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MBA CURRICULUM
Other MBA programs treat courses as independent
entities to be checked off on the way to the degree. The
Champlain MBA considers them integrated components of the
educational process. The curriculum is based on six core
disciplines or Areas of Practice: Global, Organizational
and Personal Values-Driven Leadership; Human Resources &
Organizational Relationships; Measurement and Process Improvement;
Innovation Through Information; Financial and Economic Resources;
and Customers, Markets, Sales and Marketing. These disciplines
are threaded into each course, which results in a stream
of instruction that has a discipline-based sense of order,
but which approaches management problems from an integrated,
systems perspective.
Work-based projects that link
theory and practice
These are projects that link what you’re
doing in class with what you’re doing at work. This
is the core of the Champlain MBA and it forms a distinct
learning path for each student. Theoretical or abstract
research projects are not the focus of the course of study.
Reflection that allows for real
learning
Reflection is part of weekly assignments,
major projects and team activities. Adequate time for you
to absorb what’s really going on in class or to clarify
what you’ve learned is built into every course. Reflection
is the tool used to transform the experiences of the classroom
and the workplace into real, applied learning, which translates
into your improved job performance and increased potential
for future career opportunities.
Courses & Descriptions
Introductory classes
(for those without a business degree)
Core classes
INTEGRATED AND REFLECTIVE
PRACTICE
This course provides the basis of
both the philosophy and the professional development perspective
used in all subsequent management courses. Students will
complete a thorough, multi-dimensional self-assessment that
culminates in a personal learning road map to guide their
journey through the entire graduate program. The emphasis
of the content will be on the importance of work practice
and experience as a basis for management development and
on the use of experience for personal and organizational
learning. Short case studies will also address the integration
of learning through the six Areas of Practice: Global, Organizational
& Personal Values-Based Leadership; Innovation through
Information; Financial and Economic Resources; Customers,
Markets, Sales and Marketing; Human Resources and Organizational
Relationships; and Measurement and Process Improvement.
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THE STRATEGIC LANGUAGE
OF BUSINESS
This course provides students with
an introduction to the strategic and tactical functions
of all organizations. Students will develop a framework
of understanding for the general language, concepts, organizational
principles and functions of management. The style of this
course will be an uncomplicated journey through the traditional
functional topics of business using a combination of information
sharing and the Reflective Integrated Practice model.
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THE QUANTITATIVE LANGUAGE
OF BUSINESS
This course serves as an introduction
to the quantitative language and functions of an organization
in three areas: microeconomics, accounting and finance.
The emphasis is on the process of beginning with economic,
accounting and financial data, turning that data into information
and ultimately using that information to make decisions
that enhance the organization’s capacity to effectively
pursue its objectives.
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ALIGNING MISSION AND VALUES
IN A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
This course provides an overview
of how organizations can succeed in a world characterized
by increasing diversity and the dissolution of geographical
boundaries. Students will develop the capacity to make decisions
based on corporate values, which provide the moral environment
in which the firm has determined that it will pursue its
economic mission. Particular emphasis is placed on today’s
challenging and dynamic organizational environment, in which
decision makers are increasingly called upon to reconcile
their behaviors with the espoused values of their organization.
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PROCESS IMPROVEMENT AND
OPERATIONS
This course approaches an organization’s
operations and processes from both the initial design and
the continuous improvement perspective. Students will develop
the ability to define, design and improve business processes,
one of the most important and frequently cited skills for
today’s workplace. Special attention will be given
to the linkage between operational and process improvement
metrics and to those metrics based upon financial, economic
and accounting information.
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CUSTOMERS, MARKETS AND
SALES/MARKETING PROGRAMS
This course explores the marketing
decision process and the need to remain innovative as that
process becomes impacted by external market forces and trends.
The organizational challenge is how to remain innovative
without threatening the customer base. Students will learn
and practice how organizations define their customer and
client relationships, how these relationships are successfully
expanded and managed and how integrated marketing communications
processes and actions affect all facets of the organization.
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REFLECTIVE LEADERSHIP
AND PLANNED CHANGE
This course addresses the complexity
and changing nature of business environments that challenge
organizations and their members to become adaptive and innovative;
it is also an introduction to a variety of leadership models
and the emerging role of all managers as agents of change.
