Brennan School of Business

Mission

The Brennan School of Business provides ethics-centered management education for students who are either entering the business professions or continuing their professional development. The curriculum provides students with an enduring foundation in business and leadership skills and an understanding of the best in current business practices resonant with the university’s core values of Caritas et Veritas.

Core Values of the Brennan School of Business:

Ethical business behavior
Compassionate leadership
Global perspective
Entrepreneurial mindset

Goals

The Brennan School of Business was created to fulfill the mission of Dominican University by providing value-centered intellectual development and professional preparation in the business disciplines for motivated students. The purpose of the business program, like that of the university, is to foster the personal, social, and professional development of its students through excellent teaching, careful mentoring, and rigorous programs of study.

The Brennan School of Business has six specific goals that flow from its mission:

To expose students to the theories, concepts, and scholarly literature of business.
To assist students in developing value-centered, ethical perspectives.
To enable students to acquire an understanding of current management thought, technology, and methods through in-depth study of the business disciplines, particularly as they apply to entrepreneurial and global organizations.
To enable students to demonstrate and apply their knowledge and understanding in solving business problems, particularly through the use of case study analyses and information systems technology.
To instill in the students confidence in their own abilities and decision-making skills and the ability to work effectively as part of a team.
To advance theory and knowledge in the field of management through faculty and student scholarship and research.

Taught by a faculty of well-prepared academicians and distinguished practitioners, the curriculum takes a broad interdisciplinary approach to business education. The undergraduate program enables students to choose from among four business majors and three separate concentrations. The programs offered by the Brennan School of Business all reflect the university’s commitment to liberal and professional learning. The business school is dedicated to providing students with academic instruction that not only is grounded in liberal education but also distinguished by its rigor and challenge. A primary purpose of the business program is to prepare graduates who have an understanding of ethical precepts and a commitment to promoting socially responsible behavior and demonstrating it in their own lives. Through its international business curriculum and programs, the Brennan School of Business also supports and extends the university’s dedication to cultural and ethnic diversity. Finally, the Brennan School of Business supports the university’s goal of graduating intellectually curious and engaged students who will carry with them an enthusiasm for lifelong learning as cultural traditions and the professional environment constantly change and evolve.

Academic Goals and Outcomes

The business curricula provide the opportunity for students to learn the tools and methods for managing companies and organizations and to apply ethically those tools and methods for the benefit of all stakeholders.

Goal 1: Students will appreciate the ethical foundation of effective long-run business decisions and promote social responsibility and ethical leadership in managerial decision making

Objective: Successful students will demonstrate an understanding of fundamental approaches to moral reasoning, including knowledge of contemporary ethical issues in global settings.
Objective: Successful students will demonstrate an understanding of the role and appropriateness of social responsibility within the business environment.

Goal 2: Students will communicate effectively in written and verbal formats

Objective: Successful students will effectively prepare and deliver class presentations.
Objective: Successful students will demonstrate an ability to write analytical papers.

Goal 3: Students will utilize technology and electronic learning to address business applications

Objective: Successful students will demonstrate competency in the use of and/or ability to develop software packages that focus on business applications.
Objective: Successful students will demonstrate competency in applying models to systematically collect, store, and disseminate information.

Goal 4: Students will utilize quantitative and analytical methods as well as critical-thinking skills in business applications

Objective: Successful students will demonstrate competency in developing a hypothesis (thesis, topic) and in effectively researching information that will lead to appropriate conclusions.
Objective: Successful students will demonstrate the ability to interpret graphical and empirical data, utilize software to analyze data, and/or develop various system solutions that focus on business applications.

Goal 5: Students will utilize a global perspective in the evaluation of contemporary business issues

Objective: Successful students will demonstrate an understanding of the economics, financial, managerial, and/or technological implications of a firm operating internationally and/or domestically.
Objective: Successful students will demonstrate an understanding of the role of small businesses, entrepreneurs, and technology in the economy and the potential problems they may experience.

The faculty’s work in defining these academic goals and objectives enables the students in the Brennan School of Business to benefit from a coherent system of management education. This educational system is not only designed to help them learn business concepts but also to prepare them for success throughout the course of their professional management careers.

