BUSN 110 - Introduction to Contemporary Business

Jennifer Usis, M.S.Ed.; Jusis@odu.edu, Designer and Lead Faculty Instructor for BUSN 110

The purpose of this class is to provide students with a preliminary understanding of business and gives them an opportunity to use office productivity software to enhance communications and presentations. Students should be able to identify career prospects for each of the primary business areas (such as Accounting, Finance, Management, etc.) and basic business terminology. Office productivity software (word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation) will be heavily used by the faculty and students for communication in the form of presentations and essays.

Contact Hours: M-F 8 A.M. 5 P.M. by appointment; Constant 1011; However, email (Jusis@odu.edu) is always the best form of communication. To avoid emails getting directed to spam filters, students should use ODU email accounts and include BUSN 110 in the subject line.

Required text:

• Shah, A.J. (2008). Business Now (1^st ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Old Dominion University. (2011). Old Dominion University catalog 2011-2012 (Volume LXVIII, No. 1). Norfolk, Virginia.

Additional text:

• APA Manual or MLA Manual
• One of the following:
  • Brooks, A. (2006). Who really cares: the surprising truth about compassionate conservatism (1^st ed.). New York, NY: Basic Books.
  • Friedman, T. (2007). The world is flat (3^rd ed.). New York: Picador.
  • Frank, R. H. (2007). The economic naturalist: in search of explanations for everyday enigmas (1^st ed.). New York: Basic Books.
  • Gladwell, M. (2005). Blink: the power of thinking without thinking (1^st ed.). New York: Little, Brown and Co.
  • Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: the story of success (1^st ed.). New York: Little, Brown and Co.
  • Levitt, S.D. & Dubner, S.J. (2009). Super Freakonomics (1^st ed.). New York: William Morrow.
  • Penn, M.J. (2007). Microtrends: the small forces behind tomorrows big changes (1^st ed.), New York: Twelve.

Objectives: Students will be able to:

• Define the term business and identify the components and career opportunities of the business environment.
• Explain the vital impact of business on all facets of their lives.
• Communicate both written and orally utilizing business terms and concepts.
• Identify business ethic situations.
• Learn how to research using library and other various internet search engines.

Honor Pledge: I pledge to support the Honor system of Old Dominion University. I will refrain from any form of academic dishonesty or deception, such as cheating or plagiarism. I am aware that as a member of the academic community, it is my responsibility to turn in all suspected violators of the Honor Code. I will report to a hearing if summoned. Please note that all citations within any assignments should be formatted in either APA or MLA citation format.

Academic dishonesty or failure to correctly cite anothers work
will be reported to the Office of Academic Integrity and Student Conduct.

Students needing accommodations: In accordance with current policy, students with documented sensory and/or learning disabilities must contact the Educational Accessibility Office and present documentation in order that their special needs for accommodation can be addressed. Students are also encouraged to identify their documented disability to the professor at the beginning of the semester in order to avoid delays in receiving a needed accommodation.

Classroom expectations: Student participation is expected.

• This does require staying up-to-date in class reading assignments for classroom discussions. Also included in participation are the discussion board topics via Blackboard as well as any other assignments assigned by the professor throughout the semester. This class is based around discussion so a missed class means missed discussions which cannot be duplicated.
• Students who are unable to attend class for more than one class period and are faced with a personal emergency situation should contact Stella Mims, University Student Ombudsperson, at Smims@odu.edu. Emergencies include personal health requiring more than one week of an absence, deaths in the family, military mobilization, etc. Documentation will be required. More information can be found at http://studentaffairs.odu.edu/sos/.

Students found to be using cell phones, text messages, Facebook, emails, or any other classroom distractions which prevent the student or other classmates to listen and learn in the classroom will be asked to leave.

For exact assignments and schedules, students should reference the syllabus assigned for their class section.