Students will develop the knowledge and skills for harnessing,
navigating and leading change in their respective organizations,
and they will reflect on their experiences as a leader and
assess who they are as a leader based on the models presented
and used in the course.
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PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT
AND ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS
This course is designed to introduce
the student to accounting concepts, analyses and practices
within the broader context of performance measurement systems,
such as the organizational scorecard, that facilitate business
decisions in the workplace. Students will develop the ability
to use practical managerial accounting methodologies to
make more effective business decisions with greater accuracy,
and to apply an accounting framework as one of many tools
for measuring organizational performance, and to the relationship
among costs, cost drivers and profits. Students will be
encouraged to reflect on the techniques and apply them to
existing business decisions, products, markets, customers,
human resources and the improvement of both process and
performance.
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FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING
FOR MANAGEMENT
This course is an introduction to
the basic financial principles and tools required to manage
in every organization. The course material is positioned
within the framework of managing innovation and the general
management of any organization. Students will develop the
ability to respond to the concerns and motivations of the
financial community or financial stakeholders that impact
the flow of money to any organization. The intent is to
provide the learner with a “tool box” of practical,
useful personal tools that will support the decision-making
process when assessing business projects.
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BUSINESS ECONOMICS AND
MODELING VALUE
This course will develop the student’s
ability to apply key financial and economic principles to
business models. It serves as the summative course for creative
economic thinking and the need to frame ambiguous financial
or budgeting problems for planning and decision making.
Students will develop the ability to create concrete and
realistic models that integrate the most relevant principles
of finance, accounting, economics and financial planning
into a comprehensive framework. The development of scenario
analyses and the leveraging of key variables will be thoroughly
addressed.
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PROJECT MANAGEMENT
This course is designed to introduce
a systematic process for planning, organizing and controlling
projects based on a practical methodology for completing
projects more quickly with fewer problems. Students will
develop and apply a framework within which to better manage
projects, exercise both the “hard” and “soft”
project management skills and affect organizational culture
toward acceptance of project management. Course content
will center on the “process of project management.”
The course provides a perspective that is integrative through
its concept of end-to-end thinking as it applies to the
project management processes and to the business processes
of a project’s clients.
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GROUP DYNAMICS, COMMUNICATION
AND NEGOTIATION
This course provides the framework
for understanding from multiple perspectives the dynamics
of human interaction within an organization. It addresses
the managerial need to understand at a deep level human
motivations and needs that can either facilitate or obstruct
organizational improvement. Students will learn the means
of using organizational communication as a key tool to facilitate
management and leadership and change, develop the ability
to lead successful negotiations in which resources are distributed
fairly to all parties in an efficient and equitable manner
and become adept at building collaborative relationships
with employees, vendors, suppliers and distributors.
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MANAGING INNOVATION THROUGH
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
This course provides students with
the knowledge of how to balance the demands of managing
to performance objectives with the leadership needed to
abandon legacy organizational practices. Students will develop
the knowledge and skills to manage innovation at the operational
and strategic levels and to manage customer expectations
for excellent service, while simultaneously providing new
products under the constraint of extremely short “time
to market.”
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ACTION PLANNING AND DECISION
MAKING
This course provides the opportunity
for students to truly integrate the multiple areas of practice
they have mastered in all previous courses. Students will
apply the principles of good planning and decision making
to a variety of case studies, simulations and real-world
projects. They will develop the ability to develop both
long- and short-run plans that are both tactical and strategic
in nature through a process of designing, executing and
adjusting so that strategies can be refined or emerge as
learning occurs. The focus of this course will be on a contemporary
interpretation of strategic planning as a management activity
that is highly interactive and iterative. This is built
upon the concept that planning is an ongoing process that
needs the active participation of middle management rather
than being a “top down” single-stage process.
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INTEGRATIVE CAPSTONE
PROJECT/FIELD EXPERIENCE
This course will provide MBA students
with the opportunity to integrate all disciplines and competencies
that they have learned in the MBA program into a single,
work-based project or internship experience. The project
will be the culmination of a student’s area of specialization
around which his or her program has been defined. The student
will design, research and implement a project that is comprehensive
in nature and which addresses, to the extent feasible, all
core areas of knowledge around which the MBA program has
been built.
The project may be performed for
a current employer or a sponsoring workplace, or as an internship
as either a service learning project for a qualifying non-profit
organization or any other organization of the student’s
choosing, subject to instructor approval.
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