Spears online MBA program ranks as one of nation’s best

Mallory Pool Staff Reporter

The results are in, and OSU ranks once again.

OSU’s online master of business administration program has been recognized as one of the nation’s best with Tuesday’s release of the U.S. News and World Report for 2023 Best Online Programs rankings. The online MBA program within Spears School of Business at OSU is tied for No. 27 in this year’s rankings. This makes it the second consecutive year OSU has earned a top 30 ranking.

Ken Eastman, the dean of Spears School of Business, is grateful for the faculty of OSU and their contribution toward the ranking.

“The online MBA program’s accession in the rankings can be attributed to the dedicated efforts of our faculty and staff,” Eastman said. “We believe our program is one of the best in the country, and it is nice to continue to be recognized annually in these prestigious rankings.” news.ed@ocolly.com

The ranking for Spears’ MBA online program competes against over 370 colleges and universities observed. It was also ranked as third best of the Big 12 Conference schools. The program furthers its climb in the U.S. News and World Report list, moving from No. 40 in 2020 to No. 32 in 2021 and finally, No. 28 in 2022, for the past three years.

On top of the program receiving the prestigious recognition, the overall online program for business masters degree choices at Spears School of Business and the online MBA program for veterans were admired and honored as the country’s best by U.S. News and World Report. Several aspects were considered when determining these rankings including the value students receive, teaching practices and quality of faculty.

OSU was tied at No. 18 for online MBA programs for services for veterans. In online graduate school business options, except for the MBA program, OSU was tied for No. 75.

U.S. News and World Report ranks programs annually that let students complete undergraduate and graduate degrees using online learning technology. The rankings and lists are based on school surveys and have information such as graduation rates, admission data, faculty credentials and validity, best instructional practices, technology quality and program reputation among recognized business schools across the country.

At OSU, the MBA option at Spears School of Business continues to see unmatched growth as the three combined options, the on-campus program in Stillwater, Professional MBA in Tulsa and the online program, experience a 50% increase in enrollment since 2020.

To learn more about online business graduate school at OSU, including the ranked MBA, visit business.okstate.edu.

To view the entire list from U.S. News and World Report 2023 Best Online MBA Programs rankings, go to their website.

But ballroom dancing has especially been a draw for older immigrants in Southern California, not only as an art form popular in their countries of origin but also one that’s embraced, recognized and accessible in the U.S.

“Lots of immigrant communities — Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino — have ballroom dance studios,” said Carolina San Juan, director of graduate mentoring for the academic advancement program at UCLA, who did her master’s thesis on Filipino American ballroom dancers. “It’s ours, ballroom dancing belongs to us, and when I say us, I mean all immigrants. Lots of immigrant communities, not just Asians.”

A 2007 scholarly article from the Journal of Asian American Studies noted that although dance studios are “ubiquitous” across Southern California, only a few existed expressly for internationalstyle ballroom dancing, with the largest located in Asian American enclaves such as Monterey Park — a city several miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

“Interestingly, none of these studios exist in Los Angeles’ fashionable Westside or in the Santa Monica or Malibu areas,” wrote the article’s author, George Uba. “Nor do any exist in the demographically white areas of Ventura County or in upscale Santa Barbara. One triangular sector of the Asian-populated San Gabriel Valley has more of these large international dance studios than does all of Orange County.”

In an email to the Los Angeles Times, Uba, a professor emeritus and former department head of English at Cal State Northridge, said older Asian immigrants go ballroom dancing primarily for the exercise, to socialize and for “the aesthetic properties of the dance.”

“Dance studios like Star and Lai Lai with their afternoon tea dances and evening dance ‘parties’ are not only filled with AAPI dancers but are primarily devoted to the social dancers, not the competition-level international-style dancers,” Uba said.

Ballroom dancing experienced a surge in popularity with middle-aged professionals in both Asia and the U.S. at the end of the 20th century, helped along by televised ballroom competitions and popular films.

The middling 2004 American ballroom dancing movie “Shall We Dance?” starring Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez and Susan Sarandon was actually a remake of a more well-received 1996 Japanese film of the same name, starring Koji Yakusho as an adrift office worker who decides to take up ballroom dancing.

The original “Shall We

Dance?” swept top film awards in Japan, where some ballroom dancing competitions at the time could draw as many as 20,000 spectators. It also struck a social chord, arriving at a time of loosening social mores in Japan.

Ballroom dance had also grown popular in other Asian nations, such as the Philippines, as well as with immigrant diasporas.

“It was so popular at the time, the early 2000s, that there would be Filipino Americans who would pool their money together to get a visa from dance instructors from Manila to come to the U.S. to teach them the latest dancing moves from Manila,” said San Juan.

In 2019, “Walk Run ChaCha,” a 20-minute documentary directed by Laura Nix, told the story of two older Vietnamese refugees, Chipaul and Millie Cao, who had thrown themselves into ballroom dancing at Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio in Alhambra — where bystanders disarmed the Star Ballroom shooter before he could potentially carry out a second massacre.

“I work as an engineer. We work full time. We can afford to retire. Our daughter has her own life right now,” Chipaul Cao narrates in the documentary, which was Oscarnominated for documentary short. “So we go to the club at least four nights per week, taking group lesson, private lesson, and dance on the floor three hours in the evening. Why am I spending so much time dancing? Am I crazy?”

Cao added, “We know we don’t have a lot of time left. We’re making up for the lost time.”

Minn Vo, 46, who runs a jazz dance ensemble called Hollywood Hotshots, knew the slain owner of the Star Ball- room, Ming Wei Ma, 72, and paid tribute to the welcoming space that Ma had fostered at the Star Ballroom for all sorts of dancers.

“He was really passionate and generous,” Vo said. The club “brought the community together. Rich, poor, there was no class there. It was Asianowned but really diverse. This is so really devastating. All my memories from there now are gone.”

Hamamoto, the professional dancer, urged dancers to keep dancing.

“We go through the toughest parts of life by moving our bodies,” she said. “Dancing is an escape, and I hope we don’t run away from studios too. We have to keep this community alive.”