Engineers drive graduate training
The Business Review (Albany) - by Robin K. Cooper The Business Review
Capital Region graduate schools are expanding MBA programs and fighting harder to hold on to their share of MBA students in the wake of a six-year enrollment decline.
Schools lost out on $2 million to $2.5 million in tuition a year due to a shrinking pool of MBA students.
Curriculum changes have been made after the number of MBA students enrolled in Capital Region schools declined an average of 39 a year from 2001 to 2006 before rebounding to 1,139 last year.
"You have to have the flexibility of being able to change the curriculum," said John Huppertz, interim president of Union Graduate College.
Flexibility at the Schenectady graduate school is evident in its marriage of engineering and business courses. Joint programs are being developed to attract students and better prepare graduates to handle the needs of area companies.
That's one of the reasons why Union Graduate School Dean Robert Kozik began recruiting people like David Torrey, a principal and engineer with Advanced Energy Conversion in Malta, and an expert in emerging sciences.
"Our focus has turned toward the working professional," Kozik said.
Torrey, whose company has developed solar power converters and a fuel-efficient car starter and alternator, is among several locally employed engineers that Kozik has brought in to teach courses that could be applied toward a proposed master's program in emerging energy systems.
Engineers from Lockheed Martin, General Electric and Plug Power also have been recruited to teach solar, wind and alternative energy courses.
"We are trying to help companies with a demand for employees skilled in these areas, while helping students develop a career niche," Kozik said.
Business schools at the University at Albany, The College of Saint Rose and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute also have created new programs and expanded their curricula beyond the traditional marketing, management and financial courses.
The changes reflect a national movement to rethink graduate school programs and MBAs in the wake of criticism about the effectiveness of traditional curricula.
One of the most recent critics is Harvard Business School professor Rakesh Khurana, who questioned traditional business schools in his book "From Higher Aims to Hired Hands," published by Princeton University Press last fall.
Business schools were created for the sole purpose of making management a profession, Khurana says. Most schools have a narrow goal of preparing managers who will maximize value and serve shareholders.
Khurana believes business schools should play a bigger role in addressing environmental issues and globalization.
Graduate school administrators around the region and country have responded by adding more specialty course areas to traditional programs.
The prospect of mixing liberal arts studies with business programs has attracted the attention of Council of Independent Colleges President Richard Ekman.
"It's something undergraduate schools have been doing for the past 20 years. Budget limitations are forcing schools to come up with creative ways to blend programs to address the needs of students," Ekman said.
Now graduate schools are following suit.
Union Graduate School's plan to introduce a masters in emerging energy comes a little more than two years after the school launched a master's program in engineering and management systems.
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