Two-year program has focus on study groups
Juggling family, work and school can prevent executives from taking on an MBA program, despite the promise of greater income and faster promotions at work.
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That’s why Jag Venugopal was attracted to Bryant University’s two-year Master of Business Administration program – a newly restructured part-time program that would allow him to continue working while getting a degree (the school does not offer a full-time program).
Venugopal said he could not justify or afford taking time off work to study full time for his MBA. And if he were allowed the freedom to take classes here and there, as many part-time programs allow, he would probably loose focus and motivation to complete the program.
Bryant’s restructured program doesn’t allow students that opportunity. The program accepts only 30 to 35 students at a time. The students are required to take two courses per semester for six semesters (each class meets once a week), forcing them to finish in two years as opposed to five or six.
The program was designed to reduce the sometimes 40 percent attrition rate of part-time MBA students, said Jack Trifts, dean of Bryant’s college of business. The first group to enter the new program started taking classes in January.
Students move through the two-year program as a cohesive group, Trifts said. They take the same classes with the same people every semester. It makes the program more effective because it allows professors to know exactly which classes the students have taken, therefore know what lessons need not be repeated.
Each cohort is divided into smaller study groups to keep them motivated and on task. “We’re trying to create a system where you have mentoring and collaboration within the team,” Trifts said.
The study groups are a new addition to the program. The groups are assembled to combine different skills and knowledge from various professions, Trifts said, like work groups in real industries.
For Venugopal, the study teams provide positive reinforcement because through them he sees fellow students juggling work and personal lives with their studies, he said. It gives him the strength to follow through.
MBA student Walquiria Torres said she benefits from listening to the different experiences of her classmates. Because each person has a different perspective, Torres said, it helps her find new ways of looking at and thinking about the problems she faces at work.
“Our program is designed to give you the tools to go way up in your organization,” Trifts said. “It is designed for people at that point where they need to fast-track.”
Torres said she hopes the degree will improve her chances of earning promotions at Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. in East Providence, where she works as a claims specialist.
“I saw that other people moving up in the ranks had MBAs,” she said.
Although earning an MBA does not guarantee a promotion, Venugopal said he too hopes it will help him. Venugopal is an IT project manager at FM Global in Norwood, Mass.
Venugopal said other reasons he wants an MBA is because IT no longer involves sitting at a desk writing computer programs all day. He hopes taking the classes will help him better understand the way companies operate, allowing him to improve IT’s function at FM Global.
FM Global offers partial tuition reimbursement to its employees; so do Liberty Mutual and Fidelity Investments. There are five employees from Fidelity in the cohort.
Fidelity pays 90 percent of tuition for part-time courses of work-related study, said John Muggeridge, vice president of public affairs at Fidelity.
The company supports “programs that will enhance the skills [employees] need to be successful in their current positions or as they prepare for advancement within Fidelity,” he said.
Trifts said it behooves employers to offer tuition reimbursement because: “You’re building the power of your most important asset – your employees. The most important thing you can invest in is your people.”
Employers could use the program to groom potential candidates for upper management positions, he said.
Operations management professor Angela Wicks said the benefit to employers of encouraging employees to pursue MBAs is it creates well-educated leaders who could help a company reach the highest levels of success.
Wicks said her quality management class gives students insight into what type of culture an organization needs to succeed. “[Employees] should want to contribute and be able to contribute” toward the goals and objectives of a company, she said. “Quality should be everyone’s responsibility from the CEO to the janitor.”
