To meet the interests of students and to align its program even more with the field of business, Wittenberg University’s business program is now offering four new majors designed to expand opportunities for students and support their success.
The four majors include marketing, management, entrepreneurship and finance. Wittenberg previously only offered concentrations in these areas, but Ness Chair Entrepreneurship and Business Department Chair Tom Kaplan explains that the change will now allow the program to provide greater emphasis and deeper coverage of business issues and the industry, as well as a hands-on learning opportunities, including applied business experiences and internships, which are consistent with Wittenberg’s mission.
“The combination of Wittenberg’s commitment to education in the liberal arts, our robust business curriculum, including numerous applied learning options, and our deep commitment to supporting students’ personal and professional development will result in an extraordinary experience for Wittenberg business students,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan and his colleagues plan to team up with Wittenberg’s Offices of Alumni Relations and the Career Center to create internship and job opportunities that better support students’ passions and career goals.
The outcomes of the program are already evident. McKenzie Hopkins, class of 2014, and Alyssa Dotson, class of 2015, for example, developed and launched Kreative Kids as a part of a venture development project in Kaplan's Business Entrepreneurship course. Kreative Kids is an art education program for children in Springfield in conjunction with the Children's Rescue Center and Wittenberg alumna Meredith Berzins, class of 2011. The project culminated in an evening at Un Mundo Cafe in Springfield where art created by the children was auctioned to the public, bringing great joy to the children and their parents while raising funds to support the mission of the Children’s Rescue Center.
On the networking side, Wittenberg graduates and current students have helped each other create one opportunity after another while building a powerful Wittenberg network of entrepreneurs and professionals. Wittenberg alumnus Rick Sterling, principal of Boulder, Colo.-based Sterling-Rice Group and class of 1969, has created a life-changing internship experience, which current students Shannon Inglis and Chase Beach embraced. Available only to Wittenberg students, the internship received 35 applications this year.
Several Wittenberg graduates and students also now find themselves in places such as San Francisco where Brian Hertzog, class of 2012, seized the opportunity to join up with an innovative company, Runway, an invitation-only startup incubator that aims to build the best community of founders and entrepreneurs in San Francisco.
Seeing such recent success stories serves to bolster Kaplan’s confidence that the switch from concentrations to majors in finance, marketing, entrepreneurship, and management was the right move.
“I would put our program up against any undergraduate program for its commitment to ensuring every student’s success,” Kaplan said.
A nationally ranked university for the liberal arts and sciences affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Wittenberg University has repeatedly been ranked throughout the years by the Princeton Review for the quality of its teaching and faculty, including 11th in the nation for “Best Classroom Experience” and 15th in the category “Professors Get High Marks” in the 2011 edition of Princeton’s annual Best Colleges guide. Most recently, Wittenberg earned the No. 4 spot in the category of “Most Accessible Professors.”
Additionally, The Chronicle of Higher Education named Wittenberg one of the nation’s top producers of Fulbright Scholars among bachelor degree-granting institutions in 2010. The university has also been recognized nationally for excellence in service and athletics.
