Elon MBA Viewbook 2014

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in the SOUTH

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in the NATION

Bloomberg Businessweek part-time MBA ranking

TODAY’S LESSONS.

TOMORROW’S

SOLUTIONS.

Martha and Spencer Love School of Business

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Bloomberg Businessweek ranks Elon the part-time MBA program in the South, with top scores in student satisfaction, post-MBA outcomes and A+ grades in teaching quality and curriculum.

The Princeton Review named Elon’s MBA the #2 “best administered” program and also ranks Elon among the top business schools in the Southeast in its 2014 edition of the “Best 295 Business Schools.”

A Nationally Ranked Program Designed to Support Your Professional Goals Develop your leadership and business talents in the #1 part-time MBA program in the South. The Elon MBA gives you the advantages of a full-time program in a part-time setting, including career services, international study and flexible scheduling options. You’ll soon find yourself applying lessons learned in the classroom to the workplace.

The program combines face-to-face classroom experiences, a motivated, distinguished faculty, and an active and inclusive community of students from a variety of fields. You’ll graduate with the skills and the confidence to accelerate your career, transform your organization, and take on leadership roles in your community.

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Juan ACOSTA ’14 Manager of Business Development, Siemens Industry-Smart Grid

“The Elon MBA becomes part of your life for a couple of years. You start seeing everything differently, even your personal finances. You start thinking about companies in a different light and you begin to have conversations with co-workers on a new range of topics. Meetings are different, too.

You get a better sense of the most productive questions to ask and how to quickly and efficiently move projects forward.”

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Foundations for Success The Elon MBA teaches students to master theory and then apply that theory to the opportunities and problems that drive businesses in a competitive global economy. The 39-hour program is organized around three fundamental concepts: managing, knowledge and skills. These core concepts are woven throughout the curriculum into classroom experiences and engaged learning exercises.

Cu ing-Edge Facilities MBA students study, learn and network in the Ernest A. Koury, Sr. Business Center. The three-story, 60,000-square-foot facility features a variety of thoughtfully designed resources, including: > The William Garrard Reed Finance Center, which provides real-time data from global financial markets > LaRose Digital Theatre, a 240-seat facility wired for multimedia and videoconferencing technology > A café designed for MBA students coming to class straight from work > The Doherty Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership > The Chandler Family Professional Sales Center > The Porter Family Professional Development Center > Three computer labs with the latest software > Classrooms, study rooms and student research rooms > Open areas designed to encourage student-faculty collaboration

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MBA Fundamental: Managing Elon MBA alumni are prepared for the difficult and complicated work of managing the modern organization.

Effective management requires dealing with a steadily increasing variety of tasks and responsibilities. As an Elon MBA graduate, you’ll be prepared to manage: > Human Capital: Coordinating the work of others; guiding, directing and motivating staff; coaching and developing others; organizing, planning and prioritizing work > Decision-making: Obtaining and processing information; making decisions and solving problems; judging the quality of things, services or people > Administrative Activities: Creating and managing budgets; documenting and recording information; evaluating information to determine quality and compliance; performing general administrative activities > Strategy and Innovation: Analyzing information; thinking creatively; developing objectives and strategies > Communication: Communicating with persons outside the organization; establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships; selling to or influencing others

How You Get There: Examples of Elon MBA Coursework Focused on Managing Strategic Management (core course) Focus on the competitive and environmental issues confronting organizations, and discuss how firms identify, seize and defend market opportunities. Students apply concepts such as competitor analysis, target marketing, strategy formulation, environmental analysis, market research and critical success factors.

Project Management (elective course) Obtain an overview of the knowledge, skills and processes associated with project management. Students learn about project planning, scheduling and controlling, and take part in skill building exercises using project management tools, techniques and software.

Katie Galbraith ’7

was named president of Duke Regional Hospital in May 2014. Galbraith has held various responsibilities at the hospital since 2001 and formerly served as the hospital’s vice president.

Prior to joining Duke Regional Hospital, Galbraith was the public relations manager for Duke Children’s Hospital and Health Center.

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Sara JOHNSON ’13 Clinical Adminstrator, Duke Gastroenterology

“The Elon MBA helped me recognize my strengths and gave me the push I needed to pursue a new career in a challenging and growing industry. I left the program with increased confidence in my professional abilities and a renewed love of learning. I was quickly able to apply lessons I learned in the classroom to my professional life and I continue to apply those lessons on a daily basis.

I thoroughly enjoyed being around my smart and accomplished classmates and will always value the friendships I made in the program.”

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MBA Fundamental: Knowledge Graduate business education requires the acquisition and mastery of a broad body of knowledge. After completing your Elon MBA, your range of knowledge will include: > Technology, Design and Process: Production and processes; engineering and technology; software design > Human Behavior and Society: Psychology; education and training; law and government > General Business Functions: Administration and management; economics and accounting; finance; operations; analytics; personnel and human resources management > Media Communications and Delivery: Media communications; computers; social media

How You Get There: Examples of Elon MBA Coursework Focused on Knowledge Management & Organizational Behavior (core course) Learn to develop the skills needed to manage and lead organizations, with an emphasis on issues such as motivation, managing change, performance, quality and operations, and a rigorous analysis of human behaviors at work.

