When Paul King completed an undergraduate degree in honours
Business Administration from the University of Western Ontario 32
years ago, he probably thought he'd seen the last of his alma mater
for good. But at the ripe old age of 40 and after 18 years helping
run the family business, King decided to return to Western for an
Executive MBA (EMBA) in the Ivey School of Business.
It was a decision that King doesn't regret making. The two-year
program was a pioneer endeavour at the time -a kind of cross-Canada
MBA -with the bulk of instruction teleconferenced from Western to
participants in six Canadian cities.
Not that there weren't some travel and real-time classroom
experiences. King's classmates, 50 in all, attended two weeks of
orientation in London during the first year of the EMBA program,
with side trips to Calgary, Vancouver and two international outings
to China and Mexico.
"Almost every Friday, Saturday and Sunday the six students who
were from Montreal met at Windsor Station to attend teleconferenced
sessions," explained King. "At first I was skeptical of the
technology, but my concerns disappeared quickly. It was
seamless."
King, like many of his EMBA confederates, had logged
considerable time in the business world. This is a prerequisite for
all EMBA programs offered across Canada. The McGill University
Executive MBA 16-month-long course, which is a joint Desautels
Faculty of Management and HEC Montreal project, suggests candidates
have a minimum of 10 years in business, five of that in a
managerial position.
"We're not teaching Marketing or Accounting 101 to these
students," said Tamer Boyaci, associate dean of master's programs
at the Desautels Faculty of Management.
"The Executive MBA students bring a wealth of experience and
knowledge to the program. We emphasize learning from each other,
where people draw from their own business experience and share it
with others."
Boyaci describes the program as "issue-oriented."
"The program is about how to make better business leaders who
make better business decisions"...
Read full article: The Gazette, February 9, 2012