UB to Offer Only Executive MBA Program In WNY

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo School of Management is offering a full-time, executive MBA program similar to programs offered at the top business schools in the country.

The program, the first executive Master's of Business Administration program to be offered in Western New York, will begin this fall with a class of between 20 and 30 students.

While other universities in the area offer part-time MBA programs that can take as long as three to five years to complete, students enrolled in the UB executive program will receive their degrees in 22 months. UB also offers traditional MBA programs for both full- and part-time students.

"We see this program as crucial for both the community and the School of Management," says Frederick W. Winter, who will become dean of the school this spring. "The community currently doesn't have an executive MBA program. The program will provide an important link between our faculty and the business community. It's a way to change the culture of the school."

Winter has stressed strengthening the School of Management's ties to the business community since the school announced more than a year ago that he would become dean. Although he has not officially assumed the school's top post, Winter, who was formerly the head of the Department of Business Administration at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, has spent about a week per month at UB during the past year setting in place his strategies for the school.

The UB program will follow the model of the "tried and true and tested" executive MBA program at the University of Illinois that Winter helped to establish 20 years ago. That program, in turn, is based on the program at the University of Chicago, which is the longest, on-going executive MBA program in the country.

Executive MBA programs differ from traditional MBA programs in that they only accept as students experienced executives who have top management potential. Students also must have the full endorsement of their employers, many of whom provide financial support as well.

Many of the top business schools in the country, including the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, offer executive MBA programs.

Courses in the UB program will be offered on alternating Fridays and Saturdays, allowing students to continue working full-time while they complete their studies. Assignments are related, as much as possible, to the actual work of participants, enabling them to apply immediately the techniques and ideas acquired in the program to their own work situations.

Moreover, class members will progress through the entire program as a team, which encourages students to learn from one another as well as from the faculty.

"We're counting on students learning from other students," Winter says. "These are accomplished people in their own right."