Faculty Profiles

Dr. Charlie McQuillen

Integration, that’s the key

Dr. Charlie McQuillen isn’t given to hyperbole.

So when this former Special Forces underwater demolition expert who trained the first SEAL teams and later became executive director of the State Board of Education and Regents of the University of Idaho says something extraordinary, he must mean it.

“Champlain’s MBA curriculum is super-efficient because it is integrated,” he says. “In 37 credit hours, our core content courses can accomplish what other programs would require 50 credit hours for."

“Everything is geared to take what you learn in class to your organization and implement it and talk about it there,” he continues. “Our students are in familiar environments at work and the idea is to provide immediate application for what they’re learning in class. Most MBA programs offer a lot of learning and limited application.”

No learning in isolation

“The major difference between this program and other MBAs is that our courses are interrelated with other courses in the curriculum, so that on a course-by-course basis, students are seeing things as a whole. There’s no learning in isolation,” he says. “All of the learning is interrelated, and that’s why we can accomplish what we do.”

McQuillen enjoys the flexibility of being able to mold his classes in the ways that best suit his students “to meet the programmatic goals of the MBA. Turning data into relevant information so they can make decisions that will improve the capacity of their organizations,” he says, “that’s what we’re trying to do. This program offers our students the chance to take new information from a course and ask, ‘How can I use this to advantage in my firm?’ Citing the program’s core of Integrated Reflective Practice, McQuillen says, “we encourage students to take a reflective posture: they’ve learned something and now they’re totally focused on how they can use it in their workplace.” The end result is that they “become more valuable, they generate competencies that will improve their capacity to perform.”

McQuillen’s background is as diverse as the number of countries in which he has lived and in which he holds driver’s licenses: 11 and 14, respectively. In addition to his military background, he has been an undergraduate and graduate level professor at numerous colleges and universities; chief financial officer of the University of Central Florida; executive director of the State Board of Education and Regents of the University of Idaho; deputy minority staff director, United States Senate Committee on Budget; senior financial examiner, United States Securities and Exchange Commission; and treasurer and controller of Sam Wyche Sports.

He holds a BS in Industrial and Labor Relations and an MBA Finance and Accounting, both from Cornell University, and a PhD in Finance from the University of Florida.

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