Making an Impact: COBA’s Societal Impact Plan in Costa Rica

by | Nov 28, 2023 | Academics, Alumni Spotlight, COBA Faculty, College Decisions, Current Students, Economics, Faith Infusion, Social Entrepreneurship, Uncategorized

Written by special contributor Lance Fleming

Costa Rica, a small Central American country, is experiencing a significant increase in tourism. Travel officials in Costa Rica expect an unprecedented surge in tourists in 2023 and 2024. This country is famous for its national parks, rainforests, beaches, wildlife, and outdoor activities. 

ACU students in the College of Business Administration have been traveling to Costa Rica since an initial Central America Study Abroad trip with Dr. Mark and Dr. Laura Phillips in 2016. In 2018, they traveled to Turrialba, Costa Rica to visit CATIE, an agricultural university with a focus on economic development. In 2019, the first Social Enterprise Consulting class was offered and the partnership with CATIE began, focusing on economic development.  But those students aren’t just in Costa Rica to observe. They are learning practical skills in research, marketing, and product creation from a class taught by Dr. Laura Phillips, Dr. Sarah Easter, Dr. Jennifer Golden, Dr. Mark Phillips, and Daniel Garcia. Currently, the class is working with local entrepreneurs to launch products made from materials donated by Southwest Airlines. 

Dr. Mark Phillips and Garcia will teach the class next semester, and then Easter and Golden will teach a summer course. Students in each class will go over topics teaching them how to be a consultant, how to help without hurting, Costa Rican culture (both generally and in the business world), and some project-specific topics. 

During Spring Break, the spring semester class will be in Costa Rica, and afterward, they will focus on completing their deliverable to the client for the rest of the semester. Dr. Laura Philips said the summer class will have a different format. It will include 5-6 weeks of online content on the same topics as in the spring. After that, students will spend nearly two weeks in Costa Rica to work on the project. 

AACSB (the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) seeks to encourage all accredited schools to make a societal impact. As they state on their website,  “AACSB’s vision of societal impact is that business schools contribute their specialized expertise to help mitigate some of society’s most pressing economic, social, human, and environmental problems.” 

COBA was already seeking to make a broader societal impact through their programs. Now the Costa Rica activities are part of a broader COBA initiative. Dr. Laura Phillips said, “It’s exciting because AACSB is now asking us to do more of what we were already doing. The change isn’t to the consulting class. What’s different now is that we will have more activities (curricular, research, and engagement) focused on the same theme of Increasing Educational and Economic Opportunities for People in Marginalized Groups.”

A five-person committee began meeting earlier this year to come up with a theme for the college’s work, Increasing Educational and Economic Opportunities for People in Marginalized Groups, and a tentative five-year plan. 

“The plan includes curricular, research, and engagement objectives for our residential and online campuses,” Dr. Phillips said. “The Costa Rica class is one piece of this plan. We want the societal impact plan to provide opportunities for all interested faculty and staff to be involved, and that is part of the reason we are expanding the faculty who teach the consulting class. The plan also includes the development of additional partners for consulting projects. We are interested in developing a second international partner as well as cultivating a partnership closer to home.” 

When Dr. Phillips first visited the CATIE campus with students in 2018, she connected with Dr. Eliecer Vargas, an economist at CATIE who specializes in economic development, which aligns well with the COBA students’ focus in Costa Rica. 

Five years ago, students spent a few days exploring tourism startups by rural female entrepreneurs in towns near Turrialba. After their trip, Dr. Phillips and Dr. Easter approached Vargas to discuss the idea of starting a consulting class and having the group of female entrepreneurs as their first client. Vargas agreed, and Dr. Phillips and Dr. Easter took their first group of consulting students to Costa Rica in the spring of 2019. 

Southwest Airlines has served as the air provider for ACU’s program, transporting students and professors to and from Costa Rica, and in 2022, Southwest Airlines arranged a deal with CATIE to give the university seats from their refurbished planes. 

