Certified Evaluation and Accreditation Results for Professional Graduate Business School The Department of Global Business, the Graduate School of Global Business, Meiji University
The Department of Global Business (hereafter, the DGB) in the Graduate School of Global Business at Meiji University attempts to foster highly specialized professionals who are equipped with an enterprising character backed by Meiji University’s founding spirits: a vigorous business spirits, a flexibility in dealing with rapid changes in business environments, and high ethics. It states its mission as "serving as a human talent enhancement education base for those adults who want to be business professionals and making contributions to businesses’ activities to create values.’’ Based on this mission, it defines the basic concept of business management as "the abilities to deal with those matters that create values and those that damage values." In order to develop such abilities, the DGB aims at "serving as the human talent enhancement education base to educate those adults who want to be business professionals and making contributions to activities of value creations by businesses." In order to achieve this, the DGB states that its education allows students to acquire "strategic thinking methods to address business managements and practical knowledge and skills of specialization" through "curriculum that is oriented toward innovation, integration, and practice.” It also states that its education “fosters abilities that can be used with high ethics." The DGB also states the following purposes: "to allow students to acquire basic knowledge and skills for business management, abilities and skills to identify and solve problems, and innovative abilities and skills”; “to foster business professionals who can proactively respond to evolutionary changes in the era of knowledge and risk taking"; and "to heighten the level of intellectual human resources as sources of value creation." These indicate a bold, go-ahead spirit, which enhances the significance of the DGB as a part of professional business school. In order to realize these purposes, the DGB offers a diverse curriculum with approximately one hundred and seventy courses in six areas of study: "finance," "global combined," "management," "accounting," "marketing," and "real estate." Moreover, it is commendable that the DGB has made innovative, all-out efforts for ensuring the quality of education through the united efforts of faculty and staff. For example, the DGB states that it promotes the cultivation of talented persons with a global perspective, and that, in order to improve students’ English abilities as a means to communicate and allow them to develop global viewpoints, it has made efforts for offering classes that teach subject areas in business specializations in English. It also has a high level of educational and research environments and well-equipped facilities to support students, including study rooms and offices that graduate students can share and use. Having said the above, it is also the case that Japanese businesses entered a new phase in its global management environment. Because of this, the DGB defines its goal as fostering of talented persons who can meet the challenges of changing management environments, who can demonstrate the strategic managements, and who can take a global perspective. This goal must be materialized further. In order to make that happen, the DGB needs to make improvements. In particular, Japan University Accreditation Association (JUAA) would like to suggest that three points should be addressed, as discussed below. The first point for improvement concerns the management of classes in various subjects in the DGB. There are approximately one hundred and seventy courses, including six areas of study centering on the core ideas of  "systematic and practical enrichment of subject group," "fostering persons of global talents," and "developing a system to support life-long, continuing education." It is commendable that this curriculum considers and makes possible systematic student learning that meets individual interests and purposes, and that it responds to students’ career paths and needs. However, it is not necessarily satisfactory as a highly advanced process of specialized professional education that allows the DGB to aim at making great strides toward students’ competencies as s specialized professionals. In order to realize the goal, the DGB department needs to constitute a phased system of curriculum that takes step-by-step deepening of learning and to organize a curriculum that crosses the six areas of study. In addition, in order to offer classes of one hundred and seventy, the DGB has employed a grate number of part-time faculty members who also have appointments in other departments and schools. The DGB department should build an organic system through which faculty is given chances (e.g., faculty development opportunities) to pursue the quality of education and research and to share the program's purposes. The second point for improvement concerns the system of various evaluations, including faculty evaluations that are needed to enhance and ensure the development of education and research in the DGB. To evaluate educational effects and determine whether purposes are attained takes a considerable length of time. In order to actualize this, the DGB needs to construct a system through which it can make course evaluations more meticulous and rigorous, and in which it can actively incorporate evaluations not only from its graduates but also from wider society, including industries. The DGB also needs to conduct curriculum reforms to reflect the results of such evaluations. In terms of faculty evaluation, it is necessary for the DGB to develop methods and indicators by which it can directly evaluate the educational and research activities of full time faculty members (both regular and contracted) as well as s system through which it can assess contributions of faculty members to the area of administration. The third point for improvement concerns the means to deal with students who enter the program right after their undergraduate education, and whose share in student enrollment has recently become constant. In a recent trend of professional business schools, it is pointed out that adult applicants who are working are in a gradual decline, while applicants who are recent graduates of undergraduate education are increasing because of today’s job market situations. Considering this, the DGB should examine the learning situations of students who enter the program straight from their undergraduate education and the educational effects the DGB exerts upon them. Moreover, it is necessary that the DGB consider implementing internship programs to help such students better understand the image of persons educated in the program, i.e., "human beings who understand the true core of businesses." The DGB also needs to deliberate other curriculum issues. In order to engage in the above reforms and improvement efforts, the DBG should create mid- and long-term visions that take into account the future plans of the university as a whole and it should formulate concrete action plans based on such visions. In formulating these plans, it is expected that the DBG will state specific ways to constitute faculty organizations, to pursue its purposes and improve the quality in order to gain international recognition, and to implement concrete policies for internationalization strategies. In particular, it is necessary that the DBG take an active initiative to pronounce mid- and long-term visions to make new efforts in its curriculum and to strengthen its measures "to foster persons of talents with global perspectives." This is to strongly encourage further development of the DGB in the future, because it has stated its mission of being an educational base for enhancing the levels of working adults as human resources to make contributions to activities of businesses to create values. JUAA expects the DBG’s further development and enrichment through conducting continuous self-studies and evaluations, implementing reforms and making improvement efforts, and extending its unique characteristics.