PRME’s first two principles speak to our efforts to integrate ideals of sustainability, leadership, diversity, ethics, globalization and corporate responsibility into our coursework and curricula. The principles also encourage us to provide our students with exposure to individuals in the professional community who serve as role models to the behaviors we seek to encourage.
Assurance of Learning
Our undergraduate assurance of learning plan includes a number of learning goals and objectives that pertain to the PRME principles. Our sustainability objectives were revised in 2017 to focus on our students’ abilities to apply the concept of sustainability in their professional and personal lives.
Students will acquire global business understanding.
Students will recognize implications of salient environmental differences for conducting global business.
Students will recognize cultural implications for conducting business globally.
Students will understand ethical business practices.
Students will be able to define ethics.
Students will be able to recognize an ethical dilemma.
Students will be able to describe a framework for resolving an ethical dilemma.
Students will be able to define sustainability.
Students will be able to apply sustainability concepts to their academic major.
Students will be able to apply sustainability concepts to their personal lives.
The assurance of learning framework for the MBA program also has learning goals and objectives relevant to PRME.
Students will develop global business skills.
MBA students will analyze implications of salient environmental differences for conducting global business.
MBA students will analyze cultural implications of conducting business globally.
Students will be socially responsible.
MBA students will propose sustainability efforts to be undertaken by an organization.
MBA students will devise viable solutions to address ethical conflicts.
MBA students will analyze legal implications of business decisions.
Students will have effective leadership skills.
MBA students will be able to formulate viable approaches for leading others given their individual leadership styles.
MBA students will effectively interact in teams.
Student Organizations
Circle K International
The College’s Center for Sustainable Business Practices supports the campus chapter of Circle K International, the world’s largest student-led collegiate service organization. This past year, Circle K was involved in several volunteer projects including the Kalamazoo Holiday Parade, the SPCA of Southwest Michigan, and Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes. Across the state, members volunteered at Habitat for Humanity, Gleaners Food Bank, nursing homes, various animal shelters, and in community gardens. Circle K’s growing membership has had the chance to participate in fundraisers and help communities across Michigan.
Beta Alpha Psi
Beta Alpha Psi, an honors organization for students in financial and accounting fields, put its members’ skills to use in helping improve the financial literacy of seventh and eighth grade students in Kalamazoo-area public schools. Turning to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Financial Literacy Curriculum, the students teach important finance fundamentals to middle school students.
Curriculum
WMU achieved a gold rating in its first submission to the Association of Sustainability in Higher Education's sustainable tracking assessment rating system. More than 230 colleges and universities across the U.S. and Canada are part of the program that offers its own scorecard on the infusion of sustainability across a campus community.
The STARS program involves publicly reporting comprehensive information related to a college or university’s sustainability performance. In total, 44 business courses were designated as having content that is sustainability related. Course work was supported in both the B.B.A. and MBA programs and included classes in finance, law, management and marketing.
College Speakers
In addition to a number of formal speaker series (see principles 5/6), many individuals have addressed the Haworth College of Business community between 2016-18. They include:
Jim Nicolow, principal, LEED Fellow, Lord AECK Sargent, Topic: Integrating sustainability into architecture
Jason Wolcott, managing partner, VEREGO, Topic: CSR certification
Sean Ansett, managing director, At Stake Advisors; Chief Sustainability Officer, Fairphone,Topic: Human Rights in the Global Supply Chain
Amy Papranec, vice president, Global Program Solutions at Stryker Corporation, Topic: Diversity and Inclusion
Ron Voglewede, global sustainability director, Whirlpool, Topic: Sustainability Initiatives at Whirlpool and in the Global Appliance Industry
Chris Johnson, CEO and co-founder, Center for Justice, Rights & Dignity, Topic: Human Trafficking
Keith Maki, director of marketing and public relations, Cascade Engineering, Topic: The Importance of B Corp Certification at Cascade Engineering
Paloma Lopez, global strategy lead, Kellogg’s Masterbrand at Kellogg Company, Topic: Sustainability at Kellogg
Dana Hullinger, retired director of supply chain strategy, Architecture and Analytics, Topic: Sustainability in the Global Supply Chain
Service learning
Students participating in service learning projects
Service learning is a mutually beneficial endeavor in which course learning objectives are met by addressing community identified needs, putting academics into practice.
