We have migrated the Tabor College Business Studies blog to the following site.

http://blogs.tabor.edu/tcbusiness/

Please look for further posts at this site. Thanks

Norm

Thursday, October 16, 2008

The Business Club of Tabor College will be taking a field trip to NCRA, in McPherson, KS. NCRA or National Cooperative Refinery Association, is an energy company that takes oil and makes finished fuel for trucks, boats, cars, and farm equipment. NCRA being a cooperative means that they are owned by their customers.

NCRA was established in 1943 by regional farm supply cooperatives to acquire the Globe oil refinery in McPherson. Also, NCRA is an inter-regional cooperative engaged in crude oil (pumped right from the ground) acquisition, transportation, refining and product distribution.

The refinery produces 85,000 barrels per day and is purchased by member-only cooperatives. NCRA products are distributed to their affiliated local farm supply cooperatives throughout the North Central United States. The company also has over 60 trucks for transportation, and over 1,000 miles of pipeline moving the crude oil to various tanks and terminals.

The field trip is to provide information both internal and external about NCRA to all business majors attending. Lunch and transportation will be provided as well.

Tabor College is beginning to stretch its arms and expand its learning environment by going electronic. “Distance Learning” is a new program at Tabor College that offers summer online classes to Tabor students. The program is headed by Business Department faculty member, Jesse Schumacher.

Professor Schumacher is the coordinator of the web based learning program that recently started during the summer of 2008. Jesse is currently training 13 faculty members for web based practices, and is currently developing/ updating the policies and procedure for the program. The classes offered through this program are open to all Tabor College Departments whom submit a class schedule.

The first session of Distance Learning that was offered during the summer of 2008, was very successful. For the upcoming summer of 2009, the program has already identified eight courses that they will implement, with the potential of more to come. The learning program is temporarily a summer program only, with future plans of becoming a yearly program.

Tabor thrives on community and embraces the concept of a Christian Community. Professor Schumacher and the Distance Learning staff is currently reading a book called “Building Online Learning Communities,” which teaches you how to upkeep and maintain a community online. Through this book, their goal is to be able to maintain the strongly emphasized Tabor Christian Community through their online summer courses.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Koch Industries recently visited Tabor College to give an informative presentation for the Business Department. Among the Koch representatives were Claire Kettle and Randy Walker, along with Tabor College graduates Nick Villalovos, Emily Vogts and Cristi Miller. Some important information provide by Koch were some background information about the company, benefits of their internship programs and employee income and benefits.

Koch Industries is an international privately held company based in Wichita, Kansas. With an employment base of 80,000, covering 500 communities and 60 countries, Koch industries has been established as one of the largest private companies in the world. Some areas that Koch Industries’ involved in are: refining and chemicals; process equipment and technologies; minerals; fibers and polymers; commodity and financial trading and services; and forest and consumer products. A lot of Koch Industries success is derived from its diverse profile.

The Koch representatives also spent some time expressing to the students attending the presentation, that their internship programs are very beneficial for both personal gain work experience. They highly expressed that their internships require a lot of hard work, but will also be fun as well. At Koch industries, interns work with experts in the field you are working in. You will spend your time gaining hands-on experience instead of “fetching coffee and making copies.” Another important benefit of the internship program is partaking in projects with people all over the world.

Lastly, and a topic that seems to strike all young entrepreneurs attention, Koch Industries treats their employees well for their hard work that they put in to continue its path of success. The time and effort that the employees put in, does not go unrecognized. Also, Koch Industries offers a well decorated retirement plan for its employees.

Provided by the Tabor College Business Department during the presentation was pizza and refreshments.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Our Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) group held its first meeting for the 2008-2009 school year. The meeting was an organizational and informational meeting open to all business majors. The main topics of discussion at the meeting were electing new officers for open positions and setting goals for the upcoming year.

PRSSA at Tabor College is advised by Dr. Norman Hope, and is headed by President Cassondra Huxman and Vice President Kyle Bassinger. The positions that were open for election were Secretary, Treasurer and Public Relation Coordinator. After the members attending the meeting took a vote, Juli Richardson was named PRSSA Secretary, Orson Thomas was named PRSSA Treasurer, and Joe Quest was named PRSSA Public Relations Coordinator.

The main goal of PRSSA is to provide all participants with helpful information regarding the real world. PRSSA will be bringing in different types of businesses to present knowledgeable and valuable information regarding their business and its work field. Furthermore, PRSSA is also planning on taking some business trips to off-campus sites to gain a more first-hand experience. Kansas City was the hot topic of discussion regarding locations of the businesses they wish to visit.

PRSSA is a great opportunity for business majors to interact with each other and gain more valuable information outside the classroom. It is a great window opportunity for all those individuals who partake in the group.

September 24, 2008

The business department has recently added two new members to their team. Seniors Julie Huxman and Jordan Lago joined the team as Assistance for the Tabor College Business Department. Julie and Jordan, as well as the entire business department are excited and enthusiastic about our new redeveloped team for the 2008-2009 school year.

