UMaine MBA Students Face Obstacle Course as Prelude to Business Program
Contact: George Manlove, 581-3756, Rich Grant, 581-1971
ORONO — They’ve raised the bar on business studies at the University of Maine, specifically as the fall class of new MBA graduate students come to the Orono campus a week early for an unusual “business boot camp,” which includes the university’s MaineBound Challenge Course.
Nearly three dozen students, ranging in age from early and mid-20s to their 40s, will work on communication and teambuilding exercises Wednesday (Aug. 25) afternoon, getting started about 3 p.m. with field warm-up drills before approaching physical and logistical challenges beneath or among cables, tires and high walls on a course designed to test the strongest and boldest of athletes.
But this class includes students straight out of college returning for graduate studies and several experienced, middle-aged professionals returning to academia for a Masters in Business Administration degree.
The challenge course is one of many activities the students will undertake Aug. 22-27, during “residency week,” a week devoted to helping the class members get to know one another and the faculty with whom they’ll be working and studying over the next year-and-a-half.
Such out-of-the-box thinking aims to produce business leaders who can think and perform creatively and make the best advantage of the types of teambuilding they’ll face in a changing, challenging business environment later, says Rich Grant, director of the UMaine School of Business Graduate Programs and Executive Education.
“We expect this residency week to foster a sense of community and identity and socialize the students to the graduate experience,” Grant says.
Students, for their part, appreciate the requirement, even if they do have to report for academic duty a week earlier than the other 10,000-plus students enrolled at UMaine. Residency week is required for new MBA students and voluntary for the Master’s of Science in Accounting.
“I’ll be honest in saying that originally I thought it would be a waste of time,” says MSA student Shana Carney. “This summer I have been working at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Boston. Never before had I realized how important teamwork type skills are. I really believe that the residency week will help to begin to foster these skills as well as build relationships and trusts around students where they most likely do not already exist.”
The residency week emphasizes ethics, leadership, teamwork, communication and case work. It includes a business simulation, several business dilemmas to solve in teams, congregate dinners and the MaineBound experience.
“Our intent is to give incoming graduate students a ‘basic training’ experience that will help them achieve success in their impending studies, as well as in their careers after earning master’s degrees,” says Dan Innis, dean of the College of Business, Public Policy and Health, who will participate Wednesday in the MaineBound Challenge Course.
“Skills such as working well in teams, making effective decisions, and dealing with ambiguity are important ones for our future business leaders to develop,” he says.