The first 39 graduates of the executive MBA program offered by the University of Regina’s Kenneth Levene Graduate School of Business received their degrees at a convocation ceremony on Tuesday.
The convocation marked the culmination of an intensive, 16-month program designed for professional managers. The program is open to people with undergraduate degrees and at least five years of managerial experience, or people without undergraduate degrees with at least seven years of experience.
According to Anne Lavack, dean of the university’s faculty of business administration, the regular MBA program offered by the university — which requires two years of work experience — typically caters to younger students than the new executive program.
“We saw a need in the market place for a degree that would help senior managers and middle managers advance in their careers,” she said.
There are about 15 such programs offered by other universities in Canada, but this is the only one in the province, Lavack said.
“This was our opportunity to be able to offer something to business people in Saskatchewan that would help them in their careers,” she said.
Even though this year’s graduates made up the first class to go through the program, Lavack said things went fairly smoothly.
“Several of our faculty members have experience in executive MBA programs elsewhere so we knew what to expect. But there’s no question that we learned a great deal from our students,” she said.
Graduate Terry MacDonald, a vice-president with the insurance services division of CAA Saskatchewan, said the executive MBA program at the U of R finally made it feasible for her to pursue a degree she had wanted for some time.
“I think that there were lots of people like me who were looking to do this and jumped at the opportunity,” she said, referring to the size of the program’s first graduating class.
MacDonald said she valued the opportunity to network with other students, something that would not have been possible with correspondence courses.
Insp. Len Delpino — who heads the provincial Commercial Crimes section of RCMP — said he entered the program to hone his managerial skills and to serve as a role model for his three children. Like MacDonald, he said he benefited from the face-to-face meetings with classmates.
“That, for me, was a positive experience, being able to interact with other managers from all walks of life,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mike Blaisdell — the former Regina Pats player and NHL player, who also served as a Pats assistant coach — said the program offered an opportunity for him to complete his university education.
“I went to the University of Wisconsin on a hockey scholarship, but I didn’t complete my degree there because I wanted to play pro hockey,” he said.
Blaisdell said the broad-based program will serve him well in any professional endeavour, whether it be in hockey management, acting as a player agent or in business.
“It’s changed the way I think about a lot of things,” he said.
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