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Graduate
Degree Programs Proliferate
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Virginia
Business
July 2003
According
to the May issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education,
more than 112,000 newly minted MBAs will enter the business
world with about 75 percent receiving their degree in
a part time evening or weekend program.
This
heightened interest in an MBA degree has led many universities
to branch out beyond their traditional campuses, and
in many cases beyond their state borders, too.
One
is The George Washington University, which was founded
in 1821 and is the largest institution of higher education
in the nation’s capital. GW has nine major schools,
offering hundreds of undergraduate, graduate, and professional
programs. Many of these offer an excellent entrée
into Washington’s political, policy, and research
centers that move our country and the world.
In
1991, GW established a campus in Loudoun County focusing
on high-tech and business programs. More than a decade
later the Virginia campus has become a center for collaboration
with market-driven academic programs and world-class
centers of research in information technology, telecommunications,
transportation safety and security, public health and
medicine.
“GW
only offers its Executive MBA program in Loudoun because
a high concentration of students come from the immediate
area,” says John Dyer, Professor of the Business
School and Director of the MBA Program. Dyer has been
with GW since 1977 and worked with the faculty development
team to put the program together. He went on to put
together a whole portfolio of graduate degree programs
offering a variety of options for the busy executive,
including an Executive and an accelerated MBA program.
Class
sizes are about 30 executives with groups moving through
the program in 21 month. Traditionally the same cluster
of students that starts together continues through until
graduation. Classes are held on weekends with no classes
on weekday evenings.
The
GW Executive MBA program attracts a more senior professional
with about 14 years of work experience and 10 years
of management experience. The term “Executive Education”
is not just a reference to the level of the students.
It also implies how GW delivers that program. Topics
of study include applications orientation, the broader
look at strategy and business planning. “These
executive must no longer think of themselves as just
marketers,” says Dyer. “They must know something
about finance, human resources and operations –
they need to be well trained in the role of a general
manager.”
The
accelerated program, or AMBA, is a more junior program
that meets one evening per week and Saturday mornings.
“Like a lot of schools, when it comes to course
offerings, we have all the flavors covered,” says
Dyer.
GW
also offers a full time, on-campus program for students
who are not working but attending graduate school. This
would include traditional daytime courses with students
who are 25-27 years of age with little or no work experience.
“We’re
seeing what may be a phenomena of the Northern Virginia
tech slowdown,” says Dyer. “There has been
an influx of new schools opening satellite offices here
and offering MBA programs.” William and Mary just
started an MBA program in Reston hoping an executive
offering will generate some discretionary revenue. The
weekend program started January 2003 and the university
flies its professors in each weekend. The University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill also has a program
at the Landsdowne conference center.
“Our
program at GW is different in that we have a whole campus
out here (in Loudoun),” says Dyer. “We have
library facilities here, we have a technology infrastructure
and we own our own classrooms. The university purchased
and moved into the former PSINet facility. We also do
significant research here in the Loudoun campus so we’re
not just leasing office space in a training facility.”
And of the 20 courses offered at Loudoun only one is
staffed by an adjunct professor, who happens to have
very strong IT credentials. The rest of the professors
are full timers, some of which have offices in Foggy
Bottom (GW’s D.C. campus), but one or more of their
scheduled classes are in Loudoun. Many schools rely
on adjunct professors who teach primarily in the evening.
With 10 campuses throughout Virginia, Strayer University
has an extensive base of adjunct professors teaching
more than 16,000 students worldwide. Strayer offers
Associate’s, Bachelor’s and Master’s
programs in accounting, business administration and
computer information systems. And while interest in
Strayer’s degree programs have generally been increasing,
Strayer’s MBA program continues to experience exceptional
growth, according to Reginald M. Rainey, Regional Director,
Region II (No. VA. Campuses).
Arlington-based
Marymount University’s School of Business Administration
offers graduate business programs in areas like Business
Technologies, Information Management, Health Care Management,
Human Resource Management, Legal Administration, Organizational
Leadership and Innovation, and the MBA.
