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Executive MBA

Pepperdine University Executive MBA Program Structure

The Pepperdine University Executive MBA at Graziadio School of Business is an MBA designed for managers with a focus on experience-driven learning and collaboration among peers. The program is offered over a 19-month, five trimester period, and operates on a cohort structure to ensure personal attention, a supportive community, and a high level of collaboration between faculty and peers. Classes meet once every three weeks on the weekend to accommodate the full-time professional’s schedule. The Executive MBA (EMBA) program is offered in Irvine, Malibu, and West Los Angeles campuses. Students experience global business firsthand by traveling abroad and working directly with company executives in the host country.

Curriculum

The Pepperdine University Executive MBA program is a 45-unit curriculum that concentrates on honing strategic leadership skills. The program involves a four-day effective executive residential workshop as well as a week-long international residential.

The Applied Strategic Plan is essential to the EMBA curriculum. During their first trimester, students choose a company to follow and study. Most students will select their own business, so that they can directly apply the knowledge they gain through the project in the workplace. As the trimesters progress, students will identify goals for their company, and develop a strategy and plan of implementation that will allow them to achieve these goals. The project concludes with a written capstone summary and reflection, which will require students to integrate their classroom education with their real-world business experience.

Class Profile

About 40 percent of the typical Pepperdine University Executive MBA class identified as male, while 60 percent identified as female. Students in the EMBA program will have a minimum of seven years’ work experience, as well as two years of management experience.

Career Statistics

The Career Portal allows students to search jobs, post resumes, and register for career events through this website exclusively for Pepperdine Graziadio students and alumni. Though most students in the EMBA program will be well into their careers, the curriculum is geared to catapult professionals from middle management to the upper echelon of their companies. In fact, on average, 38 percent of students pursuing their EMBA at Graziadio receive a promotion at some point during the program. The average annual salary after the program is $159,963.

Tuition, Scholarships, and Financial Aid

Tuition costs for the Pepperdine University Executive MBA fluctuate annually. The approximate cost of tuition per term is $27,650. An estimated total cost of tuition for the EMBA is $138,250.

Merit-Based Scholarships: The Graziadio School gives motivated students the opportunity to earn scholarships based on their academic achievements. Merit scholarships for Executive MBA students are awarded based on cumulative GPA, work experience and achievements, and leadership potential.

Endowed scholarships: The Graziadio School offers a variety of endowed scholarships for students who meet the specialized requirements of each award.

There are three main types of financial aid: Federal Direct Stafford loans, the Federal Direct Graduate PLUS loan, and Alternative Educational Loans.

In addition to the scholarship options, Graziadio offers per-semester payment plans for students who may not be able to pay tuition in one lump sum.

EMBA students should consult their company’s Human Resources Departments to learn whether their company is willing to reimburse full or partial tuition. If students without financial aid are receiving compensation from their employers, the University may allow a deferral of payment.

Admissions

Applicants to the Pepperdine Graziadio Executive MBA program must have a four-year undergraduate degree, or equivalent. A minimum of seven years full-time professional work experience is required for the Executive MBA. No GMAT scores are required to qualify.

To apply to the Executive MBA program, applicants must submit a completed application form, all college transcripts from degree-granting and non-degree-granting institutions, a current résumé, an organization chart that clarifies the employee’s place within the company structure, Candidate letter to Admissions Committee, and two letters of recommendation.

The applicant will have an interview with an executive director, deputy director, regional director, and/or faculty member. The university may ask for a second interview.

Application deadlines are as follows:

• Spring 2022 Deadlines
• Priority: October 1, 2021
• Final: December 1, 2021
• Term Starts: January 3, 2022

Executive MBA

UCLA Executive MBA Program Structure

The UCLA Executive MBA program at Anderson School of Management is a 22-month program with two schedule options designed to meet the needs of student’s personal and professional commitments. All EMBA students have access to the same campus resources, faculty, electives and support — regardless of which scheduling option they select.

The Bi-Weekly Schedule classes meet in person every other weekend starting on the 2nd weekend of the 10-week quarter. The Monthly Schedule classes option meets in person each month of the 10-week quarter: the 2nd, 6th, and 10th weekends. Additional instruction is delivered online each week. Lodging at the UCLA Luskin Conference Center and Hotel is included for orientation week and Friday night of on-campus weekends.

