Reinventing Business Education in a Changing World: School of Business Organizes Fifth Annual Business-Community College Summit

On March 25th, 2022, faculty and administrators from eight local community colleges joined the Woodbury University School of Business team to discuss past, present, and future developments in business education. Among the attendees were representatives from Glendale Community College, Pasadena City College, East Los Angeles College, Rio Hondo College, Los Angeles Trade Tech College, Los Angeles Mission College, College of the Canyons, and Los Angeles Valley College.

A business student panel, consisting of Bradley Davolio, Ani Sinanyan, and Victor Jarvis, recounted their experiences of transferring from community colleges to Woodbury University’s School of Business, and shared what they consider the greatest rewards of their decisions. The students highlighted the way the admissions staff guided incoming students through the transfer process, the helpful and mentoring approach from faculty, the small class sizes which encourage greater interactions, the practice-based group and individual assignments,, the encouragement toward entrepreneurialism, and the beautiful campus.

Tying into the theme of this year’s summit, “Reinventing Business Education in a Changing World,” the roundtable dialogue topics varied from motivating students to stay on the business career path, to identifying challenges and lessons learned from the pandemic years, to ideas on what might change in the business education world in the near future.

Following are just a few of the takeaways from the summit:

• Ensuring student interaction with peers and faculty remains important, whether offering courses in online or on the ground format. As part of this notion it was underscored that online education seems to work best in synchronous settings rather than asynchronous modes.
• Online education is here to stay and should no longer be perceived as a second-rate format. Participants agreed that there is a paradigm shift happening within online teaching, whereby even high-profile accrediting bodies are now embracing the use and practicality of online formats in a continuously challenging professional environment.
• It is crucial for faculty to keep up on new trends in order to teach students the latest developments.
• It is important for faculty to remain up-to-date on industries and trends. Many free tools such as podcasts and myriad social media platforms are good resources.
• Encouraging students to participate in institutional business clubs enhances their networks as well as their preparedness for professional performance after graduation. Potential collaborations were discussed between Woodbury’s CEO student club and business clubs at various of the participating colleges, leading to appointments to further explore these collaborative opportunities after the summit.

True to the business spirit, there was a competitive element embedded in this meeting through several mini quizzes, to which all attendees enthusiastically participated. A variety of gift baskets were awarded to the winners.

Dean Joan Marques and Admissions Counselor Cynthia Cifuentes shared some important developments and incentives geared toward accommodating incoming transfer students to Woodbury University. Jack Condon, Assistant Director of Recruiting and Outreach and participating adjunct faculty, served as the moderator at the roundtable session.

The goal of this annual summit is to establish and maintain a connection between business faculty from various colleges and schools in the Los Angeles area in order to better guide students toward their most rewarding paths. The summit also serves as a means for faculty from different institutions to share and trade resources, such as reciprocal guest lectures and networking opportunities.

Last Updated on April 1, 2022.