UMass Magazine Online

Spring 2005

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Prerequisite

High Risk, High Return
The online MBA program was a bold move that's paying off big

—Leslie Wolfe ’80G




	The Professional MBA program gives students the option of taking courses online or in the classroom at locations in Springfield, Pittsfield, and Shrewsbury. Some students take a mixture of electronic and "live" courses, and even students enrolled in the full-time, on-campus MBA program may elect to take some courses online. The proportion of students enrolled in the different programs is 365 online, 295 at off-campus venues, and 71 in the full-time, on-campus program. (photo by Ben Barnhart)

IMAGINE IF THE FIRST TIME you ever set foot on campus was for graduation. That could be the case if you earned a degree through UMass Amherst’s online MBA program. And you wouldn’t be alone. Students earning their MBAs online outnumber full-time, on-campus MBA students more than five to one, according to Eric Berkowitz ’71, ’72G, program director.

Berkowitz, a marketing professor at the Isenberg School of Management, notes that online students are diverse. “We have some interesting people come through here,” he says. Current online students work in top management positions in both for-profit and nonprofit companies around the country and the world.

Take Dr. John Boyes. He’s a radiologist who works for a large insurer to help determine reimbursement policies. He participates from his home north of Seattle. And there’s Osvaldo Luis Gratacos, acting legal counsel to the inspector general of the United States Agency for International Development (US AID). He logs on from Washington, D.C.

Although enrolled in many of the same courses, Boyes and Gratacos have different goals. “My particular focus is the health care finance system,” Boyes says. “It’s about 15 to 16 percent of our Gross Domestic Product, and it’s not working very well. In my experience most doctors don’t understand business, and most business people don’t really understand healthcare.” Boyes hopes to be able to translate between the two groups.

Gratacos seeks to interpret business data for a different purpose, for “the extra edge when investigating possible fraud or corruption cases in my current job.” Already, he says, “it is helping me in the collection of evidence and in the trial preparation of white-collar cases.”

Berkowitz says that having students with such diverse goals and backgrounds presents a challenge. “We’re dealing with professionals whose time is at a premium,” he says. “We charge a premium price, and we have to give them something of significant value in that proposition.”

Faculty is key to that equation, according to Berkowitz. When he started the online program in 2001, he called the best teacher he knew—Professor Robert Nakosteen, recipient of multiple distinguished teaching awards. Nakosteen, who teaches statistics, was cautious. He saw the program as a gamble involving great effort and unknown risk. While he admired Berkowitz’s boldness, he was daunted by the
challenge of reaching the students, of ensuring that the program wasn’t just an electronic correspondence course.

The first time Nakosteen taught online, he could tell by students’ questions that they didn’t understand the material. “Not unusual with statistics,” he deadpans. In the classroom, he can use two or three illustrations of a problem until they grasp a concept. “What I’ve discovered is you have to somehow overcome the medium,” Nakosteen says of online learning. “You’ve got to get them to see and hear material, just as you would with personal contact.” One tool he uses to shrink the distance is threaded discussion—online dialogues on selected topics. Nakosteen checks threads and provides assistance two or three times a day.

Nakosteen characterizes online students as highly motivated self-starters who are good readers. “There is what a statistician would call a selection bias,” he says.
Attracting this pedigree of student isn’t left entirely to chance. Berkowitz has used aggressive tactics to find high-powered recruits like Boyes and Gratacos—hiring a top-tier advertising agency to develop an ad campaign, for example. He also visits professional associations. The best recruiting tool, however, is the program itself.

Boyes says that even though there was a good online MBA program offered closer to home, he chose UMass Amherst for its lack of attendance requirements. “I really didn’t want to spend one weekend a month on a college campus,” he says. Gratacos chose the online program even though he had been accepted to the on-campus program with an assistantship and scholarship. “My wife and I made a family decision to stay in D.C. and continue our careers,” he says. Slotting in his education at odd hours allows him more time with his family.

As he travels the country marketing the program, Berkowitz frequently gets feedback. He gives the example of a hospital administrator who took Professor Pamela Trafford’s management accounting class. “I click on Pam’s class on Tuesday,” said the student, “and when I go into a meeting on Wednesday, I use what I’ve learned.”

“That’s what I need to hear,” Berkowitz says. To him, a statement like that reinforces the “value proposition” offered by the online MBA.

Professor Nakosteen agrees. This is one gamble that’s paid off, he says. “It’s one of the best strategic moves the college has made since I’ve been here.”

Related links:

http://www.isenberg.umass.edu/MBA/PartTime_MBA/

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