Beginning Fall 2020 for both options, class will begin at 10:00 a.m. only on the first Friday of each quarter. Class will begin at 4:00 p.m. the following Fridays. After your first quarter, EMBA electives will be available on Sundays and during summer in a hybrid format. Students have the option to switch sections every two academic quarters if space permits.

Both the bi-weekly and monthly schedule receive on-campus lodging at the Luskin Conference Center and Hotel for orientation week. Lodging accommodations for the bi-weekly cohort are provided the first Friday of each quarter and the Friday night of on-campus weekends for the monthly cohort.

Curriculum

Alongside required courses, the UCLA Executive MBA consists of 12 units of electives which can be taken in a hybrid structure (half online and half on campus) or as an Elective Block during the summer. The EMBA requires a total of 68 units.

The leadership development portfolio of activities in the UCLA Executive MBA program is designed to develop emotionally intelligent leaders and focuses on key emotional intelligence competencies. Leadership Foundations is a required course that examines leadership development from individual, team and organizational perspectives. In the first year, Leadership Foundations starts with the Opening Residential and continues into the fall quarter and concludes at the end of the first year. Second year Leadership Foundations continues in the winter quarter and ends just prior to the International Residential.

The Elective Block is a unique component of the EMBA program. It consists of five to six elective courses offered in five consecutive days in August. Each course offered in the elective block is two units. Students have the option of taking one to two courses during the elective block.

In addition to the Elective Block, EMBA students can pursue the following specializations, however, you will need to take all of these courses on the Fully Employed MBA and/or full-time MBA schedule: real estate, entertainment management, and social impact.

The SMR Program, for instance, matches companies and organizations around the world with five to six Executive MBA students in their final year of study. The EMBA team represents a cross-section of business functions and specialties, such as marketing, finance, technology, and operations.

UCLA Executive MBA Rankings

• U.S. News & World Report: 9
• Financial Times: 35
• The Economist: 32

UCLA Executive MBA Class Profile

35 percent of the most recent UCLA Executive MBA class is female, with 65 percent being male. These students come from more than 22 countries around the world. 39 percent of students are from California, 11% from Orange County, 11% from San Diego, 13% from Northern California, and 22% outside of California, but U.S. based students. Students in the program have an average of 14 years of professional work experience and nine years of management experience. 

Careers

Students have access to career advisors and executives-in-residence who will help with: Industry and job function overview, career assessment and development, targeting outreach and informational interviews, using the alumni network and other UCLA Anderson resources, resume and cover letter review, mock interviews, job offer evaluation and negotiations.

Throughout the year, workshops and panels occur, and feature Parker CMC advisors, second-year students, alumni and executives. Anderson also provides extensive web-based career resources for students.

During the first quarter, students prepare for the recruiting season with the Career Series course, taught by Emily Taylor, associate director of MBA Career Education and Parker CMC advisors with the help of the second-year teaching assistants.

Hundreds of companies seek out Anderson MBAs by visiting campus, posting jobs, and searching through resumes. Anderson helps students expand their network and grow relationships with these companies, as well as with companies that may not have a large presence on campus. For the small number of EMBAs looking to start fresh, there is also the option to participate in on-campus recruiting activities alongside students in the full-time MBA program.

Tuition, Scholarships, and Financial Aid

The tuition and fee cost of the UCLA Executive MBA program is $83,996 for the first year, totaling around $167,992 for the entirety of the program. Executive MBA fees cover registration, tuition, books and software supplies, meals, parking, and off-campus residential costs. All costs for the International Seminar, except airfare, are included.

Students are eligible to apply for low-cost federal and private student loans. Qualified students, in addition, may receive up to $20,500 per year from the Federal Stafford Loan Program. Additional funds are available through private loan programs.

UCLA Anderson also encourages a company sponsorship, which can help pay for your MBA and give your company an edge. If your company is partially sponsoring your MBA, you will be responsible for paying the fees and managing the reimbursement from your company. 100% company sponsorship requires students to contact EMBA Admissions upon admission to set up a corporate account. The EMBA program office can provide a letter to your company as proof of your completed course credits.

Admissions

The EMBA admissions team takes a holistic approach to evaluate each applicant by considering the strength of qualifications, including leadership, work experience, academic record, and quantitative background.  Applicants to the UCLA Executive MBA program must hold a 4-year bachelor’s degree from a university of fully recognized standing. Furthermore, applicants who have attended institutions outside the United States should have completed 16 years of study; 12 years at the elementary and secondary school levels, and 4 years at the college level.  All applicants must submit sealed official records from each academic institution attended after secondary/high school.

