"Education...beyond all other devices of human origin, is a greater equalizer of conditions of men--the balance wheel of the social machinery...it does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility toward the rich;
it prevents being poor" -Horace Mann

     The Department of Political Economy and Commerce at Monmouth College offers majors and minors in Business and Economics with the opportunity for the study of management, finance, marketing, international business, economic policy and public management. It also serves Monmouth College's General Education Program and offers electives open to any interested student.

     Monmouth College has a very distinctive approach to the study of business. Our program is based on different assumptions and different goals than the programs found in most other schools. In typical business programs, the goal is to teach students "how to manage a business" by teaching the theories and assumptions that underlie contemporary business practices, developing the skills good managers possess and learning the analytical techniques currently used in business – an approach designed to achieve specific technical goals.

     The goals of the Monmouth College program are more than just vocational. We believe that the best preparation for conducting business in tomorrow’s complex, dynamic world of limited information and inherent risk is to understand the development of commercial institutions as a social phenomenon - - how and why business practices have changed over time and how those changes have shaped society. Analyzing commerce as one of the primary institutions of modern society (including the family, the church, the state and commerce), allows students to see the connections between commerce and other social institutions and truly understand the bigger picture. This understanding can only occur by examining commerce as a continuing process of evolutionary change in a historical, social, political context. By understanding the problems business faced in the past and how commercial practices evolved to solve those problems, students are able to analyze, predict and plan for a future that will grow out of the interaction between current business practices and contemporary political/social problems.

     At the beginning and at the end of the Monmouth program, students take courses specifically designed to help them understand the wider context within which commerce occurs. Between these introductory and synthesizing experiences, students take more traditional courses taught from a broader perspective in order to understand how modern business is actually conducted. Students are firmly grounded in the basics of economics, accounting, personnel management, data management, marketing, finance, and law rather than narrowly trained within one of these functional areas. The goal is to enable students to see how the pieces fit together today, appreciate that those pieces were shaped by unique historical circumstances, and imagine how those pieces might fit together to make a different picture tomorrow.

     Monmouth’s program is founded on a bedrock belief that individuals are continually developing innovative new processes to solve problems, use resources more efficiently and create wealth. It is an unashamed embrace of best of the liberal arts traditions and values. The differences between traditional business programs and Monmouth’s approach are subtle and yet dramatic. It is long-term rather than short-run, it is integrated versus discrete, it is broad-based not narrow, it is interdisciplinary as opposed to disciplinary, it is the difference between showing students how to manage a business using modern techniques and explaining to them why business utilizes specific techniques and why those techniques work. It is the difference between knowing how to manage a business today and preparing for tomorrow’s changing business environment. It is more than just training for a job at graduation; it is an education for a lifetime of professional growth. It is a commitment to teach individuals to think; not a program to train managers. It is not business as usual; it is much more, it is an understanding of how the world works.
 

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