Prior to the 2008-2009 school year, Orson Thomas and Ian Wohlgemuth were the assisting individuals for the business department. They’ve done a great job in helping the business department carry out their everyday tasks. With a continuous yearly expansion and many plans and ideas for the department’s development still unfulfilled, the business department set out to find new team members to assist in accomplishing these plans and ideas.

After posting the job opening as the Tabor College Business Department Assistant throughout campus, Dr. Norman Hope immediately began receiving feedback. After a process of resumes being submitted and interviews taking place, the business department decided to hire Julie Huxman and Jordan Lago to join Orson in assisting the business department faculty and accomplishing present and future plans and ideas for the department.

The business department is very excited and enthusiastic about Julie and Jordan joining the team. The department feels that they will be a great asset and addition to the team, and looks forward to what the future holds for the business department’s development.

Welcome Julie Huxman and Jordan Lago to the Tabor College Business Department.

Tabor College is experiencing a transition. This past December 31, president Larry Nikkel retired. Larry is a good friend to all he knows. I particularly appreciate his openness and friendliness. He takes a personal interest in the lives of students and employees. He is currently helping the advancement office raise funds for the centennial plaza project. Plans for the project were unveiled this past homecoming at the festival dinner. Individuals will have an opportunity to make a donation and secure a brick paver on which they may have a message or name engraved. Larry exemplifies what Tabor is about a life of learning, work, and service for Christ and Christ's Kingdom.

This January Dave Kroeker taught his Tabor famous Personal Finance Course. Those of you who have taken the course remember his favorite saying "Pay God First, Pay Yourself Second, Be A Godly Steward Of What Is Left Over." His approach to this subject says a lot about who we are as a department. God owns it all and we are called to manage those resources in a way that gives God glory. We are directed to serve the Lord with the resources he gives us and use those resources to the best of our ability to serve God and God's kingdom.

As for me, I taught the Investments course. We looked at all forms of investing from securities to hard assets. I assigned the endowment fund project again. In that project, the students are given a hypothetical sum of money to invest. If they can beat the return on the S&P 500 index for the month, they earn a grade of A for the project. This month that was fairly easy as the S&P plummeted over 8% for the period the project ran. I guess it shows you don't have to be a financial wizard to make money, put it in a savings account and let it draw interest. It was challenging for them to pick securities that had enough volatility for them to achieve a price move which would earn them a profit and yet not have just the opposite happen the security price move in the wrong direction and them lose money.

Linda spent the month supervising student internships. She had 4 students out working for the month at various places located in Kansas. From my conversations with her, the experiences have given some of our students more direction and insight as to just what form their post college careers should take.

Jesse did not teach classes this January, he took classes. He is pursuing a DBA at Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana. His classes started the week after Christmas and continued through the second week in January. He has an ethics course and for which he must write a paper. His topic is "Is It Unethical to Not Teach Accounting Ethics In An Accounting Course." He has worked hard to refine the topic, it will be interesting to see just how it turns out.

Our new president Dr. Jules Glanzer is assuming his duties this next month. The campus community is planning a welcome for him on February 1, He will be speaking to us at 1:00 in the afternoon with a time of fellowship to follow. Jules two sons, Matt and Jeremy were both business majors at Tabor. Their spouses, Chrissy and Jody were graduates also.

On another note, I received an e-mail from one of our MSA graduates, Sullivan, Higdon, Sink, an Advertising Agency in Wichita is looking for accountants. If you have any interest, e-mail me at my address normh@tabor.edu. If you have word of positions available for our students or are aware of any internship possibilities, do not hesitate to contact us.

Norm

Linda Cantwell is teaching the Public Relations class this semester.

The 18 students from Linda Cantwell’s Public Relations class have partnered with the Department of Student Success, Career Services, and Stunt Development to develop and research Sophomore retention strategies. The class developed 7 initiatives designed to improve sophomore retention.

On the 7^th of each month the class provides free snow cones to all sophomores.

The class put on a swimming party the first week in September for the sophomores. The party was a reunion of sorts for the returning students, and good time for the new students to get connected.

The sophomore class was given an opportunity to go to the Presidents house for a dinner.

The Public Relations class helped with a sit-down dinner for the sophomore class.

The Classes objective is to Achieve a persistence rate of 85% for sophomores from fall 2007 to fall 2008.

In the Classroom researchers have gained an awareness that public relations is a leadership function that helps achieve organizational objectives, defines philosophy, and facilitates organizational change – and in our case, more specifically Tabor College. They are also learning the skills and responsibility's of Public Relations with an emphasis in Corporate Event Planning.

The public relations class is currently preparing presentations to give to the President, Administrative cabinet, and Director of Student Success Initiatives. Although the class ends in December the initiative is going to continue through the rest of the school year. Linda Cantwell says "The Current PR class will leave the project before it is finished which mirrors life in the 'real world.' President Nikkel will leave before he sees the results of plans he launched." The Advertising Management class will present the findings from both classes in a formal research report.

If you have any questions regarding the Public Relations BA 395 please contact business@tabor.edu.