After a decade or so of study, of listening to our students and corporate friends, we launched our new, fully online MBA program in Fall 2021. Our experience with COVID and with this new program has led us to fully rethink our MBA programs. Our new approach is captured in the phrase: MBA Your Way. It places the learner, the student, at the center of the experience and properly grants the student enormous flexibility in selecting how to earn the degree.

The easiest way to envision the change is to realize that there were previously three programs and, once a person engaged in one program (Online, Part-Time or Full Time), it was hard to take courses in the other programs. We are removing the artificial barriers between those programs. We are in the process of modifying the UConn course catalog and admissions materials to reflect this, but operationally it is effective now.

Course modality no longer matters. Accounting, taught face-to-face or online, daytime or nighttime, synchronous or asynchronous, is still accounting. Students must still have proper preparation, but how they prefer to learn is up to them.

Many of our students are adult learners who must blend work and study. They sometimes prefer face-to-face learning and sometimes need the flexibility of online or mixed mode delivery. We want them to be free to integrate their learning into their lives. Thus, we will often offer the same content in multiple formats.

It is also true that some content is well suited to a traditional 15-week semester with two classes each week. Other content is well suited to three-hour sessions on consecutive days. MBA Your Way is constructed to make offering such options easy and transparent.

We will be holding open sessions to discuss these changes and updating our website to communicate about them, including frequently asked questions. One question which has emerged already is: what about existing students in the current two-year, full-time MBA program? We will continue to offer the courses and opportunities that our existing students expect and need to complete their degrees. They will be fully served, while we re-shape the UConn MBA for maximum flexibility going forward.

Back to the Dean’s Corner

This month I am pleased to announce the release of the 2021 Dean’s Annual Report that celebrates the year that was. It highlights many of our students, staff, faculty, alumni, and friends, with particular attention to the ways they have made the business school a better place. They have contributed time and treasure to launch new programs, to create new companies, and to make life better for others. I have been privileged to know and work with so many of these inspiring individuals whose words and accomplishments adorn these pages. Continue Reading

Hundreds of faculty, staff, students and friends joined President Joe Biden and former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd in celebration and rededication of UConn’s Dodd Center for Human Rights on Oct. 15.

The assembly witnessed powerful comments from a host of luminaries including current Senators Murphy and Blumenthal, Governor Lamont and many others, culminating in a compelling speech from President Biden. Not present, but powerful in his absence, was the long-serving former U.S. Senator Thomas Dodd, the father of Chris Dodd, and a distinguished prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials. Continue Reading

Years ago, driving through Oklahoma, I stopped for gas. In those days, attendants pumped your gas, and my attendant was a high school student heading for college. When he learned I was a college professor, he asked if college would be better than high school. I asked what motivated his question and he cited discipline problems and unruly behavior by classmates who hated high school.

My own high school experience was in sharp contrast to his, but, more importantly, I could assure him that I had never had a day as a professor when I felt I was more of a guard than a teacher. I encouraged him to anticipate four years of enthusiastic growth with other highly motivated, hard-working, and interested students.

As we enter the Fall of 2021 at UConn, I am pleased to say that I believe our new and returning students face that same optimistic future that I envisioned for him. Our students are not only interested, but interesting. They come together from different places with different specialties and goals.Continue Reading

The recent U.S. Census informed us that population growth was essentially flat in the last decade, and more detailed analysis in the last year suggests that the birth rate has been declining, the death rates have been rising, and immigration has declined.

A trifecta.

GDP growth derives largely from population growth and thus projections for GDP growth are minimal in terms of long-term trends, while better in terms of recovery from the negative effects of COVID-19.

As the dean of the School of Business at UConn, I am particularly concerned about the effects of these trends on our School, our University, and our state. All of the national trends affect us, but they are exacerbated by the emigration reality. Within the USA people move, and the long-term pattern has been emigration from the Rust Belt and the Northeast to the South and West. Continue Reading