By Amanda Alfanos, Web Editor
The standing of a Meinders School of Business degree program might be in jeopardy. The school’s not-for-profit management and leadership major is uncertain.
The program, which was first offered in 2009, has four students enrolled, said Sophie Snyder, registrar data systems and reporting specialist.
Three students are freshmen and one is a sophomore, she said.
Sarah Cook, the program’s only sophomore, said officials told her they will know whether or not the program will be dropped by the semester’s end.
Lynette Martin, director of student success for Meinders School of Business, declined to comment.
Jeri Lyn Jones, assistant business dean, refused to comment about the status of the degree.
“There are processes that these proposals have to go through before changes are made and they haven’t yet, so I don’t feel comfortable commenting on it,” she said. “This proposal hasn’t gone anywhere, and I don’t know that it will go anywhere.”
Cook posted a Facebook status March 23 encouraging prospective students to switch to the not-for-profit degree program.
“If they don’t get more of us in the program they have to drop it,” she wrote.
No required courses for the major are offered for Fall 2011, according to the Summer/Fall 2011 course schedule. Two of the three required degree courses are offered in the spring.
The date of the third course, Resource Development is unspecified in the Spring 2010-2011 Undergraduate Catalog.
Only one elective students can choose from to earn credits for their degree, Entrepreneurial Environment, a business management course, will be offered next semester.
The classes are offered when the undergraduate catalog states they should be, Jones said.
Cook said she was told that students already enrolled in the program would be allowed to continue, but additional students would not be permitted to declare the major.
Cook said she plans to stay at OCU, though the program is what initially drew her to the university.
“I might keep the not-for-profit major, but I might add another major,” she said.
Cook said she had her career goals in mind when looking into a not-for-profit degree program.
She hopes to work for the Special Olympics and she said OCU had the best program that covered the business side of the nonprofit sector.
This article initially appeared in the March 30 issue of The Campus newspaper.
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