This is an archived copy of the 2018-2019 catalog. To access the most recent version of the catalog, please visit http://coursecatalog.bucknell.edu.

Markets, Innovation & Design (MIDE)

Major Requirements

The Markets, Innovation, & Design (MIDE) program will expose students to the orchestration, design, logic, and strategy underlying organizations’ key marketing practices. The MIDE program will highlight the complex interplay that takes place between market research/analysis of consumer-product relationships and the strategic management of the marketing mix or brands. Students pursuing the MIDE program will augment their core understanding of management functions with an interdisciplinary examination of some of the creative, analytical, and technical processes that combine to generate ideas and transform them into images, products, and services that powerfully shape our culture.

The MIDE program will foster students developing a deep appreciation for the interdisciplinary roots and connections among creative and technical design, marketing, and innovation. Moreover, the program will enhance creative thinking and acting. In addition to gaining a better understanding of how their surroundings are constructed, students will cultivate a habit of trying to envision how their world can be improved. Students will also learn quantitative, empathic, interpretive, and visual methods in order to assess the relationships between consumers/users and their environments, with a particular focus on remedying unmet needs and filling gaps between current and ideal circumstances. As they learn more about the overall design process, students also will have the opportunity to practice techniques such as role playing, sketching, creative narrative, prototyping, and simulation, which will help them to transform ideas into reality.

Graduates of the Markets, Innovation, & Design program will complete a curriculum designed to help them achieve the following specific learning objectives.

  1. They will understand the basic principles of Marketing, Innovation, & Design and how these academic disciplines and fields of practice are related.
  2. They will be able to analyze problems and think strategically from a marketing point of view.
  3. They will cultivate innovative habits that enable them to detect problems and provide them with the impetus and confidence to solve them.
  4. They will develop a design mindset that enables them to creatively recast problems in various ways and design novel and effective solutions.


BSBA Core Curriculum Requirements

Foundational Literacy Requirements

MGMT 100Exploring Management.5
MGMT 101Introduction to Organization and Management1
MGMT 102Quantitative Reasoning for Managers1
ECON 103Economic Principles and Problems1

Managerial Literacy Requirements

MGMT 104Foundations of Accounting I1
MGMT 201Marketing1
MGMT 203Managerial Finance1

Integrative Literacy Requirements

MGMT 302The Stakeholder Organization1
MGMT 303The Technological Organization1
MGMT 304The Strategic Organization1

All BSBA majors must satisfy the Culminating Experience component of the College Core Curriculum. MIDE majors typically fulfill this requirement by successfully completing MIDE 304 Marketing Management. 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 one of the Freeman College of Management departments and will complete the specific major requirements in addition to the BSBA core curriculum requirements. Transferring between majors within the Freeman College of Management is possible as long as the student will be able to meet all degree requirements of the new major and still graduate on schedule.

Markets, Innovation, & Design Requirements

Beyond completion of the BSBA core curriculum requirements, all MIDE majors must take the following courses:

MIDE 300Markets, Innovation, and Design1
MIDE 301Understanding Consumers1
MIDE 302Design Realization1
MIDE 303Entrepreneurship1
or MIDE 304 Marketing Management

Beyond these core MIDE courses, all MIDE majors must choose FOUR program-related electives. The MIDE program is designed to be sufficiently flexible to enable students to pursue a wide range of interests and career scenarios, such as work in market research, brand management, marketing management, public relations, communications, product design, global consumer culture, and issues of innovation. Therefore, besides taking the MIDE core (the four courses noted above), students are required to choose, with consultation and approval from their advisers, four program-related electives from courses available elsewhere at the University, outside the Freeman College of Management. These choices will depend on what makes the most sense given a student's underlying interests. For example, a student contemplating a career in advertising might select four electives from courses such as Introduction to Visual Culture, Film Production, Popular Culture, Political Economy of Media and Advertising, Digital Photography, or Introduction to Creative Writing. The essential idea behind this loose elective structure is to give students the latitude to delve further into their own intellectual interests in relation to the program’s learning objectives. These program-related electives enable students (with the help of their advisers) to apply a more specialized and individualized signature to their program of study. This feature, too, is part of the creativity and innovation embedded in the MIDE program.

