INNOVATIVE, high-quality, business-connected programs

Resourceful College of Business Administration programs evolving to serve needs of increasingly demanding business world

When John Schleede, dean of the College of Business Administration, thinks about the college's mission to offer innovative programs that meet the changing needs of students and the business community, he thinks of raging river rapids.

"With the pace of change in business and society today, you're in a river that's in continuous white water rapids," Schleede said, using an analogy he first heard from an EDS executive who was visiting the college.

Staying ahead in the churning waters requires nearly constant change and innovation ­ something CBA has a solid record of providing to its students and many business partners. The college continuously is developing new programs and modifying existing ones to ensure that students leave with the knowledge and skills to succeed in today's challenging business world.

Central to that process is the ongoing redesign of the bachelor of science in business administration degree (B.S.B.A.). The new degree is now in the course design phase and is proposed to be implemented in fall 2004.

It will center around team-based education in an attempt to mirror what students will discover when they emerge into the business world. Meanwhile, a Web-based B.S.B.A. degree option will be implemented this fall.

The college's other innovations include SAP. CBA was the second college in the nation to integrate SAP into the business curriculum and remains the leader in the number of courses offered. SAP, or Systems, Applications, and Programs in Data Processing, is a German-based company that produces a suite of software applications for integrating business disciplines.

Additional innovative new programs include:

· CBA will be among the first colleges in the country to offer a graduate-level management consulting concentration this fall.The program, based on the management approach taught at the renowned Institute for Socioeconomic and Organizational Research in Lyon, France, will train CMU's master of business administration students for careers in consulting, while also providing consulting services to local companies.

· CBA in the last five years has begun offering the entrepreneurship major ­ the only one of its kind in Michigan ­ and an undergraduate degree program that prepares its graduates to sit for the national certification exam to be a Certified Financial Planner ^TM.

Management consulting M.B.A. concentration Management consulting is one of the fastest-growing business disciplines. Yet, to date, there has been no academic discipline to train professionals for consulting careers, according to Randall Hayes, accounting professor and director of the management consultation concentration. CMU will be on the leading edge of solving this problem when it debuts its management consultant concentration within the M.B.A. program this fall.

CMU's program will focus on a comprehensive socioeconomic method of consulting, an approach that addresses the cultural and systemic contexts of the problems that confront management.

"It helps companies really transform themselves - to develop systems that do not exist now, to change the corporate culture to grow from a small-sized company to a medium-sized company, to bring order to production and marketing management systems, that, through time, might have become somewhat chaotic," Hayes said. "We try to help companies analyze what their problems are and internalize what difficulties exist in their operations, and then we coach them in developing solutions to their problems."

The concentration in management consulting, which is available to students pursuing the M.B.A. comprises four interrelated courses. Each of the courses will be team-taught by professors from different departments, a teaching model that brings a multidisciplinary approach to the classroom and the consulting projects.