Managing for Sustainability (MSUS)

Major Requirements

Sustainability has emerged as one of the foremost challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. All organizations, from businesses to governments to civic organizations, seek to generate value with finite resources. We have a deep need to recognize that economic sustainability can be achieved in the long term only by realigning business models and strategies to become ecologically and socially sustainable. MSUS graduates should not only understand the managerial challenges to realizing sustainability but also possess the courage and passion for achieving sustainable environmental, social, and economic goals. Students’ knowledge and managerial competence should grow through studying theories and concepts from a range of relevant disciplines, engaging in experiential learning, dissecting key organizational successes and failures, crafting oral and written reflections, and honing analytical abilities with multiple types of data. By building our students’ awareness of sustainability issues on all levels – from local to global – our program will strive to develop the managers that organizations need to meet the sustainability challenge.

Graduates of the Managing for Sustainability program will complete a curriculum designed to help them achieve four specific learning objectives.

1. They will understand sustainability as an interdisciplinary phenomenon that includes science, technology, history, ethics, socio-cultural circumstances, legal aspects, political conditions, and economic factors.
2. They will understand organizational roles in sustaining our world, including how the various functions of an organization – such as finance, marketing, operations, and others – can contribute to meeting sustainability challenges.
3. They will be stimulated to reflect regularly on the knowledge they have acquired and on their particular experiences in order to determine additional areas to explore and they will use this reflection to foster innovative ways to address sustainability challenges.
4. In senior-level Sustainability Action Learning Projects, MSUS students will have opportunities to manage actual efforts to foster change and to struggle with potential barriers to success.

BSBA Core Curriculum Requirements

Foundational Literacy Requirements

MGMT 100	Management Past, Present and Future	.5
MGMT 101	Introduction to Organization and Management	1
MGMT 102	Quantitative Reasoning for Managers	1
ECON 103	Economic Principles and Problems	1

Managerial Literacy Requirements

MGMT 200	Foundations Accounting and Financial Management I	1
MGMT 201	Marketing	1
MGMT 202	Operations	1

Integrative Literacy Requirements

MGMT 302	The Stakeholder Organization	1
MGMT 303	The Technological Organization	1
MGMT 304	The Strategic Organization	1

All BSBA majors must satisfy the Culminating Experience component of the College Core Curriculum. MSUS majors typically fulfill this requirement by successfully completing MSUS 400 Sustainability Action Learning Project. In addition, all majors will take core curriculum coursework that address the instruction in writing, speaking, and information literacy goals of the College Core Curriculum. 

In the spring of their sophomore year, all BSBA students will, in consultation with their advisers, select a major from among the four specialized programs and will complete the specific major requirements in addition to the BSBA core curriculum requirements. Transferring between programs is possible as long as the student will be able to meet all degree requirements of the new program and still graduate on schedule. Students cannot double major in two different BSBA programs.

Managing for Sustainability Requirements

All MSUS majors must take the following two courses:

MSUS 300	Managing for Sustainability I	1
MSUS 400	Sustainability Action Learning Project	1

All MSUS majors must also take one 300-level MSUS course credit beyond MSUS 300.

In addition, all MSUS majors must work with their MSUS adviser to determine FIVE elective courses that create a coherent course of study in sustainability, broadly defined, that can be applied to the management of organizations. The following restrictions and guidance apply to the selection of these electives:

• At least four of these electives must come from outside the School of Management; one may come from within the School of Management. 
• At least one of the electives must be a course that provides significant background in science associated with the environmental challenges of sustainability.
• At least one of the electives must be a course that provides significant background in social or cultural challenges associated with sustainability.

For the use of MSUS majors, the MSUS Program will maintain a list of courses approved as MSUS electives; students may request Program approval for courses not on the pre-approved list.

Please see School of Management main page for all management faculty and program chair. Inquiries regarding this program can be directed to the program chair.

School of Management students will take core courses and courses within their specific major that incorporate learning goals:

QUANTITATIVE [1, 6]

• Understand and demonstrate how to analyze and use data to model and improve organizational processes.

TECHNOLOGICAL SKILLS [4, 8]

• Understand technology's impact on organizations and the interplay between technology and the organization.

ORAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS [7]

• Students will demonstrate the ability to deliver effective oral presentations in a team environment.

WRITTEN COMMUNICATION SKILLS [7, 9]

• Students' written work will demonstrate ability to learn from their own performances through reflective writing.

MORAL REASONING [3, 5]

• Students will demonstrate the ability to articulate a moral argument, drawing on and applying insights from ethical theory.

FOUNDATIONAL KNOWLEDGE: FINANCE [1, 6]

• Students will demonstrate the mastery of key concepts in financial literacy.

FOUNDATIONAL KNOWLEDGE: MARKETING [1, 4, 6]

• Students will demonstrate mastery of key Marketing concepts.

INTEGRATIVE/SYNTHESIS SKILLS [1, 2]

• Students will demonstrate the ability to evaluate, identify, and understand different organizational perspectives and be able to integrate and synthesize diverse information.

Numbers in parentheses reflect related Educational Goals .