To apply to UCLA Anderson’s MBA programs, applicants must also submit a completed application form, college transcripts from degree-granting and non-degree-granting institutions, a current résumé, and two letters of recommendation.

The school also requires applicants to complete a personal statement. Additionally, they must have 8 years of work experience. Applicants have the option whether or not to send their GMAT or GRE scores. Lastly, they must pay a nonrefundable $200 application fee, which is waived for U.S. Military Personnel (active duty and veterans) and UCLA Staff. At the end of the application process, a select number of students will participate in an invitation-only Zoom interview.

If you are an international applicant or a re-applicant, please check the school’s website for additional information on the admissions process.

2021-2022 UCLA Executive MBA Deadlines

• ROUND1
  Application Deadline
  Dec. 1, 2021
  Decision release date: January 31, 2022
• ROUND2
  Application Deadline
  Feb. 1, 2022
  Decision release date: March 31, 2022
• ROUND3
  Application Deadline
  May 1, 2022 
  Decision release date: June 30, 2022

MBA Resume Tip: Four Resume Mistakes to Avoid

To conclude our series on revamping your resume for the MBA admissions process, we wanted to round out our list of DOs with some important DON’Ts. Continue reading…

Booth’s New Venture Challenge Enters Its 15th Year

Entering its 15th year, the Booth School of Business’s New Venture Challenge can boast numerous successful entrepreneurs amongst its past participants, including the founders of well-known companies such as Braintree, GrubHub, and Bump Technologies.

While many business schools have entrepreneurship competitions, the New Venture Challenge resembles more of a business accelerator than a college competition. Founded in 1998, the challenge has been around for twice as long as commonly known accelerators like TechStars and Y Combinator. “We discovered the model years before they did,” says Steve Kaplan, the Booth professor who first created the program and continues to lead it. “And we probably should have commercialized it.” Continue reading…

Towson Appoints Venture Capitalist Frank Bonsal III to Lead Entrepreneurship Initiative

Towson University has made venture capitalist Frank Bonsal III the first Director of Entrepreneurship for the TowsonGlobal business incubator. TowsonGlobal, which stems from Towson’s Division of Innovation & Applied Research, connects Towson University resources, including MBA students, to businesses in the Towson-community in need of consulting, strategy, and management assistance. Under Bonsal’s direction, entrepreneurial efforts and initiatives will circulate throughout the Towson University community as a whole, encouraging the school’s young professionals in particular to develop promising ideas and initiatives.

Towson’s choice of Bonsal as Director of Entrepreneurship should prove highly advantageous. He has worked at the intersection of education and finance for the past 25 years with enormous success. Bonsal currently serves as a Venture Partner at New Markets Venture Partners and works on investments in education services and education technology. In this new position, he will help Towson faculty implement entrepreneurial principles and strategies into coursework while encouraging the students’ ventures. Continue reading…

Smeal Professor Encourages Businesses to Pursue Fair Development Instead of Sustainable Development

Min Ding, a Professor at Penn State University’s Smeal College of Business, argues in his recent book that companies should focus on fair development instead of social responsibility or sustainability. In the book, The Bubble Theory: Towards a Framework of Enlightened Needs and Fair Development, Ding observes that academics, businesspeople, and scientists have not agreed about how companies should implement sustainable development or even what sustainable development should look like and involve. Instead, “sustainability” is a vague concept.

Ding recommends that firms focus on fair development, because a focus on fair development will naturally lead to “the right type of sustainability.” Ding says “Sustainable development that is not fair cannot be sustained.” Continue reading…

JHU Carey Professor Wins Award for Innovative Teaching

Toby Gordon, an associate professor at the John Hopkins Carey Business School, has recently received an award for innovation in teaching. Continue reading…

Loyola Sellinger Lets MBAs Complete Degree Overseas

As we covered in a recent primer, MBA programs around the nation are meeting the needs of an increasingly global business environment by offering students expanded opportunities to study abroad.  But few schools have taken the trend as far as Loyola University, which is now letting its MBA students complete their degrees abroad.

