Executive MBA Program at Boston University School of Management Ranked Best in New England; EMBA Program places 22nd internationally in latest BusinessWeek ranking

Business Wire, Oct 12, 2001

Business/Education Editors

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 12, 2001

The Executive MBA (EMBA) program at Boston University School of Management has been named by BusinessWeek as one of the top 25 Executive MBA programs worldwide. Ranked 22nd on the list, the School of Management is the only business school in New England ranked among the world's best. The School of Management also placed 6th internationally in the Leadership category and 7th under Teamwork in the "Best of the Bunch" portion of the rankings.

"Some of the largest international corporations, including United Technologies, Fidelity Investments, Verizon and Genzyme, send their executives to Boston University because of the excellence of our professors and the relevance of our curriculum," said Louis Lataif, Dean of the School of Management at Boston University. "We are pleased that BusinessWeek's survey recognizes the excellence of our program, which has grown by 25 percent over the last five years."

The Boston University Executive MBA Program leverages the School of Management's world-recognized strengths in cross-functional curriculum design, global information systems, Team Learning and leadership, and an unsurpassed technological infrastructure. Unlike most traditional MBA programs that teach classes by subject matter, such as economics or statistics, the EMBA program centers on business cases, where professors with different academic disciplines analyze each case from different perspectives.

"There are many distinctive features of this Executive MBA Program," said Audrey Haas, Director of the Executive MBA Program. "Assignments have become more cross-functional and are focused on real problems faced by the student's sponsoring organization, enabling participants to bring immediate value to their employers. We also utilize our unique approach to Team Learning, which intensifies individual learning by giving each team member a measurable stake in the success of every other member. This approach has also proved to be a remarkably effective way to develop leadership skills," Ms. Haas concluded.

The EMBA's educational experience also provides the critical knowledge necessary to evaluate and implement strategies for global business. In a world where commerce no longer has borders, the EMBA program culminates in a week-long residence at an emerging international location. Recent destinations have included the Czech Republic, China, Hungary, Ireland, South Africa and Spain. To provide an entrepreneurial context for the trip, and to fully apply what they have learned, teams of students research and prepare a hypothetical business plan and then evaluate a business concept onsite during their international engagement.

BusinessWeek sought to gauge the satisfaction of EMBA students by using a customer-focused research methodology. For this ranking, 50% of the overall score of a program came from a survey of over 3,000 students from 82 business schools around the country. A poll of EMBA directors at those schools made up the balance of the score.

The EMBA program at the School of Management at Boston University was founded in 1988. Sixty students began the 2001/2002 EMBA program in January of 2001. For more information about the program, please visit: http://management.bu.edu/emba.

About Boston University School of Management

Founded as the College of Business Administration in 1913, the Boston University School of Management educates future global business leaders with special emphasis on the difficult-to-manage interdependencies within organizations. The School offers an undergraduate degree in business administration; full-time and part-time MBA programs; specialized MBA programs in Health Care Management; Public and Nonprofit Management; eight dual-degree MBA programs; an Executive MBA program; Master of Sciences programs in Information Systems and Investment Management; a Doctoral program; and executive education programs.

In the fall of 2001, the School of Management began offering concurrent Masters degrees in business and information systems to prepare future CEOs for the new economy. This new concept in business education, named the MSo MBA ("MS dot MBA"), enables ambitious MBA students from around the world to earn both a traditional Master in Business Administration with a concentration in one of the various business disciplines, as well as a Master of Science in Information Systems. The two degrees can be earned in the same 21-month time-period required to earn a full-time MBA.

The School of Management at Boston University is located at 595 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215 or visit http://management.bu.edu.