OLATHE, KAN, -- MidAmerica Nazarene University is launching a new option for working adults seeking a master’s degree. The 20-month Master of Science in Management (MSM) program is slated to start its first class in January 2014. The program joins MNU’s other highly successful accelerated degree programs that offer one-night-a-week classes allowing professionals to continue working and fulfilling family and personal obligations while obtaining career-advancing education.
The 30-credit-hour graduate program is designed to prepare graduates in the art and science of managing people and strategic change. Focusing on effective leadership of the human side of an organization makes the program especially practical, according to Graydon Dawson, EdD, chair of Graduate Studies in Management at MNU. Dr. Dawson says research shows that insufficient people skills derail more executives’ careers than lack of business acumen or technical skills.
“To be a successful leader it’s important to be able to identify complex problems, implement solutions and make sound decisions,” Dawson explains. “Management seems like it should be common sense. But it’s actually very hard to be good at it. The classroom becomes a laboratory in this program because it’s taught face to face. We can practice what we teach right in the classroom enabling students to apply what they learned the next day at work.”
MSM students complete a course in project management then work on projects throughout the program that they can deploy in the workplace. Such real-world assignments help students on the job. Dawson says the heart of the coursework, a class called Mediation, Negotiations & Resolution of Conflict, teaches skills that are highly sought in upper level management.
Dean of MNU’s School of Business, Jamie Myrtle, adds that a unique aspect of the MSM program is that every student completes a business plan.
“If everyone in business had to complete a business plan we’d have better professionals,” Myrtle asserts. “It’s a great way to see how all the areas of a business fit together.”
Myrtle says that MSM students will benefit from MNU’s partnership with the Kauffman Foundation’s FastTrac® program to develop entrepreneurs because the materials and theories taught in FastTrac® are available to MSM students too.
MNU has offered an accelerated MBA for more than 20 years. Dawson says the difference between curriculum in the MBA and the MSM is that the accelerated MSM has a greater focus on the development of people skills for managers within an organization.
To enroll students must have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university. For those who have not earned an undergraduate degree MNU offers accelerated bachelor’s degree completion programs as well as courses for adults who have never gone to college. For more information about the MSM program and other accelerated options visit www.mnu.edu/msm.
ABOUT MNU
MidAmerica Nazarene University is a private, Christian, liberal arts university founded in 1966. MNU offers 40 undergraduate majors and three adult degree completion programs, as well as five professional graduate degrees in business, education, nursing, and counseling, and postgraduate certificates. Online offerings include classes in education, nursing and management. Study abroad as well as service-learning experiences are encouraged through MNU’s Go Global, MNU Europe and ServiceCorps programs. The campus is located on 105 acres in Olathe, Kan., and operates a location in Liberty, Mo., for adult and graduate programs. More information may be found at www.mnu.edu.
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