Dick Ash
Designed for those who wish to undertake a career journey in the direction of running a smaller business enterprise or a family business. It is structured to allow the students to develop an alternative to a large company or professional service firm. Every aspect of a business is covered, from the legal entity utilized through the management and financing of the enterprise. The creation and review of individual Business Plans will be required.
BUAD 595 01 Doing Business in Europe (1st Half) 1.5 credit hours – Richard Flood
This week-long seminar is held in Paris, France during spring break. Through our partnership with the Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP), the course provides a series of seminars (in English) focusing on business and marketing in Europe, visits to major French companies and a trip to the EU in Brussels. The additional fee of approximately $2100 for spring 2007 (students may explore financing with the College's Office of Financial Aid) includes all transportation, lodging (double occupancy), seminars, plant visits, daily breakfast, and lunches on seminar days.
BUAD 595 02 Applied Decision Theory (3.0 hours) – Harvey Langholtz
How do people make decisions? How can we understand decisions as cognitive processes? In this course we will examine the psychological process of decision making. It will be our goal to better understand how people process information in the making of a decision, and through that understanding we will see how to avoid common errors ourselves, while being effective in influencing the decisions of others. Topics will include the framing of decisions, the role of memory in decisions, judgments about probability, heuristics, common decision traps, decisions as social processes, and related issues.
BUAD 595 03 Business Ethics (3.0 hours) – Edward Felton
Business Ethics is the study of ethical perspectives and values in management decision-making. Through cases, readings and exercises, students explore the nature of ethical dilemmas faced by managers in making decisions and in exercising their responsibilities to society, to stakeholders, and to themselves. Emphasis is placed on the students’ becoming aware of their own values system, taking accountability for their own professional development, and recognize their own personal and professional responsibilities as ethical managers.
BUAD 595 04 Supply Chain Management (3.0 hours) – James Bradley
This course addresses both the strategic and operational decisions required to construct and operate a supply chain that supports a company’s overall strategy and, indeed, provides a competitive advantage. The main strategic decisions addressed in this course is the appropriate supply chain structure for a given circumstance, taking into consideration current threats of disruption that supply chains face, including terrorism, labor strikes, pandemics, etc. A majority of the course, however, deals with operational topics, which are decisions about how to efficiently produce and deliver goods through a supply chain. This part of the course is centered around an interactive computer supply chain game that students will take a pre-test and post-test. In between, a majority of the lectures provide students with tools to play the supply chain game better and, hence, improve their skills in managing real supply chains.