Students also learn traditional and nontraditional approaches to leadership and followership.

Employment Law (elective course) Think like a manager as you study employment law topics including the classification of workers; wage and hour laws; legal frameworks governing equal employment opportunity; occupational safety and health; workers’ compensation; and work-related privacy issues. While analyzing cases and problems, students enhance their abilities to reach informed, defensible decisions in the workplace.

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MBA Fundamental: Skills Managers must be able to apply skills across a wide variety of organizational settings. The skills that effective management requires are increasingly complex and demanding. As an Elon MBA student, your work will focus on a set of key management skills: > Interpersonal Skills: Active listening; social perceptiveness; persuasion and negotiation; time management; team building and teamwork > Operations Skills: Quality control analysis; technology design; operation monitoring > Strategic and Systems Skills: Complex problem solving; judgment and decision-making; systems analysis and evaluation; management of financial resources; management of material resources > Generative Thinking Skills: Innovation; analytical thinking

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How You Get There: Examples of Elon MBA Coursework Focused on Skills Advanced Operations and Supply Chain (core course)

Innovation and New Product Development (elective course)

Learn to assess performance, analyze business processes and implement process change. This course demonstrates the importance of the integration of information systems technology in organizational change processes. It introduces database tools for managing and analyzing information and explores the implications of eCommerce and supply chain software applications.

Explore individual creativity and organizational innovation fundamental to successful entrepreneurship. Topics include new product development and marketing, including ideation, consumer insights and communication strategies. This course is ideal for students considering a career in marketing as well as those contemplating entrepreneurial opportunities.

Wayne PRICE ’14 Senior Global Treasury Analyst, VF Corporation

“I came to Elon hoping to learn by applying concepts that I had not been using dayto-day in my career. Working in new areas like marketing and operations expanded the scope of my business acumen, and writing about unfamiliar topics helped me communicate more effectively.

I spent a lot of time focused on building flexible processes to thoroughly analyze situations.

This wasn’t new to me, but the MBA program provided an environment to focus on and improve these processes.”

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Full-time Advantages in a Part-time Format Business in the Global Marketplace The best way to learn about and understand the challenges — and the opportunities — of the global marketplace is to see it firsthand. MBA students have the option to travel to countries such as Argentina, Chile, the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Singapore and Vietnam as part of international study classes offered twice each year. Seventy percent of Elon MBA students take part in these experiences, held in January and June. The Elon MBA program subsidizes a substantial portion of the international travel in order to ensure the experiences are affordable.

Each January, Elon MBA and Elon School of Law students travel together, meeting with top business, government, law and banking leaders in China, Hong Kong, Singapore or Vietnam. Working in teams, these students create a new product for a hypothetical company, explore the idea of making or selling the product in a foreign market, and develop strategies that would allow their firm to successfully enter and compete in their target market.

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Your international business education continues in the classroom with discussions, speakers and projects focused on topics related to marketing, human resources management, economics and strategy.

Hands-on Experience

Outstanding Faculty

Students were tasked with developing process charts for the companies’ processes using a value stream mapping methodology, and then generating improvements to the processes.

Elon MBA faculty members are leaders in both the academic and professional worlds. They have earned postgraduate degrees from some of the finest business schools in the country. They have varied executive experience with firms large and small, in manufacturing, service, scientific and financial organizations. Many of the program’s instructors have worked or taught in international markets, and all teach with the goal of equipping you for success.

MBA classes are small, with an emphasis on student discussion and interaction. Faculty members are accessible in and out of class.

This atmosphere of personal attention, combined with dedication to teaching and reasonable cost, is a key distinction of the Elon MBA program.

Students in advanced operations and supply chain management recently completed process improvement projects for five Alamance County companies: Sandvik, Carolina Biological Supply, LabCorp, Aramark and Luxfer Gas Cylinders.

“My biggest takeaway from this experience was exposure to the processes of other companies,” says student Andrew Elliott.

“It provided the class with a very broad and positive look at how real organizations manage their day-to-day operations and the challenges they face. It reinforced the conceptual ideas presented in the class lectures with physical examples you could observe and interact with.”

Career Services Students and alumni have access to a very active Career Services staff who serve as powerful resources in career changes, job searches, salary negotiations and relocation.

The program begins and ends with individual career assessments and coaching from MBA professors.

Career advancement and job search workshops are offered throughout the program for students seeking new professional opportunities.

Electives and Concentrations The MBA curriculum includes a variety of elective courses. You can take electives from different areas, or concentrate in an area that matches personal and professional goals.

Concentrations are offered in entrepreneurship, organizational analytics, marketing and human resources.

