Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/233379
BUILDING AN MBA FROM SCRATCH Lisa Toms Dean, College of Business Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia W hen I became dean in fall 2007, the university president gave me my first big challenge: Start an MBA program. Our school is located in a rural city of only 11,000 people, in a region experiencing a population decline. Furthermore, we had no budget to hire additional faculty. But there are few affordable MBA options in southern Arkansas, so we knew we could fill a niche. We conducted a market study, including an online survey of members of our local chambers of commerce. That survey made clear that a traditional, full-time MBA was not feasible, because demand would come largely from working professionals living across a large geographic area. That's why we designed a flexible two-year, 30-hour MBA that includes eight core courses and two electives; it combines online and face-to-face delivery. At first, we offered two courses online and two at night on campus; the following year, we reversed delivery so that courses offered online the previous year were delivered traditionally and vice versa. Because online enrollment grew so quickly, we now offer four core courses online and two core night courses each semester. We offer an elective each semester, but alternate the delivery method. Students can take any course online or on campus, they can enter the program at any time, and they can opt for a 33-hour MBA with an area of emphasis. Currently, we offer an emphasis only in agribusiness, but we expect to receive approval for one in supply chain management in January. We could not hire more faculty, so we increased the size of our undergraduate course sections from 20 to 30 students. Faculty who teach only in the undergraduate program assume a 12-hour courseload per semester, while those who teach in our MBA program have nine hours. We spent a year obtaining approvals for the MBA from the Arkansas Department of Higher Education and the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). But when we launched in September 2008, HLC's reviewers had approved our proposal but had not yet submitted it to a final vote. For that reason, we couldn't yet market the program. So we promoted it through word of mouth, encouraging current undergraduates and recent alumni to apply. In our first year, with no advertising, we enrolled 12 students. In 2009, we enrolled 24; in 2010, 48. This year, 67 students are enrolled. Recently, our on-campus international enrollments have declined due to problems with visas. For example, when I taught my MBA marketing class two years ago, ten of my 21 students were international. This year, 3 of 13 were. In response, we're creating our first formal marketing plan to promote the program. But now that the program is off and running, I can step back. I recently appointed a faculty member as MBA program director. We've found that a small school like ours can achieve its goals, but only if we don't try to be all things to all people. As our tagline says, "We offer world-class education in a personal environment," and we mean that. To make our MBA a success, we knew we couldn't do anything to take away from that personal touch. Toms' next challenge is to grow a 2+2 program for people who have two-year associate degrees, or have dropped out of college with strong GPAs, who would like to complete their bachelor's degrees in management. She plans to use some of the same methods used to build the school's MBA program— including growing enrollments through word of mouth. BizEd January/February 2014 21