Undergraduate Admission Process

Students who wish to complete an academic major must be admitted to the Brennan School of Business, but all students are welcome to enroll in accounting, business, international business, and economics courses on an elective basis or to complete an academic minor. However, students are limited to taking a maximum of eight Brennan School of Business courses (in the disciplines of accounting, business administration, and/or economics) without declaring a major within the Brennan School.

Admission to the Brennan School of Business is open to students who have attained sophomore standing. Attaining sophomore status is based on the student having completed 28 credit hours. Students must complete an application form, which is available in the Brennan School of Business Office. To be accepted into the Brennan School, students must:

be in good academic standing at the university,
have completed at least two 100- or 200-level BSB courses.

In the cases of students transferring into the Brennan School, a probationary semester may be granted while the student completes the course requirements for admission.

BA/MBA or BS/MBA Joint Degree Program

Qualified students may be able to complete the bachelor’s degree and the Master of Business Administration degree in a total of five calendar years. During the undergraduate program, the equivalent of the six MBA foundation courses may be taken. Students are encouraged to apply to the BA/MBA or BS/MBA before the end of their junior year. Accepted students may enroll in two MBA courses during their senior year, one course each semester, and credit will be given toward the undergraduate degree. The remaining 10 graduate business courses may be taken upon completion of the undergraduate degree.

For more information on these programs, please contact the Brennan School of Business at business.dom.edu or (708) 524-6810.

Commitment to Ethics and Integrity

Since its founding, the Brennan School of Business has insured that all its academic programs provide students with an understanding of the concepts and theories of ethical decision making as well as numerous opportunities to practice and apply those concepts during their study. This is done through a variety of curricular and co-curricular programs, ranging from case study analyses and service learning courses to student-sponsored lectures and off-campus volunteer programs. The first endowed chair in the Brennan School of Business was designated by its donors to be the Christopher Chair in Business Ethics. This chair has enabled the business program to place an ever-increasing focus on ethical business practices, through annual lectures, workshops, and other faculty and student initiatives that ensure that ethics are taught and practiced in every part of the curriculum.

Realizing that students who matriculate in the Brennan School of Business must conduct themselves in accordance with the highest standards of academic integrity during their course of study, the following academic integrity policy has been developed to guide their actions.

Academic Integrity

Whatever the assignment, students are encouraged to engage in critical thinking and to use quoted or paraphrased material in ways that appropriately support their own ideas. In written or oral work, a student may make fair use of quotations, ideas, images, etc., that appear in others’ work only if the student gives appropriate credit to the original authors, thinkers, owners, or creators of that work. This includes material found on the internet and in electronic databases. Student plagiarism is the deliberate presentation of the writing or thinking of another as the student’s own. Failure to maintain academic integrity will not be tolerated.

The following definitions are provided for understanding and clarity:

Inappropriate attribution of sources.

Use of quotation marks, but failure to provide a citation for the material.

Providing a citation for material, but failure to use quotation marks for material that appears in others’ work. Please note, quotation marks are used when three or more consecutive words are taken directly from others’ work. Exceptions are made for commonly used phrases such as “triple bottom line” or “corporate social responsibility.” When in doubt, be safe and use quotation marks.

Paraphrasing others’ work without providing a citation to that work.

Paraphrasing is presenting others’ ideas or thoughts but doing so entirely in one’s own words. Attribution must always be given in a citation at the end of the paragraph, even if the name of the author/s is included in the body of the text.

Direct plagiarism.

This entails using others’ material word-for-word and presenting it as one’s own work without any indication that the words are those of another.

Simply changing one or two words or phrases does not materially change the character of this form of plagiarism, which is the most serious.

Whatever the assignment, it must be clear that the student is using the quoted or paraphrased material in support of his or her own ideas, and not taking credit for the quoted/paraphrased material.

Cheating entails the use of unauthorized or prohibited aids in accomplishing assigned academic tasks. Obtaining unauthorized help on examinations, using prohibited notes on closed-note examinations, and depending on others for the writing of essays or the creation of other assigned work are all forms of cheating. A student who assists another in cheating will be held to the same standard.

Academic dishonesty may also include other acts intended to misrepresent the authorship of academic work or to undermine the integrity of the classroom or of grades assigned for academic work. Deliberate acts threatening the integrity of library materials or the smooth operation of laboratories are among possible acts of academic dishonesty.