COLORADO CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY

MGT 400-0x
Organizational Capstone
Course Syllabus
Course Instructor: Kevin Miller

Contact Information:
kevinmiller@ccu.edu
(CCU email labels me as Mark Kevin Miller)

303.246.3970 (cell)
office hours: 10:4011:30 and 1:302:15 on MW or by appointment

YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR KNOWING THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS

COURSE SYLLABUS. PLEASE READ IT CAREFULLY.

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Catalog Course Description

MGT 400 - Organizational Capstone
Practical, real-world understandings, application, and integration of key organizational disciplines and
practices. Students will focus on developmental, reconstructive, and succession aspects of all types of
organizations. Emphasis on strategic understandings of stewardship, leadership, and management both
internally and externally to the organization. Serves as a capstone course bridging directly to meaningful
post-graduate application in every organization (for-profit and non-profit).

Instructors Course Description

Practical, integrated study of vital elements of key major disciplines, including personal disciplines,
required for the effective strategic oversight and successful management of any organization. Special
emphasis on the parallels and contrasts of a sophisticated, Christian understanding of organizations with
more overtly secular, state-of-the-art organizational practices. Special issues and topics will also be slated.

Course Objectives
The key objective of this course is to be a capstone integration and experience for every business major.
The student will integrate key concepts and disciplines of successful organizations.
The student will be challenged to think deeply about the choice of organizational strategies and the
impact of their execution.
The student will ably address and discuss key Christian and secular concepts of organizational
excellence.
The student will learn both the strategic organizational disciplines and key personal aspects needed
for practical excellence.
The student will acquire additional perspectives that will work to foster unique, distinguished
executive decision-making.

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Required Texts and Materials

Students are expected to procure all REQUIRED class texts and materials before the
first class session. Failure to do so will greatly harm your course grade and the
instructors will not make any provision for students who have failed to procure their
required texts and materials.

HBRs 10 Must Reads: The Essentials (2011). Boston, MA: Harvard

Business Review Press
ISBN 978-1-4221-3344-6 (paperback)
REQUIRED

Gladwell, Malcolm (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. New

York: Back Bay Books / Little, Brown, and Company
ISBN 978-0-316-01793-0 (paperback)
REQUIRED

Miller, Kevin (2010). Freedom Nationally, Virtue Locallyor

Socialism. Greenwood Village, CO: Denali Press
ISBN 978-0-615-40039-6
REQUIRED

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A modern translation of the Bible.

There will be additional handouts and assigned materials.
REQUIRED

In addition to these materials, each student must have:

An active CCU network account
A CCU e-mail address that the student regularly accesses
Ready access to a computer with Microsoft Office 2007/2010 (for PC).
Ready access to the Internet
Attendance
Attendance in this class is critical to your success. It is important that you attend each class so
that you can maximize the return from your educational program and benefit academically to the
greatest extent. Demonstration of problems and approaches as well as in-class facilitation of
individual/group discussions is essential to learning the subject matter. Ultimately, any and all
information presented in class may be included on tests and quizzes. With this in mind, the
information presented during class lectures, demonstrations and discussions cannot and will not
be repeated. Students will be held responsible for ALL material presented in class. If you must be
absent from class for a planned university commitment that is afforded an excused absence, the
work scheduled for that class period (quizzes, exams, etc.) must be completed BEFORE the
scheduled absence.

Leaving Class during the Class Session

It is important that you attend the entirety of each class so that you can maximize the return from
your educational program and benefit academically to the greatest extent. Once the class session
has begun, you should not leave class for any reason (other than an emergency) until the class is
dismissed by the Professor. Please be sure to use the restrooms prior to class or after class is
dismissed not during the class session. If you know that you must leave class early for any
reason you are to inform your professor BEFORE class starts. Please take a seat near the
classroom door to minimize any disturbance at your departure.

