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With success in Rochester, UMD rethinks MBA program
Date: 8/1/2007
by Wayne Nelson
One of the last initiatives of former University of Minnesota President Mark Yudof before he high-tailed it back to the University of Texas in 2002 was fast-tracking the expansion of the Duluth campus’ masters in business administration (MBA) to Rochester.
“It usually takes three years to create a new program,” said Rajiv Vaidyanathan, PhD, marketing professor and MBA director at the University of Minnesota Duluth. “He did it in six months.”
There are several lessons here for both academia and business in this success story.
Vaidyanathan said participating Duluth faculty members in the seventh year of the Rochester program will teach a class of 35 to 40 MBA students starting in September. That’s virtually identical to the expected MBA class on the Duluth campus, meaning UMD’s MBA program has roughly doubled in size with its Rochester foray.
Granted, there are not so subtle differences between the two markets. IBM and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, along with Hormel Foods in Austin 50 miles to the west, provide a steady stream of MBA candidates for the Rochester program.
But Vaidyanathan and other faculty at UMD’s Labovitz School of Business & Economics are assessing whether the Duluth campus needs to overhaul the way it has delivered its MBA program since it was launched in 1976.
“The question is, should we switch Duluth to the same schedule (as in Rochester),” he said.
In Rochester, MBA students meet bi-weekly, starting Friday afternoon and working through noon on Saturday. They take a single 3-credit class, completing it in two months. The schedule is compatible for mid-week traveling executives who still can salvage weekend time with families, friends and for their other interests.
Also designed for working business people, the Duluth program meets only on week nights. Students have to take at least two courses simultaneously to finish the program within three years. The schedule can be a particular hardship for working MBA students who must travel in their day jobs, he said.
Vaidyanathan raises another explanation for the static MBA enrollment on the Duluth campus. “We ought to be attracting 50 students a year, and we’re enrolling 15 to 20. That’s outrageously small,” he said, given the offering is the only AACSB-accredited MBA program in the region. .
“Across the board, we haven’t done a good job of promoting the value of an MBA, selling to companies ‘here’s why it is good for you,’” he said.
There’s a powerful argument: The exodus of baby boomers from the workforce is beginning, and will leave companies particularly vulnerable that haven’t invested in their mid-level managers to replace retiring senior management.
Beginning this fall, the University of Minnesota-Rochester is moving to its own downtown campus and plans to offer its own degrees. The Labovitz School will continue to provide faculty for UM-Rochester and grant the MBA degree “for the foreseeable future,” Vaidyanathan said.
“But it’s forced us to think about what we’re doing in Duluth,” he said.
