By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
When a dozen students graduate with their Executive Master of Business Administration degrees at the end of April, it will mark the end of a nearly 50-year-old program.
The Faculty Senate at its March meeting acted on a proposal to suspend admissions to the program. The BGSU Board of Trustees will have the final say at their May meeting.
David Chatfield, the director of graduate and executive programs in the Schmidthorst College of Business, told the senate that the decision was driven by declining enrollment in the program.
The program had been very successful. It was aimed at adults working full time. They would attend classes one weekend a month for four months each semester for two years. Those intensive classes would last eight hours a day on Saturday and Sunday.
Then in spring, 2020, the university launched its Online MBA program. Fueled by the onset of the pandemic, the growth in that program was explosive. “The popularity of that program has been wonderful,” Chatfield said.
While attendance has declined somewhat since the waning of COVID-19, there are still more than 300 students enrolled. The credentials of the students enrolling in the online masters are very similar to those who had been in the Executive MBA, Chatfield said.
The Executive MBA did not recover.
At the start of the fall 2023 semester, only five students were signed up to begin the face-to-face program. Classes, Chatfied said, were suspended, and those students were offered admission into the online program. Two or three accepted.
The university continued to offer classes for the dozen students still in the program. They will graduate the year.