The Haworth College of Business has exponentially increased its commitment to service learning in Kalamazoo and Southwest Michigan. During the 2017-18 academic year, for example, business students completed in excess of 4,000 hours of service each semester. Service learning was completed by over 250 students serving 15 hours per term serving with nearly 20 community partners. The partners have included:
YMCA of Kalamazoo
Building Blocks
Kalamazoo Covenant Academy
Healthy House for Women
Communities in Schools
Urban Folk Art Exploratory
Heritage at Wyndham
Peacejam
City of Kalamazoo
Eastside Neighborhood Association
Edison Neighborhood Association
Douglass Community Center
Black Arts and Cultural Center
Youth Advancement Academy
Cheff Therapeutic Riding Center
Medilodge
What do the students gain from service learning? Not only is this experiential learning an opportunity to reinforce course objectives, but students learn a lot about themselves in the process. What do the students say?
"Through this service learning experience, I realized that performing service can become a part of my personal strategy. Service learning is something I can learn and grow through, each time I perform an act, an hour, or a day of service." Alexander, Peacejam, marketing major
"Serving at the Cheff Therapeutic Riding Center has been one of my favorite experiences at WMU. The sense of accomplishment and pride I felt after every session is something that can be hard to replicate through other school experiences. I contributed roughly 22 hours over the semester and I intend to continue serving as long as I am in Kalamazoo." Mikal, Cheff Therapeutic Riding Center, finance and commercial law major
"I had the opportunity to serve at Prairie Ridge Elementary School. Going into the experience I honestly did not know what I would get out of it. I was completely outside of my comfort zone. Through my experience, I learned a lot about creativity and how to relate to others." Kaylie, YMCA Prime Time, human resource management major
"I can honestly say that this was by far my favorite and most reflective experience at WMU. I learned more about myself and what I enjoy. Although I will not see this special group of kids after this year, I will cherish the several weeks that I spent with them and I will carry the lessons I learned through these kids into my career and down the road when I have a family of my own." Cameron, YMCA, sales and business marketing major
"Overall, this was one of my favorite out-of-class experiences I have had in college. The residents at Medilodge helped me just as much, if not more, than I helped them while serving. I was able to relate and apply class material about morals and values without even realizing it." Trent, Medilodge, marketing major
"There was a lot to take away from my time serving at Milwood Elementary, but the biggest thing I can put into words would be to never pick a job based solely on income. I’ve never left a place feeling more fulfilled and, if offered, I would come back in a heartbeat. I’ve had several jobs, and nothing compares to the way those kids made me feel on a daily basis." Erik, YMCA Primetime, integrated supply management major
Examples of Service Learning in the Haworth College of Business
Students participating in Urban Plunge
Urban Plunge
Urban Plunge is an exciting way for our students to spend a weekend in Chicago, give back to the community and further advance their knowledge of business, particularly social responsibility. Throughout the weekend, we explore critical urban issues such as homelessness and poverty through the lens of business. Most importantly, we discuss the role of business in creating and providing solutions to these challenges.
In fall 2017 the Urban Plunge consisted of MBA students who are dual enrolled at WMU and Christ University in Bangalore, India. We visited Inspiration Kitchens, a Chicago restaurant with a mission to support men and women through culinary job training in their kitchens and building the foundations to overcome homelessness and poverty and build a better future. The group also spent an evening with the residents of Deborah’s Place, an agency that opens doors of opportunity for women who are homeless in Chicago through supportive housing and services.
