LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD
KU EDITION
SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1996 19A
KU MBA students get hands-on experience
- The Kansas University MBA program focuses its new curriculum on teamwork.
BY MEGAN NEHER
JOURNAL-WORLD BUSINESS EDITOR
The Kansas University MBA program received high marks for its new curriculum.
David Collins, assistant director of the master's program for the School of Business, said the newly revised program received complimentary reviews from students and professors this year.
Teamwork is the basis for the new program, beginning with challenge week, a team-building exercise before school starts. The program was instituted in the 1995-96 school year.
"Teamwork is the main way of doing things today in corporate America," Collins said. "So we put the students in a situation that will resemble what they will find in the industry."
Before school started last fall, the
71 first-year MBA students separated into teams of five or six. For the rest of the academic year, the teams stuck together for every project.
The first project was a consulting exercise in which students were assigned to an organization on campus, such as the Watkins Health Center or the campus police department. The groups were asked to interview and study the organizations' operations and make recommendations for improvements.
For the first time in the MBA program, the students were required to spend their summer at a professional internship, many of which are overseas.
Collins said the new program has retained its professional core classes but has added projects that will strengthen the students' writing, presentation, leadership and interpersonal skills.
The second-year MBA students are more independent and have more freedom to work at their own pace. Most work solely on a
selected area of concentration. This year, Collins said, the school of business has added several new areas of concentration, including information technology and management of technology.
Another new aspect of the MBA program is recruiting. Collins said for the first time last year, the college asked alumni of KU's MBA program to assist with recruitment. This year, they will step up the alumni participation.
"We have to compete with so many other MBA programs throughout the country," Collins said. "This year, we've dramatically increased the alumni for what we call the rush process."
Kansas University also offers an MBA program at the Kansas University Regent's Center in Overland Park. This program, which is geared toward working professionals, has a different curriculum and schedules courses in the evenings.
This year for the first time, the Regent's Center is offering more flexible electives for MBA students.
RICHARD GWIN/JOURNAL-WORLD PHOTO
David Collins is assistant director of the master's program for the School of Business.
Endowment gifts set record
Continued from page 1A
Martin said, augmenting but not supplanting state funding.
Several substantial gifts to the university comprised this year's fund raising.
One, a $10.5 million pledge from the Anderson family of Santa Monica, California, will assist both KU's athletics programs and its school of business.
Ninety percent will support athletics building projects. Ten percent will establish a "business Opportunity Fund" for unrestricted use in the business school.
Another was bequeathed by the late Francis Constant, Lawrence, who died in January 1995 at age 92. Constant gave a $2 million gift, which will be split into parts.
The Francis Constant Library Acquisition fund will be established, providing $1 million for books, electronic media and other materials for the university library system. Using $250,000, the J.L. "Tommy" Constant Fellowship fund for graduate engineering students will be established.
In addition, the J.L. Constant Distinguished Professorship fund and the J.L.
Constant Scholarship fund will receive $100,000 and $650,000, respectively.