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Electronic Devices in Class

Cellular telephones, pagers, iPods, MP3 players, radios, and similar devices are allowed
in the classroom but must be turned off and put away. Please turn off any and all of these
devices in your possession BEFORE class starts. Answering your cell phone, looking at
messages, or text messaging during class is prohibited. It is important that you learn how
to disconnect and pay attention.
Use of calculators and/or laptop/notebook computers in class is at the discretion of the
professor. You will find descriptions of permitted or assigned calculators in the Required
Texts and Materials section of this syllabus. Unless otherwise expressly prohibited by the
professor, laptop/notebook/netbook computers are permitted for note taking or for inclass projects requiring their use. However, web-surfing or viewing material other that
than specifically assigned for that particular class period, or any sort of communication
via electronic device is not allowed.

Submitting work for grading:

All files should be submitted to the Grade Center in the course web site. Do not submit assignments on
paper, disks, by email, or in any other way unless otherwise specified. Assignments submitted after the
due date and time will not be accepted. After the due date and time, Blackboard will show you a message
stating, Submissions are accepted after this date, but are marked Late Indeed, you may submit an
assignment late to the digital grade center. However, as previously stated, the assignment will be worth
zero points and your course instructor is NOT obligated to grade that assignment in any way.
Please submit your written assignments to the Grade Center with the following file naming convention:

Last Name First Name Assignment Title

Requirements for Written Papers / Projects
Unless otherwise specified by the course instructor, all written assignments must be completed as MS
Word documents (Office 2007 or 2010 format for the PC) and must be submitted to the Grade Center
according to the aforementioned file naming convention.
Formal Academic Papers: Your course instructor will specify whether your paper is a formal academic
paper or some other standard. When in doubt, assume your paper is to be written as a formal academic
paper. Formal academic papers submitted for grading in SBL courses must adhere to the style guidelines
as established by the American Psychological Association (APA); 6 th edition. You will be graded
according to the APA style guidelines so be sure you follow them.
Informal Papers/Projects: The course instructor will specify when a paper or project is expected to be
written in a style other than APA. This can include business plans, marketing plans, portfolios, etc. The
course professor will specify the formatting requirements for such projects. You will be graded according
to the style guidelines as specified so be sure you follow them.
It is of critical importance that you pay attention to detail in your written communication. Your use of
proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling is a foundational expectation. Although you should never
submit any written communication with spelling or usage errors, mistakes will no doubt happen. Be

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advised, grammatical, punctuation, and spelling error will significantly hurt the final grade earned on your
assignment.

Personal Involvement and Time

John Locke said, Effort produces ownership; nowhere is this more true than education. For your
education to be truly yours, you will need to devote a significant amount of time to this class. Students
should anticipate 5-8 hours of work outside of class each week.
PAY ATTENTION TO THE SCHEDULE OF ASSESSMENTS (SOA) FOR THIS CLASS!

Grading Policy
The grade the student receives will be the grade that they have earned. The scores are not curved
and there will be no exceptions made on final point totals and their equivalent letter grades.

Grading Scale
Final grades will be calculated as a percentage of the total points possible for the course. Letter grades
will be assigned in accord with the following percentages:

A
AB+
B
BC+
C
CD+
D
DF

> 92.99%
90.0% - 92.99%
87.0% - 89.99%
83.0% - 86.99%
80.0% - 82.99%
77.0% - 79.99%
73.0% - 76.99%
70.0% - 72.99%
67.0% - 69.99%
63.0% - 66.99%
60.0% - 62.99%
< 60%

A closing personal encouragement from you as instructor:

A significant dimension of the reason I returned to CCU a few years ago was to teach this specific course
to graduating seniors nearly ready to embark on life after college and to experience incredible personal
opportunities. I believe that God has a path of unique distinction for you personally for the rest of your
life, and that all things are going to work together for good in your life (Romans 8:28).

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It is my privilege to come alongside, equip you with utterly unique content and approaches, and journey
with you in this course as you gain additional expertise and you earn final distinction before launching
onto the remainder of that personal path.