Move over, BIP: there’s a new undergraduate business option in town.
Northwestern is in the “discussion phase” of establishing a third Kellogg School of Management undergraduate business certificate that would focus on marketing with an analytical background, University officials said this week. The certificate would grant all NU students greater access to one of the best graduate business schools in the country.
Administrators are hoping to offer the certificate by Fall Quarter 2013, said Carol Henes, director of Kellogg’s Certificate Program for Undergraduates. It can’t be offered next fall because students don’t have time to complete enough prerequisites, she said. Prerequisites will include math, probability, statistics and microeconomics, as well as some liberal arts subjects such as psychology.
The certificate would be similar to the two currently in place, Managerial Analytics and Financial Economics, in that it would have an analytic focus, Henes said. It would be different from the five-credit Integrated Marketing Communications certificate in the Medill School of Journalism, which is more communication-based.
“They’re very different. I don’t see them as competing,” Henes said. “I could even see where someone might want to do both of them.”
Discussions between Kellogg professors, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences Dean Sarah Mangelsdorf, University President Morton Schapiro and other members of the administration concerning the certificate are ongoing, she said.
In a meeting with The Daily on Monday, Schapiro expressed strong support for the certificate programs as supplements to a liberal arts education.
“I kind of like that combination,” he said. “I love when people do a double major in philosophy and art history, but yet they take business institutions, for example.”
But Schapiro made clear he does not support establishing an undergraduate business major because many of the concepts students would learn in such a program are taught again in graduate business schools.
“I’ve never been a fan of an undergraduate business major,” he said.
Members of the Associated Student Government’s academic committee have been discussing the feasibility of an undergraduate business program at NU.
Weinberg freshman Alex Entz, a member of the committee, said almost all those pursuing business certificates are economics majors hoping to round out their experience with business expertise.
“We have Kellogg and we’d be foolish not to take advantage of this,” he said. “It’s a win-win situation. We don’t really have marketing for undergraduates, so this provides us with a good outlet.”
The most recent U.S. News and World Report ranking of the “Best Business Schools” ranked Kellogg as the fourth-best business school in the country.
But the addition of a third certificate could potentially mean adding more students to pre-business courses, which could mean less exclusivity, he said.
“A minor concern might be that if you let another 50 students into a marketing course, it’s losing some of its esteem,” he said.
McCormick sophomore Joseph Hooker, who is in the process of applying to the Managerial Analytics Certificate, said the third marketing program might add a new element that is missing in the certificates currently offered by the business school.
“It seems like the two certificates we have now are more about analyzing and trying to solve certain problems, not as much working with other people,” he said. “The marketing certificate might add another level to the program by adding a people component to it. I think it will really appeal to people.”
The certificate will offer an opportunity for students interested in math to combine the analytical and behavioral aspects of marketing, Henes said. It will be an “interesting” combination of math and social sciences, she said.
In the meeting Monday, Schapiro advocated for the continued opening of Kellogg’s resources to undergraduates.
“It’s really nice for certain students, as they pursue the liberal arts, that they get some business experience,” he said.
