UD's part-time MBA program ranked 6th in Mid-Atlantic region
Lerner Hall is the home of the Lerner College of Business and Economics.

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2:19 p.m., Nov. 12, 2009----BusinessWeek's 2009 part-time Master of Business Administration (MBA) rankings have placed the University of Delaware's Lerner College of Business and Economics 6th in the Mid-Atlantic region and 38th nationally, which is the first time the Lerner College MBA program has been recognized in the annual rankings.

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The part-time MBA program is called a working professional MBA program since it is geared for students who are regularly employed while taking their studies.

"We are very pleased with this ranking which is a recognition of the high quality of our MBA program. This recognition reflects our continued efforts to provide flexibility for the working professional while maintaining the highest standards as well as our focus on ethics, data-based, global and experiential learning,” Lerner College Dean Bobby Gempesaw said.

“Led by our outstanding faculty and staff, the Lerner College is committed to provide a positive and rewarding experience for working professional students during their graduate studies. I am very appreciative of the tireless efforts of our faculty and staff in ensuring that our working professional MBA students receive a top-notch education," Gempesaw said.

The BusinessWeek rankings of the part-time program, which are the newest and most complex, are based on three separate measures of student satisfaction, academic quality, and post-graduation outcomes. The student survey contributes 40 percent of the final ranking, with academic quality and post-MBA outcomes contributing 30 percent each.

The student survey comprises approximately 50 equally weighted questions measuring every aspect of student satisfaction with the MBA experience -- from teaching to course content to career outcomes -- as well as additional questions about the person completing the survey.

The goals measure uses a series of questions in the student survey to determine the percentage of respondents in three distinct categories who say their MBA program was "completely" or "somewhat" important in achieving their goals. The categories are "career advancers," who are seeking career advancement with their current employer; "job switchers," who are seeking career advancement with a new employer in the same industry; and "career changers," who want to change industries, functional areas, or both.

Academic quality consists of six equally weighted measures: average GMAT scores for part-time MBA students, average work experience for part-time MBA students, the percentage of all teachers in the part-time MBA program who are tenured faculty, average class size in core business classes, total number of business electives available to part-time MBA students, and the completion rate for students in the part-time MBA program.

The rankings also include anonymous comments from graduates of the program. One who responded from the UD program wrote: "The University of Delaware MBA program offers an excellent education. The courses were extremely informative and conducted in a manner that made the concepts accessible. The volume of application work, either through team assignments or paper/presentations, enabled us to practice the material rather than just listening to lectures."

"It is a testament to the quality of the UD MBA brand," Ajay Manrai, faculty director of Graduate and Executive Programs, said of the ranking. "These rankings reflect the excellent quality of our MBA students as well as dedication of our MBA faculty members in delivering high quality MBA curriculum. These rankings were clearly made possible by the cooperation of part-time MBA students who responded to the BusinessWeek survey thoroughly and in a timely fashion."

The UD Department of Business and Economics was founded after World War II, and the College of Business and Economics was established in 1963.

In 2002, in recognition of an MBNA Foundation endowment honoring its former chairperson and CEO, the college was renamed the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics.

The college was first accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) at the baccalaureate level in 1966. Graduate accreditation was received in 1982, and accounting accreditation was earned in 1984. All accreditations were reaffirmed in 2001.

Article by Martin A Mbugua

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