Students outside of the marketing major within the College of Business and Economics at the University of Idaho can now obtain access to the Professional Golfer’s Association of America (PGA) Program.
During Tuesday’s Faculty Senate meeting, the senate voted on five proposals which dealt with the PGA Golf Management Program and a student’s ability to join in majors other than marketing.
The proposals were interrelated and Faculty Senate voted on all of them at once, approving each.
“The PGA Golf Management Program is a program where students come to get their full degree in marketing, completing everything they would if they were a marketing student without the PGA added on,” Professor of Management and Human Resources Jeff Bailey said. “They then complete other things in order to get the PGA part of marketing.”
The business department includes six major areas, one of which is marketing, Bailey said. Around 12 years ago, a marketing program was set up that allowed for a PGA certificate, which went along with the marketing area of the business department and has only been in that area ever since, Bailey said.
Some of the issues that arose within the program, prior to the proposals, came from students who were in marketing field because they want to be a part of the PGA Program, but prefer finance or other majors over marketing, Bailey said.
“They don’t really have that option right now,” Bailey said. “It’s only in marketing.”
Within the business department, Bailey said the other students within other majors such as the management and human resources, operations management, finance, business economics and management information systems will be able to join the program.
“Basically what we’ve done is said, well, here are the other majors within the Department of Business, let’s add on the PGA requirements also … for the most part those requirements for PGA have been added onto the requirements for the other ones and become an option for those majors,” Bailey said.
What this would do is allow the potential for more recruitment of students who might not want a marketing major, Bailey said.
“They could come here and take finance and PGA at the same time,” Bailey said.
He said it also allows for students who are in the position where they don’t want to be in marketing and still want to take on the PGA Program, they could switch into any desired major within the business department.
Bailey said the PGA Program is separately accredited through the AACSB Business School Accreditation and also through the PGA.
“I believe there are 16 schools in the country that have this and has been approved by the PGA to have these and there is good demand,” Bailey said.
Savannah Cardon can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @savannahlcardon