The School of
Professional Studies in Business and Education this
fall will welcome the first participants in its new MBA Fellows
program, a two-year experience that will allow proven
leaders from around the globe to earn the advanced degree
without traditional classroom time.
The program, which will begin with its first cohort of
30 in November, will combine intensive Baltimore-based
residencies and interaction through a Johns
Hopkins-designed online learning community.
The project-based learning format is geared for
motivated professionals who want to move up the corporate
ladder or otherwise broaden their horizons, according to
Rick Milter, director of the program and an associate
professor of management at SPSBE.
Milter said that the participants will be able to earn
a highly valued Johns Hopkins MBA while structuring his or
her studies around a busy full-time work schedule and
specific career goals. Very few other schools, he said,
offer such a program structure combined with a
project-based action learning approach.
"Those who enter this program will be people who have
demonstrated leadership abilities and are very
self-disciplined and driven," Milter said. "This is not for
those who want an MBA to hang on the wall. This program is
for people who know they have certain learning needs and
want to increase their competitiveness in their fields and
expand their capabilities."
The program includes three weeklong residential
experiences and six extended weekend residencies at the
university's Mt. Washington campus.
Participants will engage in seven team-based and two
individual projects designed around "current and real
issues" and guided by a mix of full-time and practitioner
SPSBE faculty.
Milter said that nearly half of the projects will be
based on actual business challenges provided by companies
with which the school will pair up. Each challenging and
in-depth project will take three months to complete, Milter
said, forcing participants to closely examine an industry
and learn how to work with pricing models, financial ratios
and other business principles. Participants will self-guide
their investigative work, aided by the Electronic Learning
Community, a Web-based tool designed by the Johns Hopkins
Center for Technology in
Education.
The ELC is a password-protected virtual environment
that allows users to have online chats, send instant
messages, post announcements, transmit administrative forms
and share files from any remote location.
"Any time and any place, team members will be able to
collaborate through the ELC, whether it's to post a
question or findings," Milter said. "Like in a chat room,
the user will be able to see who is online and interact
directly."
Faculty and outside experts will also join the online
forum, to which participants are expected to contribute
between 10 and 15 hours per week. Cohort members will also
create a digital portfolio to track their growth through
the program.
Members of each cohort learning community will begin
and end the program together, Milter said, allowing for a
collegial, team-oriented experience.
To qualify, fellows need to have a minimum of two
years of increasingly responsible professional experience
and have earned a baccalaureate or graduate degree in any
field.
The program's Web site went live last month, and
marketing efforts will begin in earnest later this month.
The recruitment process for the first cohort will end in
August.
Milter said the initial response has been extremely
encouraging, and he expects the program will be able to be
very selective with enrollment.
Tuition for the MBA Fellows program is $64,800, which
covers books, materials and lodging (including breakfasts
and lunches) at the Hopkins-owned Mt. Washington Conference
Center. Milter said that he anticipates that most
participants will be fully or partially sponsored by their
employers.
An online information session about the Johns Hopkins
MBA Fellows program is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Wednesday,
May 31; to participate, register on the program Web site,
business.jhu.edu/mbafellows. For more information about
the program, call April Stanson at 410-516-2838, e-mail mbafellows@jhu.edu or
go to the Web site.
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