Dennis DeTurck | Explaining B-FLAT

The mission of the College is to educate tomorrow's leaders - in science and medicine, in the arts and culture, in government and politics and in the non-profit and profit sectors. Rather than providing training for specific careers, the College's liberal-arts approach prepares its students to take on the manifold challenges society will face in the future.

Thus, the College is always planning, developing and creating new courses, curricula and programs to meet the evolving interests and needs of its students and faculty, as well as in response to the arts-and-sciences needs of students in Penn's other undergraduate schools.

Often, new developments take the form of new major or minor programs, sometimes in collaboration with Penn's other schools. For instance two new major programs are in Modern Middle East Studies and the Vagelos Life Sciences and Management program, the latter developed in collaboration with the Wharton School. Two new minors are the Jazz Studies Minor and the Consumer Psychology minor, the latter developed in collaboration with Wharton.

In this context, the consideration and development of what has been called the B-FLAT minor has been taking place. The College began thinking along these lines last year, when the Dean's Advisory Board raised the issue that many College students felt the need for a program that would furnish certain practical skills, such as budgeting and finances, leadership and teamwork (hence B-FLAT) - basic skills, taught from a generic point of view.

The DAB and the Dean began the process by speaking with groups of students, and then by consulting with Wharton Vice Deans Kahn and Schmittlein. Our first thought was to provide some structure and guidance for College students who want to select appropriate existing Wharton courses, or to work with Wharton to develop new courses along these lines. We also turned to the places within the School of Arts and Sciences - the undergraduate Fox Leadership Program and the graduate Fels Institute of Government and Organizational Dynamics program - where appropriate expertise and interest exists.

This semester, the Fels Institute is offering an undergraduate course in public-sector budgeting as an experiment, and we will follow up with at least one Fels or OrgDyn course next semester. Since the leadership has changed in the Wharton School, we have kept Vice Dean Phillips abreast of our plans and developments, although we have not yet renewed substantive discussions of how Wharton might help.

There's no "pushing" or "program" yet, just a series of experiments. Rather than providing business courses for a minor in business, or what would be a rather weak attempt to train students for careers in business, the point is to provide College students with B-FLAT skills, taught from a liberal-arts perspective, and with a public/non-profit sector slant. This is precisely what the Fels Institute has been doing at the graduate level for 70 years.

Of course, some College students are interested in pursuing careers in business after obtaining their undergraduate education. We will continue to encourage these students to take advantage of the world-class business education available in the Wharton School by judiciously selecting Wharton courses among their electives.

We also support these students through our joint efforts with Career Services, and through extra-curricular programs such as the College Alumni Mentoring Series - indeed, this program will bring a group of recent College alums to discuss "Careers in Finance for College students" later this week.

In previous similar CAMS events, alumni have talked about how their undergraduate experience in the College (supplemented by Wharton courses - or not, as the case may be) provided a foundation for their career trajectory.

It is regrettable that Friday's article gave the impression that there is a fully-formed "program" that the College is "pushing," or that it is a point of contention between the College and Wharton. Indeed, there is a process for proposing and seeking faculty approval for new programs in the College, and the "B-FLAT minor" hasn't entered the queue. We hope that this column will clear up whatever misimpression the article has caused.

Dennis DeTurck is the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

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