Welcome back, Business students!
I love the beginning of the year - a time of fresh starts for all of us. And, I love seeing all of our Business students come back. This is my 11th year as Administrative Assistant here and I've had the privilege of becoming friends with many awesome young men and women during that time. I love visiting with you - so come in, say "hi," and let me know how I can help this year be successful for you.
My summer was busy! Some of you know that my sister-in-law passed away very suddenly last spring. So this summer I spent about a month with my brother and his boys, just being a companion and helper in any way I could. Talk about getting to practice servanthood! There were moments when I had to ask God to help me remember that I was there because He wanted me to serve - no questions asked. But all in all, we had a good time and I'm glad God allowed me to minister to my brother in this way.
If you're like me, you're probably stressed out at all the things we as students have to do already this fall. I did a little preliminary work for you to help make your life easier. On the bulletin board outside my office are book list sheets for all the Business Department courses. Pick one up and use it as you shop for your books. I hope it helps! :)
Here are a couple of pictures of Ryan and me during our summer trip to the Pacific Northwest with my brother's family. Have a great year!
ks


Yep - we're at Disneyland!













Ghiradelli's chocolate in San Fransisco! What could be better?












Driving along the Oregon Coastal Highway was just incredible!

First day of school

Today is enrollment day here at good old Tabor College. New school years are always as source of wonder for me. I wonder

1.What will my classes be like?

2. Will I ever get everything done I need to?

3. How many campus events should Julie and I come to?

4. What kind of life altering experiences will happen this year?

5. Are students really benefiting from being in my classes?

Random musings I suppose, but something I think many faculty think about at the beginning of the year.

On a more serious note, in an earlier post, I mentioned our departmental misson statement. The mission of Tabor College is to prepare people for a life of learning, work, and service for Christ and His kingdom. We as a department have fleshed this out this way.

We want to influence and develop a generation of STEWARDS. Steward stands for

1. Servant leaders

2. Tithe – people who manage their resources with a God purpose in mind.

3. Ethical persons

4. Workers – professionals with a positive outlook and work ethic

5. Artisans – persons who are committed to quality and discipline knowledge

6. Reconcilers – persons who seek ways to resolve conflict in a productive positive manner

7. Disciples – persons who live out their faith in their vocation.

Other Stuff:

Dave Kroeker read Thomas Friedman’s book The World is Flat. He has said on several occasions, the book is a significant work and would recommend it to anyone. I am trying to finish a book by Joseph Garlington called Right or Reconciled. It focuses on how to maintain effective relationships and resolve conflict positively.

We welcome a Tabor College alumnus to our business department teaching faculty. Tim Hodge will be teaching Business Law starting tonight. Check out the college web site and see who is teaching what.

God bless

NH

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 2 Corinthians 5:18

Caylin Lily Cantwell

Linda's latest grandbaby!

Musical genius already spotted with playing of the drums (e.g., wastebasket) don't you think?

8-25-06

Welcome to the Tabor College Business Department Blog. On this site, we will try to keep you up to date on events, courses, faculty happenings and other items going on in the department this year.

Please let us know what is going on in your life. You can e-mail us at business@tabor.edu or to me personally at normh@tabor.edu

It is an exciting time as school just is ready to begin. All of us are excited to get going. I think we all miss summer a bit, but it will be nice to get into a regular routine.

We had our first department meeting of the semester today. We discussed several things. We talked about the blog site, what our goals for it were, and how we would like to use it. Here are some of the thoughts we came up with.

1. A site to keep you informed about what is going on in the department.
2. A place where we can let you know about what your fellow alumni are doing
3. A fun place for us to let you know what is going on in each of our lives both personally and professionally.
4. A potential clearing house for job openings you may have.
5. A place where we can inform prospective students and alumni about happenings at the Bean Counter (business department student operated coffee house) and things in business club.

The second thing we discussed is the development of a mentorship program. We are interested in matching interested students and interested alumni in a student mentor relationship. The commitment for the alumni is one for an academic year. What we would like you to do is contact your student at least once a month. The contact can be over the phone, face-to-face, or electronically (e-mail or using an instant messenger program such as MSN or Yahoo). We think this can be beneficial to both the student and to the mentor. If you are interested in information about the program, send an e mail to either of the two addresses noted above.

The last thing we discussed is our departmental assessment plan. We are moving to a plan which assess student learning through the use of portfolios. We have taken our steward model and identified specific objectives for each of the steward goal statements. We will be asking students to begin gathering data for their portfolios beginning this fall. We hope to fully implement the program / plan for students graduating next year. Identifying assessment goals and outcomes continues to be a challenging process. If you are interested in knowing our goals and outcomes, let us know and we can e-mail you a copy of our portfolio guidelines. We are always looking for input from alumni on how we could do business education better.

Additionally, if you have internship opportunities, we are always interested. You can contact Dr. Linda Cantwell at lindac@tabor.edu.

Again welcome to the site, we hope it will be helpful, informative and FUN (as recent alumni know we are into that as much as anything)

NH