While not an official capstone, Norman Scarborough's Small Business Management, which he has taught since 1980, offers the benefit of real-world experience in preparing students for an important aspect of the business world. In learning how to write a business plan, students apply what they have learned in earlier classes, such as finance, accounting. and marketing.

As an incentive in the class, Scarborough conducts a competition. He chooses three to five of the best business plans from students' rough drafts. The finalists present their plans to a panel of judges comprised of business leaders from the community. This model is common across the country, he says; MIT, for example, offers a $50,000 prize to its winner. PC's prize is more modest --­­----a Dempsey's buffet gift certificate and a Business Department cap.

Scarborough describes students' lack of knowledge in how to research, as well as the obvious problem of procrastination, as issues he encounters in the course. He deals with initial procrastination by using technology. Business Plan Pro software, included with the course text, guides students through the process of beginning a business plan by asking questions and offering a template, thus helping them avoid the writer's block caused by a blank screen.

As in capstones that include instruction from librarians or professors on researching in their fields, Small Business Management devotes several classes to acquainting students with resources. Scarborough guides students to Web sites needed for background on their proposed businesses. He says that by using online data, for instance, "someone wanting to open a coffee shop could find out what age customers frequent coffee shops and what times of day they drink coffee."

During the semester-long process, students amass financial forecasts, marketing strategies, and demographic profiles from census data. Then they sort the information they have gathered and pull it together into an overall strategy.

Scarborough has published the most successful plans as models in his textbooks. Josh Sudbury's business plan for a company called Total Fitness appears in Essentials of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, just out. Ruth Ingram's plan was published in Effective Small Business Management. She put her plan into immediate practice while still a PC student by starting "In Tote," a business making tote bags.

Small Business Management gives students incentives to challenge themselves and allows them to envision concrete results from their hard work. 

Communication Across the Curriculum Ideas at Presbyterian College