Associate in Arts — Business Administration & Accounting

You will need to follow the general enrollment process for GTCC.  During the advising process you will have the opportunity to indicate your desire to study within this curriculum. Your advisor will help you sign up for the specific courses you need.

Your faculty are the strength of this program. Each brings a career of real world experience from a variety of industries to the classroom. 

Carl B. Smalls is the lead instructor for Introduction to Business (BUS 110) and Small Business Management (BUS 230) and an Associate Professor of Business Administration. This is his 27th year in academia and his fourth year at GTCC.  Smalls teaching experience includes appointments at Lake Superior State University (Michigan), University of Detroit Mercy (Michigan), and Eastern Michigan University (Michigan). Administrative appointments include Piedmont Community College – Director of the Small Business Center, Winston-Salem State University – Associate Director of Athletics, Marketing/Fundraising and the University of Detroit Mercy – Director of the College of Business. His private industry work experience includes various executive and management positions with firms such as WILMOCO Capital Management, Ford Motor Company, Volkswagen of America, and the National Football League (NFL). In addition to, board appointments with local and national organizations. Professor Smalls holds a B.S. from North Carolina A&T State University, an M.B.A.. from the Atlanta University Graduate School of Business (where he was a Volkswagen of America Scholar) and a graduate of the Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government in Investments and Behavioral Finance. 

Dan Reavis is an instructor of Business Finance, Economics, Ethics and Business Law. He has 27 years of experience in teaching those courses. His favorite teaching tools are humor, compassion, technology, and a thorough knowledge of the material. Before beginning his teaching career Dan had a career as a mortgage banker starting as a loan officer for Manufacturers Hanover Mortgage Corporation just outside of Washington, D.C. and ending as a manager/vice president with the former largest savings and loan in North Carolina, 1st Home Federal Savings and Loan. Before joining 1st Home Federal, Dan started and ran a record rental and sales store in Greensboro, NC while working toward a masters of economics at UNCG. This store used a new concept for what came to be known as music sharing by renting records that could be recorded and returned to the store for resale or more rentals.

• BA Philosophy/Psychology, UNC Greensboro
• MBA Finance, UT Knoxville

Nicki M. Dodd has 30 years of experience in corporate HR positions from Administrative Assistant to Vice President of Human Resources. She worked in, and supervised, all functions of human resources. Ms. Dodd has worked with local companies as a Human Resource Consultant in recruitment, retention, employee relations, training, employee development and total compensation. She is certified by the Society for Human Resources as a senior professional. Ms. Dodd is a charter member of the Charlotte Area Compensation Association; she was the Director of Compensation at Presbyterian Health Care in Charlotte for 10 years and was promoted to Corporate Director of Compensation for Novant Health. Ms. Dodd’s students find her extensive human resource experience and knowledge is transferred into the classroom and enhances their learning. She works with local employers through HRMAG and the HR Advisory Committee to ensure the knowledge and skills that local employers need for entry level human resource jobs are taught in our HR courses.

Karen Knoch (Associate Professor) teaches many Business Administration courses including Principles of Management and International Business. Prior to teaching, she worked in the home furnishings industry. In the first half of her furniture career, she worked in retail merchandising and buying. She was a buyer for several furniture retail chains around the country, including a chain of stores that had over 50 locations in five different states. In 2004, Dr. Knoch moved to North Carolina and began working on the product development/wholesale side of home furnishings.  Much of this work took place at overseas factories. As a result, she’s been to China over 20 times and has made numerous trips to Vietnam and the Philippines.  This work exposed Karen to the complexities and opportunities of international business and global sourcing. Throughout her home furnishings career, Dr. Knoch experienced a variety of supervisory and management positions; and she eventually attained an executive level where she participated in strategic planning and decision making.

Education:

• B.A., Finance, Huntingdon College
• M.B.A.., concentration in Management, Florida Atlantic University
• Ph.D., Leadership Studies, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University

Dianne Kuhn is an instructor of Marketing, Selling, Personal Finance, and Management. She has 18 years of experience teaching those courses as well as many others in the Business Administration and Marketing concentrations. She has owned two profitable businesses: a home daycare, and a lawn maintenance company. Corporate experience includes working for the first small trust company in NC, retail banking, footwear apparel management, and retail outdoor lifestyle management. Dianne feels that her prior careers in the retail, finance, and entrepreneurship arenas enhance her ability to passionately bring real life occupational experiences to her students. She earned her MBA from UNC Greensboro while teaching full-time and coaching tennis in Guilford County Schools. Dianne has traveled to numerous countries and values those experiences as providing a broad perspective of today’s global environment to the classroom.

Dr. Mark Harrison, Associate Professor, teaches a variety of Business Administration and Accounting classes. He is committed to preparing students to be productive employees and to help them achieve their professional goals. Dr. Harrison learned about business the old fashioned way.  He worked in a grocery store and several factories, including a furniture factory, a cookie factory, and a corrugated box factory.  He also served as the accountant for a law firm. Dr. Harrison has drawn upon these experiences to create a rich learning environment as an instructor at High Point University (1998-2000), Southeastern University (2006-2015), and at GTCC (2000-2006, 2015-present). When he is not teaching, Dr. Harrison serves as the head of the audit committee at his local church and enjoys swimming, traveling, and playing video games. 

Education:

• High Point University, BS in Business Administration/Finance Concentration
• High Point University, MBA
• Nova Southeastern University, DBA in Finance

Richard DePolt teaches Principles of Microeconomics and Principles of Macroeconomics.  He has spent his entire adult life studying and teaching economics. As a graduate student at UNC Chapel Hill, he studied and taught Economic History with a focus on the economic development of the United States. From there he served for six years as a Visiting Instructor at Wake Forest University where he taught Principles of Economics, Intermediate Macroeconomics, and Environmental Economics. After that, it was back to graduate school at UNC Greensboro to study microeconometrics and the Economics of Education. He came to GTCC as an instructor in 2009 and has served as Department Chair since 2013.

Sabrina Woodbery (Instructor) B.A.. Economics, UNC-Charlotte: M.A. Economics, UNC-Greensboro

As a Full-Time Student

In the catalog you will see that the degree is set up to be completed in two years. Please note that this 2-year plan assumes:

• You have successfully placed out of DRE 097, or EFL 074, EFL084, and EFL 094.
• You have successfully placed out of DMA 010, DMA 020, DMA 030, DMA 040, and DMA 050.
• You are able to successfully complete five classes every spring and fall semester.
• You are able to successfully complete two classes during the summer semester.

Earning your Degree while Working

If you are working more than 10 hours a week, or are responsible for the care of someone else (child, parent, spouse, etc.), you probably will not be able to complete the degree in two years.

Think of your degree as a job. If you are already working full-time, you will not be able to ‘work’ full-time on your degree. You should probably take no more than two classes per semester. This means it will take you four to five years to complete your degree.

If you are working 20-30 hours a week, you should probably take no more than 3 classes per semester. It will take you three to four years to complete your degree.

These are guidelines. You are the one responsible for deciding how many courses to take each semester. If you take more classes than you can handle, you will end up spending more time and money getting your degree than needed. Over committing can also lower your GPA and have an impact on the funding you receive.