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TECHFOCUS MIS B A THE One of the hot new business degrees takes traditional courses and grounds them in information management. But MIS is not just about "the network," say administrators—a tech-based degree is plugged into all the functional silos. by Sharon Shinn Management education is nothing if not adaptive. When the need for a new specialty arises, half a dozen schools are instantly on the scene with a revamped program model that suits the situation. Since the mid-'90s, one of those programs du jour has been the MIS MBA, a degree that melds core business courses with hands- on, technological know-how. Students who leave school with such a degree understand not only how to integrate technology into a business, but how that technology will affect the company, its employees, and its bottom line. While schools worldwide have implemented technological changes into their illustrations by Franklin Hammond classrooms and course deliveries, not every business school has focused on tech- nology itself as an area of study. Not every school will feel it must. According to a report by AACSB International and researchers at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the majority primarily have done so either because the school itself has a high technologi- cal aptitude or because it's in a part of the world where tech skills are highly valued. For instance, Boston University in Boston, Mass achu setts, began its BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2002 of universities have chosen to integrate e-business and technology into their gen- eral management courses, not break them out into separate degrees. The schools that have opted to develop an MIS MBA—or its equivalent— 25