Loyola University has joined a group of 22 U.S.-based Jesuit schools in a unique agreement to allow students to complete their degrees at five Jesuit institutions located in Spain, Korea, Taiwan, and Peru. Continue reading…

American University Redesigns MBA Program

Think you know American University’s Kogod School of Business?  Think again.

Kogod is overhauling its MBA program to match the changing climate of global business.  Next fall, entering students will embark on a revamped curriculum meant to prepare students to lead at home and abroad.

Among the program’s new international offerings are a new two-week capstone course, Management in the International Economy, and a study abroad requirement.

But Kogod isn’t forgetting about its strengths on the home front.  Capitalizing on its DC locale, Kogod is enhancing its offerings at the intersection of the public and private sector.  Meanwhile, its strengths in consulting will be enriched with an improved consulting track, and a hands-on International Consulting Project.

All this should make Kogod not only DC’s MBA program with the coolest name, but also, according to American University, one of the most applicable and relevant.

“The idea is to provide the opportunity for students to open themselves up to changing their mindset and immerse themselves in new ways of thinking,” said associate professor Mark Clark. “DC is home to a huge community of businesses working alongside the government. All those partnerships and collaborations, that’s what makes the city hum.”

We were wondering what that sound was.  Check back at MetroMBA for all your DC MBA news!

MBA Resume Tip: Education and Additional Info

Here’s an MBA resume tip we bet you haven’t heard before. Your resume is like a sandwich. (Really. Hang with us on this one.) In the middle, you’ve got your professional responsibilities and accomplishments, which represent the real substance of the document, and which arguably warrants the greatest level of care and attention. But there are also two additional sections—the bread, if you will—that encompass your time at work and hold that information within a larger context, much like a good whole wheat or marble rye, making it easier for the reader to handle and digest.

Actually, maybe your resume is more like a three-course meal. Or maybe we’re just really hungry.

Either way, at the top of the document, just under your contact information, you’ll have your Education section. Because you’re applying to an academic program, your educational background is one of the first things an admissions reader will consider, and this is also the format you’ll use as an MBA student when you’re applying for internships and jobs. This will include your undergraduate institution, dates of attendance, degree, major, and GPA (if above 3.0). If you received any scholarships or other honors, you might choose to include these here as well. Lists of relevant coursework are less important, as you’ll be submitting transcripts with your application, and extracurricular activities during college will likely work better under Additional Information (more on that later). Continue reading…

Global MBA

George Washington University Global MBA Program Structure

The George Washington University Global MBA program is a full-time, 21-month program that follows a traditional, two-semester model. There is one intake of students per year who begin classes in the fall semester, and are divided into blocks of 40-45 students each. During the summer between the first and second years of the program, students are required to complete an internship.

Curriculum

The George Washington University Global MBA program consists of 53 credits spread over the course of two years. Three-credit courses in the program are completed in 14 weeks, with 1.5 credit courses taking half that time.

In the first year, students complete the majority of the program’s core courses and a three-credit CAP (Consulting Abroad Project). There are 35 credits for core courses and up to 18 credits for electives. The core courses are as follows:

• Business Improv
• Strategic Management
• Leadership Lab
• Financial Accounting
• Decision Making and Data Analysis
• Accounting for internal Decision Making
• Technology for Business in DC
• Finance
• Micro for Global Economy
• Organizations and Human Capital
• Marketing
• Operations Management
• Competition in Global Economy
• Business Ethics
• Business and Public Policy

George Washington University School of Business offers over 200 electives for students to choose from. To satisfy the 24 elective credit requirement, students can fulfill a concentration or special certification. Currently, the school offers 17 different MBA certifications. Fifteen of the elective credits can be completed outside of the GWU School of Business and six can be done outside of the university.

George Washington Full-Time MBA Rankings

• U.S. News & World Report: 53
• Bloomberg: 51
• The Economist: 90
• Financial Times: 70

Class Profile

The George Washington University Global MBA class consists of 97 total students, 42 percent of which are women. Roughly 47 percent of the class identifies as international, with 8 percent underrepresented minorities. Students enter the program with five years of professional work experience. The average age of the class is 28.

Career Statistics

GWU Global MBA 2018 graduates earn an average base salary of $96,363, with 83 percent of graduates earning employment within three months of graduation. Just 48 percent of graduates reported a signing bonus, but the average signing bonus was $13,396.

