Business-savvy students on campus may soon have a new program to help them navigate the path between the Gothic Wonderland and a posh corner office.
Masters Management Studies-a one-year masters in business program-was approved Friday by the Faculty, Graduate and Professional School Affairs Committee to the Board of Trustees. The proposal will be sent to the Academic Council March 19 and the Board of Trustees in May for final approval.
If the proposal passes, a pilot program will debut this Fall.
"It's a program which meets a broader need for the University and, more broadly, to provide a strong pathway for students between graduating from undergraduate and perhaps later in their careers to go to business school," Provost Peter Lange said. "I think it's substantively a good innovation and one that meets a very important need."
With instruction from Fuqua School of Business faculty, MMS students would take 12 courses on topics such as marketing, accounting and corporate finance over four quarters. Participants would be separated into two sections of 45 students, providing for a more intimate setting than the Fuqua MBA program, said junior Chelsea Goldstein, Duke Student Government vice president for academic affairs. MMS students would study independently of Fuqua MBA students.
Instead of footing the bill for a Fuqua education, students also would pay the same tuition as a Duke undergraduate, and some financial aid and merit-based scholarships would be offered, Goldstein said. She added that for the first year, applicants will not be required to take the GMAT or GRE.
"They think it's [a good program] because of the economy right now and the economy in the long run," she said. "In the short run, there's going to be a ton of people interested who don't have jobs. In the long run, as companies arrange the way they hire people, we think this will give undergraduates more professional expertise."
MMS is considered a "pre-experience" program, geared toward students with newly issued undergraduate diplomas who have not had the years of work experience expected of MBA students, Fuqua Dean Blair Sheppard said. MMS instruction would require more context for problem-solving tasks.
The proposal stems from a December Board of Trustees meeting, during which officials discussed issues surrounding a Duke degree and Career Services, Goldstein said. According to an interest survey of 1,100 students conducted this year, 42 percent of respondents said they would be interested in a Fuqua masters program that is not an MBA, she noted.
"Management skills are becoming increasingly attractive to people-not just in the business and financial sector," Lange said. "This degree is a much better fit for the kind of interdisciplinary thrust we've been hearing about."
Although some had previously expressed concerns about the program diluting academic standards, Goldstein said the purpose of MMS is to serve as an alternative educational experience for those who are looking to increase their chances of landing better positions.
"We don't want this program to be a parking lot where people who can't go anywhere else come and wait to succeed later," she said. "You can never get out all the people who aren't using education for the right purposes, but I don't think most Duke students are like that in general. If we've already done it once by admitting people to Duke, we can do a pretty good job preventing that issue [based on MMS admission standards]."
University officials also looked to pre-experience masters programs in Europe to frame the MMS program, Sheppard said. This model would draw more applicants from Europe and other parts of the world to the University, Goldstein noted.
Goldstein said the addition of a pre-experience masters program would draw more job opportunities for Duke students, noting that the number of firms recruiting Duke undergraduates has increased but the number of companies seeking graduate students has not changed.
Employers can no longer afford to provide prolonged training to new employees, making students without a business education less attractive, Goldstein explained.
By giving participants business training, MMS would also allow students to participate in dual-degree graduate programs and major in subjects other than business as undergraduates, officials said.
"It's a degree that's compatible with what Duke stands for in terms of reinforcing the liberal arts education, so we're proud of it from that standpoint," Sheppard said. "In some ways, the degree says, 'Instead of getting an undergraduate business major, get a liberal arts major, get this one-year degree on top of it.' It's the best of both worlds."
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