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Lecturer: Andrews should look to Avondale
16 July 2008
Brenton Stacey
Public relations officer
Seventh-day Adventism's most prominent tertiary institution could learn from a paper presented by an Avondale College lecturer at a conference for church business teachers.
Dr Keith Howson's "An underpinning philosophy for a business degree at an Adventist university" describes the college's Christian philosophy of education and demonstrates how the Faculty of Business and Information Technology, of which Keith is dean, used the philosophy to design its business course. "One of the key questions coming out of our accreditation was, 'What's your philosophy?'" says Keith. "We didn't have one then, but we do now."Keith (pictured) presented his paper at the sixth Seventh-day Adventist Business Teachers Conference, held at Andrews University (Berrien Springs, Michigan, USA), June 26-28. "It evoked serious discussion because it appears the accreditation body under which Andrews operates is now asking a similar question," says Keith.
The paper asserts the "development of a clearly articulated philosophy is vital to the delivery of well-defined educational outcomes." It builds on a model of ethics developed by Dr Hun-Joon Park, professor of management in the College of Business and Economics at Yonsei University (Seoul, South Korea). "It's a useful foundation for the key concepts of integrity, stewardship and servant leadership, on which we now build our courses," says Keith.
Keith presented a draft of the paper at the eighth International Conference on Business, held in Hawaii in May. The paper he presented to the delegates at the business teachers conference is now held in the Center for Adventist Research at Andrews.
Credit: Aaron Bellette
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