Continuing education units must often walk a fine line within their own
institutions. While programs in business and management are the most successful,
there is often an internal collision between the business school, accreditation
standards, and institutional market position. Jay Halfond, Dean of Boston
University’s Metropolitan College addresses the common issues that confront
business schools and professional and continuing education.
Attainment: Competition for older students. In most of our institutions, we don’t actually own the adult-learner. Thus there is an inherent issue within the institution over ownership. Business schools too are interested in working with older students.
Clarity: Confusion in the marketplace. Business schools will express concern with two different entities going after the same students. What will this do to the brand?
Authority: Conflict in the academic institution. It can become a battleground over who is in control.
Aspiration: What does the institution strive to be? How do the goals of the business school intersect with continuing education? Business schools are increasingly focused a set of more narrow goals. More prestige and reputation. This is in contrast to continuing education, where we see ourselves emphasizing outreach and engagement.
Accreditation: What are the standards against which management programs will be judged? This is often the lightening-rod issue.
It’s important to understand AACSB Principles and how they impact continuing education:
- Provides a diverse range of missions
- Requires minimal compliance on faculty resources, curricula, student outcomes, etc.
- Periodic reporting and annual data report and summary of strategic management, five-year reviews, and visitations
- The accreditation unit is the institution ... thus you can’t factor out ‘stuff’
- Defines what is a business management program
These principles essentially makes the institution liable for ALL activities related to credit-based management education. You can’t take things off the table even if it is online or at a satellite location. Halfond commented that the AACSB is a primary reason that entities like the University of Phoenix are able to capture so much of the demand for management education. “In traditional institutions, we are hamstrung and are thus stifled in meeting this demand,” said Halfond.
At Boston University, AACSB - as an experiment in the early 2000’s - offered the business school the opportunity to be accredited without the institution as a whole. As head of Metropolitan College, Halfond was asked to be included … and declined. Halfond viewed this as an opportunity to grow significantly and in a responsible way as he expected this ‘experiment’ to be revisited later.
In 2007, AACSB did come back and force a ‘remarriage.’ At first the Bu School of Management was very concerned about this. Metropolitan College emphasized their financial strength and agreed to immediately take some programs off the table that were specific pain points in relation to the AACSB accreditation principles. In the end, the issue was an institutional decision and only cost a few faculty positions. Halfond worked with his School of Management to make Met College faculty more research-focused. “It was a cultural change that we are still going through,” said Halfond.
The BU method was a unique and expensive model to follow. Are there other coping mechanisms colleges and universities can follow? Dean Halfond offered the following approaches for continuing education units:
1) Don’t pursue AACSB accreditation.
2) Fly under the radar using different terminology or application for exclusions (e.g. Leadership degrees, or Professional Studies).
3) Choose to suppress market opportunities. If the school of management is doing it, CE cannot.
4) Pursue the CE delivery service provider model. The school of management owns the faculty and programs, but to some extent it still suppresses opportunity.
5) Secede from the institution with a separate governance structure. This circumvents the AACSB.
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