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NEWS
| february 17, 2004
Business Administration
College begins accreditation renewal
process
The year-long process comes around
once in a decade and is a chance to ensure students have the best
resources, an administrator says.
By Brandon
Pope
Contributor to The Shorthorn
The College of Business Administration is preparing for the year-long
task of renewing its accreditation status, a process that comes
around only once a decade.
“In 1995-1996, we were reaccredited, or reaffirmed as they
call it,” said Daniel Himarios, College of Business Administration
dean.
Now that time has come again.
The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business will send
a three-person team to the university in 2005 to evaluate the college’s
progress and to make sure it’s still compliant with the association’s
standards, Dr. Himarios said.
Due to recent changes in the accreditation policy, the team will
visit UTA for a maximum of two days instead of the usual three,
he said. Schools are now required to submit annual reports instead
of waiting for reaccreditation time so the association’s team
can shave a day off of its stay, he said.
The purpose of going through this rigorous process is to give students
the assurance of the best possible resources available to succeed,
Himarios said.
Accreditation helps ensure that graduating students obtain the necessary
skills to help them in the workplace.
It also assures a potential employer that the graduate has met a
high level of standards set by the association, Himarios said. These
include communication abilities, ethical understanding, analytic
skills, multicultural understanding and relative thinking skills.
The process is stressful and time-consuming, but the college has
done it successfully many times before, Himarios said.
“The business college has been accredited for over 30 years,”
he said.
The college is accredited in both business administration and accounting
from the undergraduate to the doctorate level.
Although universities across the nation are accredited in business,
not many are accredited in accounting. It’s particularly rare
for a school to be accredited in both fields, he said. Only 163
schools have accreditation in both.
Some business colleges across the nation are not accredited, as
this is a strictly voluntary process, Himarios said.
“Out of 12,000 schools across the nation, only 466 business
schools are accredited,” he said.
An important issue regarding accreditation is the assurance of diversity
within the college.
“We have one of the most diverse programs around,” Himarios
said. “We have faculty from all over the world and a diverse
population of students from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds.”
One thing the college takes seriously is the association’s
high standards for education in ethics.
“Some classes deal directly with ethics while others incorporate
them into the curriculum,” Himarios said.
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