The Turrialba region is now a major focus of Southwest’s investments. The company has set up a leatherworking shop on campus where local women and men can receive training and have access to leather and high-quality sewing machines with their support. 

As part of Southwest Airlines’ “Repurpose with Purpose” program, each of the company’s fleet of airplanes is overhauled every four years, and as a part of that process, the seat leather is replaced. The leather pulled out of the planes is donated to nonprofit organizations for upcycling projects. 

The idea is to create a business incubator to launch businesses as people graduate from the training program. Jobs are also being created in rural communities because CATIE receives intact seat covers that must be deconstructed before they are upcycled into new products.  

And that’s where the ACU students enter the picture.  

The students’ client is called Wearsos – the first business to come out of the leather project – and it was started by the husband-and-wife duo of Lynne Corvaglia and Chris Riquelme. Aside from upcycled bags, the company also plans to make other products like passport holders, wallets, luggage tags, and shoes. 

No two trips to Costa Rica have been alike, with the specifics of the project changing with every trip, usually at the request of the client. That means the specific business topics the students focus on vary. 

“They always learn something from the business side of the project, although the bigger learning outcomes stem from the nature of cross-cultural consulting,” Dr. Phillips said. “The students have to stretch their problem-solving and critical-thinking skills and they have to do that in a group setting and not just on their own. Their flexibility and adaptability are put to the test every day we are there. 

“They learn that other cultures may have different objectives and priorities for their business than what they usually see in the U.S., and they learn that the American measures of success are not the only measures,” she said. “They also learn that to provide useful recommendations for the client, they have to truly understand the client’s objectives and tailor their business solutions to meet the needs and the desires of the clients.” 

From the business skill side, Dr. Phillips said, the students have worked on market assessments and provided feedback based on the personas of different target customers. One class conducted focus groups to provide market research on potential products. Classes have researched logistics to help the client as they prepare to ship goods from Costa Rica to the US and Canada. 

Other students created a comprehensive marketing plan (Instagram and Facebook posts, email campaigns, etc.) to help a client roll out a Kickstarter campaign. Students listened to entrepreneurs talk about current and future product ideas as well as where and how they intend to sell and then provided a comprehensive list of questions to each entrepreneur to help them think through and further develop their business plans. 

Dr. Phillips said proposed expansion plans for the program that have been discussed are for the Costa Rica consulting class to be offered twice each year: once in the spring and once in the summer with a variety of faculty involved in teaching the class. Dr. Phillips also said she would like to involve COBA alumni on the trip to provide their expertise in the project’s area of focus. 

“That could be social media marketing, logistics, building basic business plans, finding funding sources, or rural development,” she said. “I also hope to continue our partnership with Southwest Airlines. It has been valuable to be working with their Repurpose with Purpose group because we can truly partner to support these clients.”

To learn more about the College of Business at ACU, click here.

COBA Makes Changes to the BBA Core To Give Students an Edge

by | Oct 12, 2022 | Academics, Accounting, COBA Faculty, College Decisions, Current Students, Economics, Faith Infusion, Financial Management, Human Resource Management, International Business, Management, Management Information Systems, Marketing, Professional Development, Uncategorized

Written by special contributor Lance Fleming

The College of Business Administration (COBA) recently undertook what Dr. Brad Crisp considers “the most significant change to business curricula at ACU in at least three decades” with revisions to the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) majors.

 Those changes include updates to the core requirements for all business majors and to the major requirements for each business major, including an analytics track available within each major. The process that was undertaken was extensive and lasted a few years, including input from the COBA Dean’s Council, Visiting Committees, and other external stakeholders.

 The members of each of those committees and groups were looking at in-depth benchmarking, analysis, and solution alternatives identified by the BBA Task Force. Those committees undertook extensive discussions on a wide range of proposals from the faculty task force, which was formed in early 2019 and delivered its recommendations later that fall. After the committees did their work, the changes were approved last spring by faculty and administrators at all levels of the university.

 The goal of the core revision largely focused on faith and ethics, analytics and technology, and professional development.

