New Realities in Education

Academia includes a healthy share of practical knowledge in Twin Cities’ graduate business programs. The leaders at local universities have joined forces with regional, national, and global business communities to offer students insight and knowledge critical to their success.

There have never been more options for graduate executive education, or more demand. Waiting lists are typical. For many institutions, enrollments have increased by at least 50 percent in the past three years, and programs are at or near capacity—even at schools that started offering masters of business administration (MBA) degrees since 2004, such as Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, Concordia University, Augsburg College, and Bethel University. Potential students are inquiring about new MBA specialties, which are expected to fill rapidly.

It’s all about giving the marketplace what it wants, says Julian Schuster, who has made that his focus since becoming dean of Hamline University’s Graduate School of Management in St. Paul a little more than a year ago. “We have been talking to the region’s major employers and eliciting their feedback as we develop new executive education programs and new majors,” he says. “We’re engaging them in innovative and integrative program development because they are our stakeholders; we want to meet their needs . . . and graduate the best students.”

Theory Versus Reality

Kathryn Carlson, assistant dean of MBA programs and executive education at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management in Minneapolis, is working to do the same. “We need to prepare our students for doing the job on Monday, and yet ground them in the theories of finance and statistics. They must be able to look critically at a balance sheet and yet be expert at soft skills such as leadership, negotiation, and oral and written communication,” she points out. “Our purpose is to position our students for greater responsibility.”

The Carlson School gives students a dose of reality through its student-led enterprise programs focusing on new business ventures, marketing, funds management, and consulting. For the past four years, the program has been providing MBA students an opportunity to consult with local corporations on their enterprise-related issues while under the guidance of business leaders and academics. For instance, students recently consulted with commercial cleaning and sanitation company Ecolab to determine if the St. Paul–based company should enter the biofuels market.

Graduate students in the MBA program at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota in Minneapolis have a similar opportunity to apply their education in the nonprofit arena. They work with organizations such as Intermedia Arts, a multidisciplinary arts center in Minneapolis, to prepare business plans and strategies. At Intermedia Arts, students helped develop a communications plan and branding strategy for the center.