Tuition, Scholarships, and Financial Aid

The George Washington Full-Time MBA tuition cost is a fixed rate of $113,090. GWU also charges a Student Association fee of $3 per credit hour, totaling up to a maximum of $45 per semester. The Consulting Abroad Program Fee is estimated at $2,000. Students should also budget for books, an enrollment fee, health insurance, and housing.

All applicants are considered for merit-based scholarships. Scholarships are typically awarded in flat amounts ranging from $10,000 to full tuition and cover tuition only. For the Global MBA class 70 percent of students received a scholarship with an average award of over half the cost of tuition.

Most student loans are based on either financial need or creditworthiness and are available only to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. GWU students commonly use the Federal Stafford Loan Program, Alternative Education Loans, and the ACCESS Loan Program. Private loans may also be available.

The George Washington School of Business is a partner with the American Association of University Women. Members of the AAUW may be eligible for educational grants.

Admissions

Applicants to all GWU MBA programs must have completed a four-year degree or its equivalent for admission.

To apply to George Washington University, applicants must submit a completed application form with the $80 dollar non-refundable application fee, official copies of transcripts from each institution attended, a current résumé, an essay, and a letter of professional recommendation.

Official GMAT scores must also be sent in by applicants, and prospective students are required to complete an interview (by invitation only). International applicants that are non-native English speakers must submit TOEFL, IELTS, or PTE scores with the other requisite materials.

2021-2022 George Washington Global MBA Deadlines

George Washington Global MBA FAQ’s

How has the university handled the pandemic?

Classes are currently online to keep students and staff safe.

What MS programs are offered at GWU?

The George Washington University has many MS programs including applied finance, biological sciences, and biostatistics to name a few.

What is the new Technology for Business in DC class?

This is an experiential class in which students work with a company in DC to utilize and understand applications of technology in the local business environment.

Revamping Your MBA Resume, Part 7: Bullet Point Basics

While the overall format and headings of your MBA Resume provide structure and ensure readability, the bullet points describing your responsibilities and accomplishments are really the meat of the document (or the tofu, for our vegetarian and vegan readers). Admissions readers and hiring officers will look to your bulleted content to learn about your overall responsibilities and on-the-job accomplishments, their judgments about which will inform the interview process.

Naturally, in addition to being one of the most important components of the document, bullet points can also be fairly challenging to write. We find that having a structure or template of sorts can cut down on the ambiguity (and anxiety) involved in this task, and so here are some guidelines for writing effective bullet points.

First thing first: every single bullet point should begin with an active verb (i.e. words like “coordinated” or “conducted” rather than “was” or “did”)—ideally a different one for each bullet point. A Google search for “resume action verbs” will yield a veritable smorgasbord (with abundant vegetarian options) of verb lists to help you write about your work in descriptive and active terms. Avoid phrases like “was responsible for” or “duties included” at all costs; at worst, these make your job sound like drudge work, and at best, they say more about your job description than your actual performance. Turn these lists of things you had to do into more straightforward statements about what you’ve done; you weren’t “responsible for oversight,” you simply “oversaw.”

Your first one or two bullet points under each job should describe your day-to-day responsibilities in general terms. It’s also helpful to provide some background information about your team structure and larger organization, as you don’t know how familiar an admissions reader will be with your company. A formula for your first bullet may read like the following:

• “Provided x service and conducted y and z analyses as part of a #-person team in the marketing department of a large IT consulting organization specializing in a and b”

You get the idea. Your second bullet point might then detail another area of responsibility, or elaborate on how your work fits into the larger picture of the organization. Who uses the information you produce in y and z analyses, and to make what kinds of decisions? How is your provision of x service important to the organization’s operation and goals?

The best job description bullet points are so informative that the reader can develop a mental image of you on the job, as well as a sense of where you fit into the organizational structure and even the larger industry. In the MBA admissions process, this is especially helpful in getting admissions readers and interviewers to see the connection between your existing skills and knowledge and your proposed post-MBA goal: one of your major tasks in the application process.

Your next 1-4 bullet points (as we established last week, more recent positions should have longer and more detailed descriptions than those further in the past) should detail specific accomplishments that resulted in some kind of positive impact on your organization or its clients/partners/other stakeholders. We’ll follow up next week with some tips for identifying and describing these accomplishments. In the meantime, revise those job descriptions, eat your leafy greens, and do some brainstorming about what you’d like to highlight.

