Maryland's business school joins Naval School to offer defense-

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Mar 21, 2002 by Laura Fick

In the first-ever partnership of its kind, the Robert H. Smith School of Business will be teaming with the Naval Postgraduate School to offer military personnel in Maryland a defense-focused master's degree in business administration.

The program, which currently is found only at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., will be offered through the University of Maryland College Park business school as a 33-month program to be held at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington.

Beginning in the fall, the combined program will offer core business courses, such as business strategy and marketing, taught by Smith School faculty, as well as telecourses and online lectures from faculty at the Naval School about specific defense issues.

"It's a marriage made in heaven," said Howard Frank, dean of the Smith School and a former Department of Defense employee. "It's something that we couldn't have done by ourselves or that they could have done alone."

The Naval School decided to expand the program to provide the specialized education to an estimated 150,000 military employees living in the Washington area. Previously, students seeking the business/defense degree would have to leave their posts and travel to California.

"There have been requests in the past from the Department of the Navy and other Department of Defense operations to offer this program," said Douglas Brook, dean of the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval School. "The opportunities are pretty limited for people to get a defense-focused MBA other than if they're in the residency program in California. I think there's a need to be satisfied.

"We think this has the potential for making better mangers inside DOD," he said. "Hopefully these students see this as a potential career breakout in helping to advance their careers."

The Smith School expects the program to start out slowly with 20 to 50 students enrolling in the first year. Frank's dream is for it to grow to "hundreds" of students each year.

The partnership also will help expand the regional presence of the school, something that has been a concerted goal of Maryland for many years.

"We can't sort of hide out in the corner of College Park," said Frank. "Our strategy has been to bring services throughout the region. This program is another one of our key strategies for us to extend our reach and build our regional domination."

The partnership has a four-year commitment and will be evaluated in terms of how many students enroll in and complete the courses. If successful, the partnership could continue and be replicated throughout the country.

"From our point of view, there are significant Navy populations in other places around the country," said Brook. "It's quite possible that this could prove to be a model that we could use elsewhere."