Mission

We empower minds to adapt to change, make decisions, solve problems, and improve business performance in a sustainable, ethical, and socially responsible manner.

We achieve our mission by offering distinctive programs, personalized learning experiences, a professionally engaged and research-active faculty, a collaborative culture, social responsibility, state-of-the-art infrastructure, and a strong network of alumni and industry/community partners.

Vision

The Black School of Business will create an innovative environment for learning, research, and outreach that extends across disciplines by building and leveraging partnerships among students, faculty, staff, and industry to make a positive impact on business and society.

Themes

Learning by Doing. Innovating through Collaboration. Advancing Knowledge.

The Black School of Business will be recognized globally for executing on these three themes. While each theme has a distinct focus, synergies exist across the themes. Implementation of initiatives for one theme will, in many cases, have reinforcing impacts on another.

Goals

  • Provide students with high-quality undergraduate- and graduate-level educational experiences with an applied orientation.
    High-quality instructional programs meet the standards of AACSB International, involve active participation of students in the learning process, and provide students with opportunities to learn how to apply conceptual frameworks through the use of outreach-based instructional projects, cases, simulations, role-playing exercises, and other methods. Upon graduation, students should achieve the specific curricular goals established by the Black School of Business for its various undergraduate and graduate programs. Program quality will also be assessed using comparative data provided by available standardized measures such as the ETS major field test and the EBI Exit Assessment survey to benchmark students' performance in the Black School of Business against the outcomes of students at other institutions.
  • Conduct high-quality research that strengthens and maintains faculty disciplinary expertise, brings recognition to the school, and serves to strengthen faculty effectiveness in instruction and/or outreach. The Black School values and encourages faculty to engage in discipline-based scholarship, contributions to practice and learning, and pedagogical research. However, the greatest emphasis will be on discipline-based research in order to maintain a high level of disciplinary expertise within the faculty and to bring recognition to the school within the community of scholars. Relatively equal emphasis is given to contributions to practice and pedagogical research.
    • High-quality research is that which is published in respected peer-reviewed journals, in books published by respected academic or commercial presses, or presented at recognized academic and professional meetings. It brings recognition to the school through coverage in popular media outlets by increasing the visibility of the school's faculty among academic and practitioner audiences.
    • Research strengthens instructional effectiveness when it enables faculty to teach students about the research process to discuss their research within the context of their teaching responsibilities, is directed to the improvement of instructional practice, or if the knowledge produced or synthesized serves to enhance faculty knowledge of business practice which is shared with students as a part of instruction. Outreach effectiveness is strengthened by increasing the ability of faculty to provide applied research consulting or training services to business, government, or social service organizations or by enabling faculty to serve as a resource to popular media outlets on topics of current public interest.
  • Provide business expertise to organizational stakeholders through a variety of outreach programs. Outreach activities include the delivery of credit and non-credit instruction through the college's Division of Corporate and Adult Learning or Penn State World Campus, consulting, student internships, faculty-supervised class projects that utilize teams of students as consultants with businesses, and applied research conducted with business and community organizations. Internships, class projects, and studies conducted by the school's applied research centers provide important opportunities for the school to achieve its vision of integrating its teaching, research, and outreach missions.

Bachelor's Degree Program Assessment Goals

The Black School of Business offers eleven baccalaureate degrees in business. These include Accounting, Business Economics, Economics, Finance, Functional Data Analytics, Interdisciplinary Business with Engineering Studies, Interdisciplinary Science and Business, International Business, Management Information Systems (MIS), Marketing, and Project and Supply Chain Management. These majors share five curricular goals, which are regularly assessed using a combination of several assessment methods.

Upon graduation, students will be able to:

  1. Think critically and prepare sound solutions to business problems.
  2. Communicate effectively orally and in writing.
  3. Perform effectively as a member of a team.
  4. Demonstrate a broad knowledge of business disciplines.
  5. Recognize ethical issues and apply ethical principles in business situations and at individual and/or organizational levels.