New Realities in Education

“Not only does this effort reflect Saint Mary’s mission of community service, it gives students real-world experience that’s personally rewarding,” says Mirela Miresan, assistant director of the MBA program.

The increasingly global nature of commerce is reflected in local programs, too. Study-abroad programs that last anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks are common in MBA curricula. At Saint Mary’s, for instance, the MBA program culminates in an international trip in which students work on projects at companies in countries such as China, Costa Rica, Finland, and Greece.

At Carlson, MBA candidates travel for short-term global enrichment programs. This year, students had a new opportunity to work in multicultural teams with their peers at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in China. The group analyzed the challenges facing Edina-based International Dairy Queen in the Chinese market.

Demographic Inspiration

What do the real estate and health care industries have in common? These rapidly evolving fields are under-represented at local graduate schools, so educators are racing to close the gap between market need and available programs.

Minneapolis-based Augsburg College’s MBA program has grown to 300 students in the three years since its inception, in part because of participation by health care organization employees. “In Rochester, approximately half of each class was made up of Mayo employees,” says Steven Zitnick, director of Augsburg’s MBA program. “And when we looked at the entire program, we were impressed by the amount of people who came from pharmaceutical companies, HMOs, and medical implement companies.”

In response, Augsburg is in the process of developing a health care management MBA which will be introduced next year. The program’s anticipated 25-month curriculum will include typical MBA courses, such as marketing, ethics, and finance, modified to meet the specific needs of the health care industry, as well as specialized courses such as integrated health delivery, global health care management, and health care operations management.

“We’re looking at other institutions that have had health care degrees. We want to know what they’re offering and why they’re offering it so we get an idea of what’s out there,” Zitnick says. “We’re talking to our own students about what will be most useful to them, and we will definitely be soliciting the input of health care providers.”