MBA Study Abroad: A Primer

While in business school, students are increasingly being given the chance to go abroad for a consulting project or a class. Programs can involve a study abroad experience at an overseas partner school, a class trip to another country, or an international consulting project. There are large differences between different programs in terms of length and content of courses, and each school has different options. The variety of choices leads to debate about the merits and benefits of different types of overseas experiences.

The debate has become more important in recent years as the demand for international MBA courses increases. Babson College reported a 15 percent rise in graduate students choosing international elective courses from the 2011-2012 to the 2012-2013 school year. Babson’s provost, Dennis Hanno, told the Financial Times that “we seem to have an insatiable demand.”

What opportunities do schools offer students eager to go overseas?

Some schools offer specialty courses for students interested in particular fields. Last summer, Penn State’s Smeal College of Business offered a six week course on luxury brand marketing in Florence, Italy. Penn State marketing professors provided lectures and students went on field trips related to the lectures. The students explored sites like the Gucci Museum and the Dievole winery.

New York University’s Stern School of Business offers one to two week long overseas courses called “Doing Business In. . .” The classes are comprised of corporate visits, faculty lectures, business and government speaker visits, and cultural visits. Students receive a letter grade and credit for the course, and it counts toward the Global Business specialization at Stern.

However, some MBA education insiders question whether spending two weeks in a foreign country is a valuable educational experience. Do students learn or gain anything from so brief a time in country? Thomas Pugel, vice-dean of MBA programs at Stern, told the Financial Times that students can benefit from spending a few weeks abroad: “A week or two in the country is noticeably better than trying to study it from afar.” He believes that the length of time students spend in the country is not as important as the academic component of classes.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management and Harvard Business School both worked to structure their curriculum so that students would get the maximum benefit from a one to two week experience abroad. Harvard has a required course for all students called Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development (FIELD), and MIT has an international capstone course for EMBAs called the Global Organization Lab (Go-Lab). Although students only spend a short time in country, Go-Lab is a semester-long course and FIELD is a year long course. In both courses, students learn of their project and begin work months before arriving in a foreign country. The students have extensive preparation before going abroad, spend their overseas time pitching ideas and meeting with executives about projects, and then return to Harvard and MIT and participate in guided reflection about their experiences.

There is some debate as to what the goal of international MBA courses should be: should they open students awareness or help them become fluent in a foreign culture? Short courses can introduce students to a foreign country, while long courses abroad provide students with a more thorough grounding in the language and culture of a country they may be working closely with. However, both experiences can ultimately be valuable, depending on your goals for international travel.

To make the most of your international experience, the Financial Times article recommends looking for courses that provide time before an overseas trip for preparation and after a trip for reflection. It is also valuable to get a chance to really interact with people on the ground in a foreign country and forge connections. Finally, a school with fewer study abroad partners may be a better choice than a school with several partners. Fewer partners is an indicator that the school has spent more time building those partnerships, and may be able to provide a more valuable experience for its students.

Direct from the Dean: Stillman’s Joyce Strawser

Our series of dean interviews takes us this week to Seton Hall University’s Stillman School of Business, where Dean Joyce Strawser generously made time to walk us through the unique offerings that help set the school and its MBA apart from other business schools in the New York City metro area. Topping her list are Stillman’s focus on experiential learning, its tight-knit community of students, faculty and alumni, and the opportunity its students have to choose a concentration, or two, from eight different disciplines.

Strawser was appointed Stillman’s dean in 2011, after serving as associate dean of undergraduate and MBA curricula for ten years and acting dean for a year. Among her other accomplishments, Strawser helped the school achieve reaccreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) for its business programs as well as add accreditation for its accounting department. Having accreditation in both business and accounting places Stillman among a very select group of schools. Strawser was also part of the team that helped the Stillman MBA gain recognition as one of the Princeton Review’s Best 301 Business Schools.

And neither Strawser nor Stillman is standing still. Read on to learn about the school’s plans to let students choose between a traditional lecture format, an online version and a hybrid version for every one of its MBA courses, the launch of a new center focused on business ethics and more. .  Continue reading…

Babson Launches Accelerator for Female Entrepreneurs

Babson College’s Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership (CWEL) has launched a business accelerator for female entrepreneurs called the Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab to support startup and early-stage ventures. The program is a residency program that is open to Babson female undergraduates, graduates, and alumni.