Organizational Analytics Concentrations Analytics II: Spreadsheet Decision Making (elective course) Gain a conceptual understanding of the role management science plays in the decision making process. You’ll focus on the development of decision models and their application to management problems.

Analytics III: Business Data Mining (elective course) Examine how data analysis technologies can be used to improve decision-making and study the principles and techniques of data mining. You’ll examine real world examples and cases to place data-mining techniques in context, to develop dataanalytic thinking, and to illustrate that proper application is as much an art as it is a science.

JD/MBA Degrees Program The Martha and Spencer Love School of Business and the Elon University School of Law offer a four-year JD/MBA program so that students may earn both their JD and their MBA degrees in less time, and at a lower cost, than if both degrees were pursued separately.

Students must apply separately to both programs. Students may select from two sequences so that they may complete both degrees in a manner that is most suitable to their preferences and professional goals.

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Jaronda INGRAM ’15 Materials Leader, GE Aviation

“I’ve always wanted to complement my engineering background with a business education. I chose Elon because of the small class sizes, reputation and affordability.

One of my biggest takeaways from the MBA program has been the network of peers, classmates and friends that I’ve picked up along the way. Because I knew I was joining a tight-knit network of students and alumni, I was determined to learn as much from my peers as I did through formal instruction. I’m happy to say this was a great value-added component of the program.”

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Strong Community A Network of Colleagues and Business Associates Find yourself in a community of students excited about their classes and eager to accelerate their careers. The Elon MBA emphasizes the importance of teamwork and attracts students who collaborate to achieve greater goals. Join the active Elon MBA Student-Alumni Association and have fun networking with professionals from across central North Carolina. Recent activities include:

Flexible Scheduling Many MBA students juggle demanding jobs and family obligations that prevent them from returning to school full time.

Recognizing that, the Elon MBA can be customized to fit your specific needs.

Start the program in the fall or spring and set your own pace — take one class at a time and earn your degree in 33 months, or take two at a time and finish in just 21 months. You can create a hybrid track and chart your own course.

> > > >

Elon Phoenix football tailgates Annual “Cocktails & Musical” event Annual summer Pig Pickin’ picnic Trips to Greensboro Grasshoppers and Durham Bulls baseball games > Annual charity golf tournament > After-work socials across the Triad and Triangle

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MBA Curriculum Classes are designed to emphasize the practical application of business theory. Students master the material and then apply those lessons to real-world scenarios.

Two Required Non-Credit Workshops > Introduction to MBA > MBA Case Competition Core Courses (1 courses, 3 credit hours) > > > > > > > > > >

Enhancing Managerial Communications Economic Policy and the Global Environment Accounting for Managerial Decisions Marketing Management Financial Management Management and Organizational Behavior Analytics I – Quantitative Methods International Business Strategic Management Organizational Systems Requirement Students select from one of the following three courses: • Advanced Operations and Supply Chain • Project Management • Analytics II: Spreadsheet Decision Making

Electives/Concentrations (3 courses, 9 credit hours) The MBA curriculum also includes three elective courses, allowing students to match coursework with their personal and professional goals. Students are able to develop a concentration in a particular topic, or take classes in several different areas. You decide.

Elective Examples: > > > >

Employment Law Marketing Research Entrepreneurship Innovation & New Product Development

Concentrations: > > > >

Organizational Analytics Marketing Entrepreneurship Human Resources

The MBA program requires all students demonstrate adequate preparation in accounting and finance prior to enrolling in the core MBA accounting and finance courses. Students might need to take one or both of the following courses: > Principles of Finance > Principles of Accounting

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Student Profile The average cohort has 30 students, and the average age of Elon MBA students is 31.

MBA students are employed across the Triad and the Triangle at companies such as Bank of America, Cisco Systems, Duke Energy, IBM, LapCorp, RF Micro Devices, UNC Healthcare and Volvo Trucks North America, Inc.

Apply Today The Elon MBA enrolls each September and March. Applications are evaluated on a rolling basis throughout the year. Please submit all required application materials as early as possible, but no later than August 15 for fall semester and February 15 for spring semester.

Visit elon.edu/mba for a complete list of requirements and additional admissions information.

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Office of Graduate Admissions Post Office Box 398 Elon, NC 27244-2010

800-334-8448 ext. 3 gradadm@elon.edu elon.edu/mba myElonMBA ElonMBAprogram

About Elon

U.S. News & World Report ranks Elon the #1 Southern master’slevel university and among the top universities in the nation on seven high-impact educational experiences. Elon is one of the nation’s top 25 “Best Value” private universities, according to Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine. Elon offers more than 60 undergraduate majors and awards master’s degrees in business administration, education, interactive media and physician assistant studies.

A doctor of physical therapy degree is also offered. The Elon University School of Law offers the J.D. degree.

The Martha and Spencer Love School of Business is accredited

by AACSB International — The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Fewer than 5 percent of the world’s business schools have earned AACSB accreditation.

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