School Of Business Partners With Samaritan’s Purse To Create New Cognate

Conversations between missions’ leaders and the faculty from the School of Business led to the development of a new cognate for the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, which focuses on Humanitarian Aid.  

This Humanitarian Aid specialization is a 15-credit hour residential program where students learn the business infrastructure for nonprofit organizations. According to the official Degree Completion Plan, courses like conflict resolution, negotiation and supply chain management combined with a required internship will help prepare business-minded students looking to work for church ministries
and nonprofits.

Associate Dean of Residential Programs for the School of Business Melanie Hicks and Provost and Chief Academic Officer Scott Hicks engineered this new degree plan with support from Samaritan’s Purse, and specifically with Ken Isaacs, Samaritan’s Purse vice president for programs and government relations. This major is set apart from other business degrees as there is a required internship through LU Serve, Samaritan’s Purse or a non-profit organization that deals with aid efforts.

Roger Bingham, a business professor and internship liaison for this new major, is currently teaching the upper-level course, ‘Humanitarian Affairs,’ where students learn how to manage funding, apply for grants and remain ethical while working with different cultural and governmental bodies. 

This new major will contribute to Liberty’s mission to educate “Christ-centered men and women with the values, knowledge, and skills essential to impact the world.” 

“That is why we do what we do at Liberty University,” Bingham said. “We want to be able to bring forward and reinforce those Christian ideals in the business setting.”

The partnership with Samaritan’s Purse, giving humanitarian aid students an internship, can provide business students real life experience. 

“We would love for the internships to exceed Samaritan’s Purse capacities,” Melanie Hicks said. “Humanitarian aid students have a huge and unique ability to be able to do whatever it is that God has called them, but then also have this foundational background from an academic standpoint.” 

Since the completion of the School of Business building in 2019, the school has grown in the number of students and majors it offers residentially. Melanie Hicks believes that training Champions for Christ is about creating missionaries in all different types of fields. 

According to Melanie Hicks, According to Melanie Hicks, the Humanitarian Aid program allows for people in a variety of majors to have access to countries that may be closed to missionaries. 

“If we can give our students these skills that are practical in application… they can minister to those people [in their perspective jobs creating] God’s pit crew.” 

Kaitlyn Nyhan is a News Reporter.