The WIN Lab meets weekly throughout the school year, and it is divided into two series for the Fall and Spring Semester. Series I, which meets from September to December, will encourage female entrepreneurs to develop market-ready prototypes. Series II, which meets from January to April, will help entrepreneurs develop funding and launch strategies, and also focus on developing entrepreneurial teams. The WIN lab program will provide students with business pitch practice, networking activities, access to bank loans, introductions to angel investors, marketing strategies, basics of financial management and accounting, and other services and lessons essential to beginning entrepreneurs.

The program was developed with the help of Sharon Kan, an Entrepreneur in Residence at Babson. In her career, she has built four startups with the help of an MIT group: Demantra Inc., c-Ark, Zoomix, and Tikatok. All four startups were aquired by larger companies. Sharon Kan will be part of the Win Lab coaching team.

The inaugural group of entrepreneurs in the WIN Lab program consists of sixteen Babson women from nine countries. The WIN Lab program began in early September with a two day retreat in which students learned about goal setting, team composition, and design thinking.

Potential MBA students at Babson who are interested in participating in the WIN Lab program next year should contact Heatherjean MacNeil at hmacneil@babson.edu for more information.

MIT Sloan’s Iconic Building to Undergo Renovations

One of the reasons we recommend that students go on campus tours is that spaces can play an influential role in one’s business education. For the next generation of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, there will be big changes in one of the school’s most iconic buildings. The original building that housed the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, E52, has  closed its doors for two years to undergo a complete renovation. E52 was built in 1938.

More than two-thirds of Sloan’s staff have had to move to nearby buildings on MIT’s campus, the traffic patterns around the building have had to change, and facilities is paving a new sidewalk to direct traffic around the building, but MIT officials believe the dramatic renovation is worth some momentary hassle. The construction will add another floor to the building and new conference space. The MIT Faculty Club will also be expanded. Overall, the E52 renovation is intended to increase and enhance the space available to students and faculty.

At the end of renovations, all of the Sloan staff members who work with students will return to E52, and the MIT Department of Economics will also occupy the building. For now, you can find an updated listing of where the various departments associated with Sloan have moved (MBA and EMBA Program Offices, Admissions, Executive Education, Student Life, etc.) at the end of MIT’s press release about the construction. The MIT facilities page also has some valuable information about changes to foot and vehicle traffic routes, and you should check it out if you plan to visit Sloan.

Direct from the Deans: Lubin’s Neil Braun and Daniel Baugher

He has served as president of NBC Television Networks and CEO of Viacom Entertainment, among other career highlights, but Neil Braun never went to business school. So how did he come to be dean of Pace University’s Lubin School of Business? “I took everything I am and everything that I have done and asked myself, ‘Where can I add the most value?’” he told MetroMBA. Deciding that the answer to that question was to become dean of a business school, he did a Google search and discovered that Pace was looking for one. That was 2009, and by June 2010 he was appointed Lubin’s new dean.

In addition to his extensive experience in the media industry, Braun also has been involved in multiple new business start-ups focused on corporate environmental sustainability as both entrepreneur and investor. At Lubin, which stresses the importance of professional experience and experiential learning in combination with academic excellence, Braun has a lot to offer. “I came to Lubin to bring the dimensions of what I had learned in those roles,” he says.

Learn More about Pace’s MBA Programs Here >>

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Villanova Professor Examines Philadelphia’s Entrepreneurial Image

In an article writen for Region’s Business, a journal covering politics and business news in Philadelphia, Stephen Andriole, a professor of business technology at Villanova School of Business, recently explored the perception that Philadelphia is entrepreneurially challenged. He observed that Philadelphia does not have a regional reputation for innovation, entrepreneurialism, or venture activity while San Francisco, Boston, or New York do. However, he argues that Philadelphia does not have an entrepreneurial problem but rather an image problem.

As a percentage of the population, according to Andriole, Philadelphia has twice the venture capital of New York. He also observes that Philadelphia has the factors needed to promote entrepreneurship: venture capital available for businesses at all stages of development, a talent pool of technology experts, established companies that are delighted to work with startups, venture legal teams, excellent colleges and universities, and available “exits” through IPOs and acquisitions. Philadelphia has universities with programs that promote entrepreneurship, like the Fox School of Business’ Innovation & Entrepreneurship Institute and Villanova’s Center for Innovation. Continue reading…