 “Faith and ethics are central to our identity as a Christian university,” said Dr. Crisp, the Dean of the College of Business Administration, “and we added some ethics content to a required business law course. All business majors will now take a two-course sequence in analytics and can choose a nine-hour or more track in analytics. Finally, we are placing greater emphasis on professional development by requiring a professional internship in management, marketing, and information systems and offering an internship as an option for accounting and finance majors.”

Photo by Jeremy Enlow

Those recommendations and changes are part of COBA keeping up with the pace of change that is currently being seen in the business world, said Andy Little, associate dean for COBA and associate professor of Business Law.

 “The pace of change in the business world – and society in general – necessitates some level of change in two dimensions: first within a specific course, faculty need to stay up to date with new developments; and second, from time to time, the curriculum in general needs to be evaluated and potentially updated,” Little said. “It’s easy for most faculty to update specific courses on a regular basis. I’ve added three new readings to my introductory law class, all of which deal with recent developments in the legislature.

 “Maybe more clearly, a course like Digital Marketing requires near-constant revision, just to keep up with all the changes in how people and companies use platforms to market products and services,” he said. “To a certain extent, the velocity of change works in favor of a stable curriculum:  foundational subjects like Accounting, Economics, and Statistics need to be included in every iteration of a core curriculum over time because those are the building blocks on which much of the business enterprise rests.”

Every major was reviewed and now has more market aligned pathways giving students more direction and professional guidance as they look toward their future profession. As the business world evolves, COBA is continually looking for ways to prepare students both inside and outside of the classroom. We do this through holistic student development, offering foundational business courses and major specific tracks, and including ethics in our offerings. This combination helps us strive to produce graduates who honor God and bless the world.

To learn more about the College of Business at ACU, click here.

COBA Welcomes Trent McNamara

by | Oct 7, 2021 | Academics, COBA Faculty, Economics, Uncategorized

COBA wants to give a warm welcome to Dr. Trent McNamara, Assistant Professor of Economics. This fall, McNamara will be teaching Principles of Microeconomics and Business Statistics. Trent was born in New Zealand, grew up in Ohio, and moved to Texas in 2007 shortly before starting high school. McNamara double majored in Economics and Pure Mathematics at the University of Texas, graduating in 2015. He then continued with his education, entering into a doctorate program at Texas A&M University where he earned his Ph.D. in Economics in May 2020. Dr. McNamara has been a lecturer for Texas A&M and has also worked in consulting. Trent has been married to his wife, Shelby, for 5 years and together they have a three-year-old son, Haydn.

McNamara said that he was drawn to teaching because it’s a way to contribute to making the world a better place. He shared “I was drawn to this line of work because I enjoy teaching and being able to give back to others. Having been so fortunate to pursue my education and recognizing everyone who helped me get to where I am, I am excited to be able to give back.” He was especially drawn to teach at ACU because of the unique environment, saying noting that the people, the culture, and the relationships that he has developed at ACU have been unique and a special thing to be a part of.

Trent enjoys pushing students beyond their comfort zones to help them grow. “I enjoy helping people push the boundaries of what they thought was possible. Oftentimes, we put a lot of unnecessary constraints or doubt on ourselves – being able to positively encourage people to try something new or to learn something challenging, and to be there for them throughout that process is incredibly rewarding.”

Outside of teaching, McNamara enjoys a variety of hobbies. He said, “I find myself engaged in a lot of things. For days at home, I love to run, read, or cook. I also began woodworking recently and have built all our son’s furniture. For days away from home, you can find us camping and hiking.”

Through this position with COBA, Dr. McNamara told us that his biggest goal is to help others. “If I can make a positive difference in someone’s life each day, I would call that a success.” We pray blessings on Trent and his family as they begin a new milestone. We’re excited to see the ways that Trent will make a positive impact on the lives of COBA students and colleagues. Help us give a warm welcome Dr. McNamara and his family to Abilene and ACU by introducing yourself if you see them on campus or in town. Welcome to ACU, McNamara family!