About the Business Transfer Program, Bellevue Community College

Our Program

What We Are

• The Business Transfer Program allows students to attain a two-year Associate in Business and transfer to state public universities to complete a bachelors degree in business.
• The program has 1000 majors completing the first two years of a four-year business degree, an estimated 200 to 400 students considering the major..
• We are the largest Business Transfer Program in the state and we transfer the largest number of students to the University of Washington (ranked 18th in the country).
• We have over 20 faculty including eight certified accountants and seven lawyers, some who have won awards and all who have extensive industry experience.

Access

• Business core courses including Accounting 210, 220, 230, Law (GBUS 202 and BA 200) and Statistics (BA 240) are offered every quarter.
• We have a dual enrollment program with the University of Washington, Bothell where students are admitted to the UW Bothell Business School but complete their first two years at BCC.
• Students also have the option of completing their four-year management degree from Eastern Washington University right on our campus.
• We offer all our courses online and along with Washington State University make accessible an online business degree.
• We have an e-mail listserv that keeps students informed of important deadlines and upcoming events
• We have a tutoring center manned by volunteer students that provides support to students in accounting and statistics.

Innovation and Excellence

• Our program gives many of the experiences of a four-year business school. We have developed a multicultural consulting course (ETHN 241) that gives our students invaluable experience working with a real business and mentored by industry professionals from the Bellevue Rotary or large corporations. This course has been commended by the Washington state legislature and won a national award.
• We are working with colleges in China to develop joint programs for Chinese and US students to learn together. We already have signed a sister agreement with Shanghai Business School, a college with over 11,000 students and 6 campuses. The first study aboard to China happens in August 2008.
• Along with our corporate sponsor, The Boeing Company, we offer the biennial Connect to Your Future student career conference that informs over 1600 students about high-demand careers.
• Financial Education at BCC, a program to spread objective financial education throughout the state of Washington has reached over 3000 people, was featured in the Seattle Times and was commended by Governor Gregoire as a model for the nation.
• The Business Leadership Club mounts many events to help students learn about careers including an accounting job shadow, speakers from Starbucks, Costco, venture capital firms and student entrepreneurs. Every year we hold over 12 events attended by 800 students.

Success

• Close to 250 students graduate from our program each year. Our alumni have transferred to the University of Washington (Seattle, Bothell, and Tacoma), Seattle University, Western Washington University, Central Washington University, Stanford, Columbia, University of Arizona, University of Nevada Las Vegas, University of Southern California, University of Hawaii, and others.
• Our students have positions of responsibility at Boeing, KPMG, Alaska Air, Weyerhauser, Washington Mutual, Microsoft, Deloitte, prominent small businesses and more. They form our extensive alumni network that continues to provide advice and mentoring to our students.
• In 2007 over 120 of our alumni graduated from the University of Washington (all campuses), including the winner of the University of Washington Bothell Chancellor"s award, Jayne Collins.
• We have over 20 faculty including eight certified accountants and seven lawyers, all with extensive industry experience. Our full-time faculty maintain contact with many of our students and continue to mentor and coach them for many years after they graduate.
• We offer an extensive co-curricular activities to provide opportunities for our students to mount major events and network with executives and entrepreneurs. These activities give our students tremendous confidence and skills that cannot be learned in the classroom.

Faculty

We have five full-time faculty in our program who are committed to our students, our program and each other. Dr. Judy Woo has spearheaded the active recruiting of the most highly-qualified and diverse faculty. Our faculty includes eight certified accountants and seven JDs. All our faculty have significant industry experience. Of the twenty faculty who currently teach in our program, ten (50%) are faculty of color.

Staff Support

Janice Grayson, the Business Academic Advisor, conducts a phenomenal 1500 academic advising appointments in a year. She is supported by our capable administrative staff of Deanna Tiplin, Glenda Coma and Evelyn Kasama, who are totally knowledgeable in jumpstarting the advising process. Janice also maintains the Business Division website which provides invaluable information on our program and transfer requirements. She also created a business listserv which informs our students of pressing deadlines, speakers, internships and events. (To subscribe, send a message to lyris@list.bcc.ctc.edu and write "SUBSCRIBE bccbusiness" in the body of your email.) Through Janice's efforts, we have forged strong relationships with all the major four-year business schools which regularly come on campus to provide our students with important information that get them to the front of the pack in the admissions process.

Student Support

Rich Bratz manages the statistics and accounting tutoring center, including recruiting the mainly volunteer students who serve as tutors. The tutoring center is housed right outside full-time faculty offices in A255 and gives students open access to faculty whenever they are available. We know that contact with faculty outside of class time is important to student engagement and our faculty is fully committed to helping all our students. Additionally, the tutoring center has become a meeting place for our student teams, supports our online courses, and encourages students to study together, all best practices to student success.

Student Engagement

Judith Paquette is the lead faculty advisor of our Business Leadership Learning Community, a extensive network of current students, alumni in four-year institutions such as UW and Seattle U, and alumni successfully launched in their careers. We know that the future of our students depends not just on academic advising but on contact with practicing professionals who can give invaluable advice on career advancement and who can open up vistas that our students have never considered. This is especially important for students who do not come from privileged backgrounds or backgrounds where they were exposed to businesses. The Business Leadership Learning Community is another opportunity to foster student engagement. Every year the student leaders of the BLC mount an incredible program that bring prominent business executives on campus, include field trips to companies such as Costco where our students met executives, shadowing at accounting firms, and social events. We are extremely proud of our student leaders many who have stepped up to running for student government positions at BCC and UW.