Since
1991 Marymount has also offered its Distinguished Visiting
Professor Colloquium, taking advantage of its proximity
to the nation’s capital and the northern Virginia
technology corridor. Each semester key business and
professional leaders come to campus as distinguished
visiting professors; they speak with students about
their road to success, the importance of professional
ethics, and their vision for the future. An informal
question-and-answer session allows the audience to interact
“up close and personal” with today’s
leaders. The list of speakers is a Who’s Who of
individuals who have influenced world events, as well
as the world economy. Previous speakers include Warren
Buffett, chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.;
Mark Warner, then managing director, Columbia Capital
Corporation; Vinton G. Cerf, senior vice president for
Internet Architecture and Technology at MCI, and better
known as one of the father’s of the Internet.
The
University of Richmond offers its Management Institute,
positioned as the Executive Education division of the
Robins School of Business. Their mission is to supply
businesses and government with leadership, management
and executive development courses at an unrivaled level
of excellence. The unique aspect of the Management Institute
is the way they customize programs to suit individual
business and government needs.
“We
view the development of managers and executives as an
ongoing, results-driven partnership that has significant
economic and social impact on our community,” says
Mirta Martin, Ph.D., Executive Director, Management
Institute and Associate Professor of Management Development.
“Our courses are designed around adult learning
principles. Our faculty imparts knowledge that has practical
application. Quite simply, our programs provide organizations
with a dynamic learning experience and very real results.”
Unlike
most education programs, the U of R will not simply
offer clients a boilerplate of classes from which to
choose. Recognizing that each organization has areas
of unique competence and weakness, their approach is
to first conduct a comprehensive assessment of the company’s
team’s education needs. Using insights garnered
through the assessment they design a curricula customized
to address the distinct needs of the business.
In
response to the need for a practical foundation in current
business theory and practices, the U of R also developed
an intensive, 14-week Mini MBA® program for high
potential managers and professionals. The Mini MBA®,
a non-credit program, provides a practical foundation
in current business theory and practices. The goal of
the program is to make participants more effective by
providing a framework of knowledge for making informed
business decisions on issues affecting organizations
today.
Moreover,
there are schools outside Virginia who are actively
recruiting MBA candidates to their programs. Wake Forest
University in Winston-Salem, N.C. offers an Executive
Fast-Track degree program that meets Friday and Saturday,
every other week, for 17 months. In addition to the
alternating weeks, candidates spend a four-week orientation
to begin the program in August and a second four-week
residency the following August. Most of the Virginia
candidates come from the Roanoke/New River Valley area
and drive the two hours to Winston-Salem.
“When
I was looking for an MBA program, I didn’t want
a long time commitment, like three or four years, and
did not want to go at night” says Jon Casto, Process
Engineer at R. R. Donnelley, a large commercial printer
based in Roanoke. “Wake Forest had exactly what
I was looking for and has a great program, ranked in
the top five in the nation. They take care of everything.
My tuition includes room and meals when I am in Winston-Salem
and the two-hour drive every other week is easy. And
I really wanted to be in a classroom and on campus,
and I get that at Wake Forest.”
Duke
University, also in North Carolina, offers The Duke
MBA - Weekend Executive program. The program equips
professionals with a competitive edge necessary for
today’s rapidly changing global business environment.
And it accomplishes this without interrupting their
career.
Ranked
No. 5 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report
in 2003 and No. 4 worldwide by BusinessWeek in 2001
annual surveys of executive MBA programs, Duke’s
Weekend Executive program combines top-ranked academics
with a network of established executives from various
industries. The 20-month curriculum meets every other
weekend (Friday and Saturday) and maintains classroom
continuity without sidetracking the students’ ongoing
contributions in their corporations. Solid academics,
combined with a world-class cohort of fellow students,
distinguish The Duke MBA - Weekend Executive program.
Since its inception in 1984, Duke has provided more
than 1,000 managers from across the U.S., Canada, Puerto
Rico and Mexico an unsurpassed grounding in the way
business is conducted in today’s global economy.
Are
we churning out too many MBAs? Ultimately the market
defines the need and whether all the time and effort
is justified. The current trend is the simultaneous
offering of segmented programs in specialized forms.
At Emory University in Atlanta you can get a joint MBA
degree and Masters in Divinity. If you find the collection
plate is running a little short you have individuals
who can identify other means of raising money or cutting
expenses. The University of South Florida offers an
MBA program entirely dedicated to the medical profession.
“The
wrong kind of person in an MBA program is a student
fresh out of an undergraduate degree program no business
or management experience,” says Dyer. “They
are lost. They need to work for a while before they
go back and get the MBA.”
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