Protest over Florida Tech Dean's Ouster

Dean says he was fired for questioning online deal. Plus: Biz books go Wiki, and LBS names the winner of its security contest

by Kerry Miller, Francesca Di Meglio, and Janie Ho

The recent firing of the dean of the College of Business at Florida Institute of Technology has led to student uproar over a planned distance-learning program and the school's pending accreditation with B-school board AACSB International. Last week about 20 business students and professors at Florida Tech's Melbourne campus protested the dean's dismissal and the school's agreement with outside partner Bisk Education to deliver online bachelor's degrees in business.

Interim Dean Robert Fronk wouldn't comment on the circumstances of Dean David Steele's departure, but in an Oct. 22 e-mail sent by the outgoing dean to the B-school's faculty and staff, Steele said he had been fired for insubordination after expressing concerns over the school's agreement with Bisk Education and its possible impact on AACSB accreditation. "It was made clear to me when I was hired that achieving AACSB accreditation was my No. 1 priority," Steele wrote in the e-mail.

Students say an unsigned copy of a contract between Florida Tech and Tampa-based Bisk that has circulated on the campus has raised concerns that components of the new online degrees would not align with AACSB standards. Students also say that the new online degrees could diminish the value of their own degrees, though the university has said those complaints are unfounded. Bisk runs online degree and certificate programs for at least eight other schools, according to its Web site.

AACSB doesn't make restrictions on education delivery method—a number of online business programs are AACSB-accredited—but distance programs are evaluated in the context of the entire school and must meet the same requirements. (See BusinessWeek.com, 8/18/05, "Do Online MBAs Make the Grade?").

Several students said they feel the dean's dismissal is a sign that the university doesn't consider AACSB accreditation a top priority. Amy Ho, a part-time master's in business administration student at Florida Tech who earned her BS in business administration at the school in 2005, says administrators and faculty members have been talking about the pending AACSB accreditation for as long as she can remember. "They kept saying it was going to happen and it was moving along as planned," she says.

Fronk says the College of Business is continuing to pursue accreditation with AACSB, but the process will take longer than originally planned. "Rather than do it as absolutely fast as we can, we're going to slow things down," he says.

The accreditation process is a long one that typically takes three to seven years, according to AACSB spokesman John Polis. Fronk says no definite timetable had been worked out for how long it would take for Florida Tech, but that it would be one issue on the table when an AACSB-assigned mentor visits the campus next month. Meeting AACSB's standards would also require a number of changes, Fronk says, including the hiring at least four new faculty members and the review of courses taught through the university's extension campuses to ensure they align with AACSB standards. He says funds generated by the new online education programs set to begin in 2008 would be put towards the ongoing accreditation process

Authors, Authors

Can hundreds of authors who don't know each other turn out a business book? The Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT, along with the Wharton School, Pearson Publishing, and the Shared Insights information company, recently kicked off an experiment to see if a business book could be written Wikipedia-style.