Freeman College 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 of Bucknell University.

Courses

MIDE 220. Building an Innovative Character. 1 Credit.

Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
This course will introduce students to some of the habits, skills, and knowledge that make up an innovative character. In particular, students will practice their powers of observation, develop creative confidence, embrace ambiguity, fail forward, and develop a deeper sense of empathy. Taught by interdisciplinary teams of faculty across colleges.

MIDE 300. Markets, Innovation, and Design. 1 Credit.

Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
A survey of the relationships among marketing, innovation, and design. Students will practice various approaches to creative and innovative thinking. Prerequisite: MGMT 201 or permission of the instructor.

MIDE 301. Understanding Consumers. 1 Credit.

Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
A toolbox of research methods for understanding consumer behavior with appropriate exposure to philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of various approaches. Prerequisite: MGMT 201 or permission of instructor.

MIDE 302. Design Realization. 1 Credit.

Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Implementation of creative techniques for exploring ideas and transforming ideas into appropriate mediums for communication. Includes creative ideation, sketching, digital and physical modeling. Prerequisites: MGMT 201 and MIDE 300.

MIDE 303. Entrepreneurship. 1 Credit.

Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Focuses on how to evolve an idea into an enterprise that generates economic, social, or aesthetic value in society.

MIDE 304. Marketing Management. 1 Credit.

Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Integrating learned knowledge, students practice making marketing-related decisions through case analysis of various business scenarios. The predominant emphasis is on drawing together disciplinary experiences and providing a more coherent appreciation of the major's academic discipline. The educational goals of the class focus on critical, analytical, and synthetic thinking.

MIDE 310. Independent Study in Markets, Innovation, and Design. .5-2 Credits.

Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:Varies; Repeatable
Individual study or projects, supervised by instructor. Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.

MIDE 315. Special Topics in Markets, Innovation, and Design. .5-1 Credits.

Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:Varies; Repeatable
A seminar on selected topics in marketing, innovation, and design. Prerequisites: MGMT 201 and permission of the instructor.

MIDE 382. Predictive Analytics. 1 Credit.

Offered Alternate Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Study and application of analytical methods for large scale datasets. Topics include clustering and classification methods, and association rules. Prerequisite: MGMT 102 or MATH 216 or equivalent. Crosslisted as MGMT 382.

MIDE 390. Honors Course in Markets, Innovation, and Design. 1 Credit.

Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:Varies; Repeatable
Special and independent studies for Markets, Innovation and Design majors selected under the guidelines of the school and the University Honors Council. Honors thesis required. Prerequisites: nomination by the school and permission of the instructor.

Faculty

Professors: Raquel Meyer Alexander (Dean of the Freeman College of Management), Douglas E. Allen (MIDE Chair-fall), Mark S. Bettner, Neil Boyd, William R. Gruver, Tammy B. Hiller, Elton G. McGoun (GLBM Chair), Adam Schwartz

Associate Professors: Matthew D. Bailey, Mihai Banciu (Associate Dean of Faculty for the Freeman College of Management), Cynthia Guthrie (ACFM Chair), Jamie R. Hendry (MSUS Chair), David E. Jensen, Michael E. Johnson-Cramer, Eric C. Martin, Stacy Mastrolia, Curtis Nicholls, Eric L. Santanen (MIDE Chair-spring), Frank Schreiner, Janice M. Traflet

Associate Professor of Management Practice: Robert A. Needham

Assistant Professors: Jimmy Chen, Annetta Grant, Richard Kedzior, Kristy Schenck, Alia C. Stanciu, Kate Suslava

Visiting Professor: Timothy Sweeney (emeritus)

Visiting Associate Professor: Stephen H. O'Connor

Visiting Assistant Professors: Ryan S. Burg, Yi (Cathy) Chen, Karen McGrath, Frances Emme Turner, Vivienne Wildes

Lecturers: Christopher W. Kisvarday, Mary F. Leshinskie