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July 17, 2009
For Immediate Release
For an Interview:
Ian Wilson
(801) 863-8285
Utah Valley University will officially open the doors of its new Master of Business Administration program in fall 2010. The Utah State Board of Regents unanimously approved the new degree offering today in its monthly meeting, held at the UVU campus.
"This is a great day for Utah Valley University, but also a great day for the Utah Valley community and the greater region that we serve as an institution," said UVU President Matthew Holland. "It signals the seriousness of what’s happening at UVU. We’ve done what we said we would do at the onset of the university initiative in terms of carefully building graduate programs that are in high demand in our service area and support our core teaching mission. This program certainly fits that mold."
The MBA program will be UVU’s third graduate program to come on line since becoming a university July 1, 2008. UVU’s Master of Education program began in fall 2008, and the first cohort for the Master of Science in Nursing program will begin classes this coming fall.
As mutually agreed upon between UVU and Utah State University during the planning of this degree program, the first student cohort for UVU’s MBA program, which will consist of approximately 40 students, will begin this fall as USU phases out its MBA presence in Utah County over the next two years. USU has offered its MBA program on UVU’s campus for the past 15 years.
"We have enjoyed a long-term, collaborative partnership with Utah State University on this campus in a number of areas, including the MBA program," said Elizabeth Hitch, vice president of academic affairs at UVU. "Utah State has done a tremendous job providing the MBA program in this region until UVU was positioned to provide graduate programming in demand in our service region. We fully expect to pick up the strong MBA program they have built and to carry the momentum forward."
The new UVU MBA program will offer two tracks - one in general management and one in accounting.
"The new MBA offering at UVU will bring UVU’s signature engaged learning style to the business environment," said UVU Woodbury School of Business Dean Ian Wilson. "Students will be involved in community development projects in a very hands-on way."
The major manifestation of this engaged learning focus will be in the final master’s course - the Capstone Engaged Learning Project - in which students will be divided into teams and sent out into the area to create and implement community development projects.
"This fits with our University’s mission and is unique to our program," Wilson said. "The community engaged aspect will also be incorporated into a business ethics and social responsibility course where the concept will first be introduced."
Taggart Frost, director of UVU’s MBA program, also noted that the accounting emphasis is valuable in that it provides students a way to take additional accounting courses, allowing them to finish the program with the credits they need in time to sit for the professional CPA exam.
The application deadline for admission to UVU’s MBA program for fall 2010 has been set for Feb. 15, 2010. Applications will be available Sept. 1, 2009. For more information, contact Sylvia Lobendahn in the Woodbury School of Business at (801) 863-7296.
UVU’s Woodbury School of Business is accredited by the The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).
Also approved at today’s Board of Regents meeting was a property agreement between UVU and Mountainland Applied Technology Center (MATC), which will eventually pave the way to a UVU satellite campus at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah. The Regents also approved UVU to begin offering a major, minor and integrated studies emphasis in finance. UVU previously offered only a finance emphasis as part of a general business degree through the Woodbury School of Business.
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University Marketing Contact:
Erin Spurgeon
(801) 863-6807