Fifth Year Maintenance Report - AACSB - The University of Texas at ...

I. Strategic Planning ProcessThe Department of Accounting engages in a formal strategic planning process every five years.Because the Department of Accounting is a fully integrated component of the College ofBusiness and the University of Texas at San Antonio, the strategic planning process in theDepartment occurs after those two entities that are above it. Thus this strategic plan not onlyrepresents the goals and objectives of the stakeholders of the Department but also integratesthose initiatives from the College of Business, and to a lesser extent the University, for which theDepartment plays an important role.The process begins with the participation of the Department Chair and a number of facultymembers, chosen by the Dean in consultation with the Department, participating in the COBStrategic Planning Initiative, including the visioning process as described in the COB strategicplan. The COB strategic plan was completed in August 2011.On September 16, 2011, twenty-five faculty, staff, students and members of the Department ofAccounting Advisory Board met in a four hour session to review and recommend items for theDepartment of Accounting Strategic Plan. At this session participants were seated at one of fourtables with a mix of participants at each table. The exercise proceeded through three differentparts. First, each table did an informal SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats)exercise in which the participants discussed the Department of Accounting and its environment.Secondly, the participants reviewed the College of Business strategic initiatives from the COB2011-2016 strategic plan and identified COB initiates that had relevance to the Department ofAccounting. Finally, the third part of the exercise was for each group to identify specific andpropose specific initiates that should be considered for the Department of Accounting StrategicPlan.The results of the September 16 th planning exercise were gathered and evaluated by theDepartment of Accounting Department Faculty Advisory Committee (DFAC). The DFACsorted, combined and filtered the proposals from the meeting into a draft strategic plan. Thisdraft was then presented to the Department of Accounting Faculty and Advisory Board forreview and comment. After final revisions were made to the draft, a final version of theStrategic Plan was presented to the Faculty and to the Advisory Board for approval. This plan isthe final result of this process.II. Environmental Analysis.Part of the strategic planning process was to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunitiesand threats facing the Department of Accounting in the next five years. These factors inconjunction with the mission statement are the basis for the strategic goals developed in thisstrategic plan. These factors are briefly reviewed in this section.Strengths: The quality of students and the reputation of the Department of Accounting in thecommunity were widely viewed by the participants as the most significant strengths of theDepartment. As one participant put it, “there is a perception of high quality output in thebusiness community employers.” Another often mentioned factor was the quality of the facultyand the faculty’s involvement with their students. In the Department of Accounting there is acollegial relationship between the students and the faculty that does not seem to be as prevalentin other disciplines.The curriculum, which is highly focused, was also mentioned frequently as a strength of theaccounting program. Finally, a number of observers commented on the strength of theinternship program and the involvement of the Center for Student Professional Development inpreparing the students for their careers through its programs.