BUS 6170: Leading People and Organizations
Students in Dr. Derrick McIver’s sections of this MBA class engage in a leadership challenge while learning how to develop their own leadership. One of the key goals of the Leadership Sustainability Challenge is to help students examine their personal leadership styles and to understand sustainability. An important part of this will be their future community leadership and understanding how they will engage to serve others and make a positive and lasting impact on society. To do this, students are challenged to undertake a community project that will have an impact in a sustainable way. The idea is to give them autonomy over the team, task, time and technique. The only challenge is they must have a sustainable impact. If done effectively, students learn about community leadership, teamwork, collaboration, sustainability and leading with a purpose all while having an impact. Past challenges have had an impact on organizations such as MyTurn, an ALS awareness organization, Make-A-Wish Michigan, and included a beach cleanup for Holland State Park. The challenge has three main points:
BUS 6170 Service Project with MyTurn
Take a purposeful leadership role and have an impact on your local community.
Measure that impact! This is challenging for anyone in corporate social responsibility and great to learn.
Challenge someone else to do the same so you make it bigger than your one impact.
BUS 6990: Strategic Management
Each summer, students in the capstone MBA class work on a project with a community partner. During the course of the semester, students are first asked to research reasons firms promote community engagement and volunteerism in their organizations. The class then chooses three of those reasons to reflect on while serving.
Examples of reflection questions include:
What are ways of measuring how volunteerism impacts employee performance?
How can we build a culture at our own companies that encourage employees to give back to the community? What systems can we create that will provide our employees with the opportunity to give back through their daily work?
BUS 6990 Service Project
How can an organization translate learnings from volunteering activities into tactical actions or apply them in making strategy adjustments?
How well do these sustainability activities align to a firm's core values and strategic plan?
In summer 2016, students provided landscaping services for Open Doors, an agency that provides affordable homes and support to local citizens experiencing homelessness. In 2017, MBA students rehabilitated a community garden for the Vine Street Neighborhood, adjacent to the WMU community. The garden is seen by residents as a way of stabilizing a transient neighborhood and reducing crime. Summer 2018’s project was a game night with senior citizens at Wyndham West, a nonprofit adult care facility.
Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Program
College faculty assisted in recruiting and organizing student participation in the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program administered by the Kalamazoo County Tax Counseling Initiative (TCI). Approximately one dozen students completed the training, passed an online examination administered by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and were certified to work as volunteer tax return preparers at various site locations in the greater Kalamazoo area. Each of the WMU student volunteers served a minimum of 12 hours preparing federal and State of Michigan income tax returns for low-to-moderate-income workers during the spring 2017 filing season.
Other activities aimed at exposing our students to responsible management
Aim2Flourish
AIM2Flourish is the world’s first higher-education curriculum for the UN Sustainable Development Goals and "Business as an Agent of World Benefit." Using the UN Sustainable Development Goals as their lens, students research and identify an innovation and interview a business leader about it. Their stories live on the AIM2Flourish.com platform as sources of inspiration for others.
Students in summer sections of BUS 4500, Business Ethics and Sustainability in 2017 and 2018, interviewed southwest Michigan businesses that are innovating in sustainability. Noteworthy interviews included:
2018
Patrick Mixis, Chef/Owner, Feed the World Café (locally owned café seeking to alleviate food insecurity; SDGs 2, 12)
Dale Anderson, Confections with Convictions (chocolatier with a mission to provide jobs to youth who face employment barriers; SDGs 8, 10, 12)
Jack Schermerhorn, Kalamazoo Flower Group (implementing recycling initiatives in the plant and flower bedding industry; SDGs 3, 6, 12, 13, 15)
Mike Linsea, Solar Winds Power Systems (bringing renewable energies to rural Michigan; SDGs 7, 9, 11, 13)
Maliesha Pullano, Mamaleelu Cold Brew (encouraging entrepreneurship among underrepresented groups, single mothers, and black women; SDGs 5, 10)
2017
Peter Skornia, Dan C. Colella, Elln Olney, Bazzani Construction Corp. (Certified B Corp focused on sustainable construction practices; SDGs 6, 7, 8, 11, 12)
Circle K International
Beta Alpha Psi
Aim2Flourish