The Council on Academic Affairs approved a minor in human resource management at its meeting Wednesday.

Melody Wollan, associate chair of the School of Business, said the minor was developed by human resource management faculty.

According to the minor’s proposal, after completing the program, students should be able to explain and effectively communicate human resource management terms and concepts; appreciate the legal, cultural and global pressures as they apply to human resource management; identify and apply appropriate human resource management theories and analytics; and think and act strategically and thoughtfully in a human resource management context.

All of the courses in the minor would be ones that already exist in the management major and in the human resources concentration.

“We’re just opening a different way for students outside the management major to take these courses,” Wollan said.

Psychology majors are often interested in minoring in philosophy because of the credit hours associated with the degree, she said.

“That’s our initial audience we were trying to hit with this HR minor, but in our discussions we continue to discuss how to reach out to other students across campus,” Wollan said.

Communication studies majors may want to go into a career field with human resources, Wollan said, or other students might want to pick up a minor as well.

The proposal was unanimously approved.

The council also revised the business administration degree to extend the online degree completion program.

Wolland said for 30 years, the School of Business offered two face-to-face classes at Parkland College in Champaign for a degree completion program in business administration.

This program has had varying levels of popularity over the 30 years it has been implemented, but due to a decline in community college enrollment and staffing challenges, enrollment in the business program has started to diminish.

Wollan also said the School of Business receives calls from potential students saying they would like to get an online business degree from Eastern, but there are none besides the MBA program that was launched online last year.

“Now we’re at the point where we feel more confident and comfortable with launching an undergraduate bachelor’s degree in business administration,” she said.

It also seemed like a good opportunity for the school to update the Parkland degree completion program, Wollan added.

The expansion would not just be for Parkland students coming in for degrees, but would also expand the program to an online environment for degree completion for anyone who has the ability to transfer into Eastern’s business program.

Some classes are already being offered online, Wollan said, so the school is confident about the revision.

“We could watch this and support it and continue to achieve our mission with our on-campus programs,” Wollan said.

Cassie Buchman can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].