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In this issue of Dragonfire:
- Drexel Part-Time MBA Ranked No. 1 in the Nation for Academic Quality
- Senate President Steinberg Wows 100
- Drexel's iSchool Connects with University in China
- Drexel MS(LIS) Professor Honored
- The Drexel InterView™: From Philadelphia to Sacramento and Beyond
- Sacramento MBAs Place Third in International Business Competition
- KCRA3 Features Drexel HRD Student on Veterans Day
- Lamarche'ing to Excellence in Student Service
- News from the EdD Bureau
- Sacramento Grad Students Meet Golden Dragons
- Latinos and Higher Education: A Bicoastal Initiative
- Drexel Public Health Study: Seniors Should Eat More Fruits and Vegetables
- GMAT Prep Session Scheduled — Sign up ASAP
- Next Information Sessions: December 16 and January 9
Drexel Part-Time MBA Ranked No. 1 in the Nation for Academic Quality
The part-time MBA program that Drexel is teaching here in Sacramento as well as in Philadelphia has been named number one for academic quality in BusinessWeek's 2009 rankings of part-time MBA programs. The LeBow College of Business Part-Time MBA ranked 10th in the nation overall. It was also ranked first in the country for "career switchers."
The overall ranking was based on three factors: academic quality, post-MBA outcomes, and a survey of MBA student satisfaction. In ranking LeBow College of Business first in academic quality, BusinessWeek combined six equally weighted measures: average GMAT score, average student work experience, the percentage of tenured instructors, average class size in core business courses, the number of business electives available to part-timers, and the percentage of students who ultimately complete the program.
"The Drexel Part-Time MBA is committed to exceeding the needs of our students and alumni and is a key factor in their upward mobility, as evidenced by the achievements of our MBA students and alumni," said LeBow College of Business Dean George P. Tsetsekos, PhD. "And to be ranked number one in academic quality by BusinessWeek is a testament to our growing stature as one of the world's leading resources for business education. This ranking validates the rigorous experiential education, leadership assessment, and global perspective that LeBow provides for MBA candidates."
In the student satisfaction survey, LeBow College of Business graduates reported that the Part-Time MBA program is rigorous, and that "the business principles learned are worth the hard work." BusinessWeek says that part-time MBA programs at schools that ranked highly, such as LeBow College, "were able to help students navigate the downturn with career support tailored to their particular circumstances, while the top executive-education programs were able to convince corporate clients that their courses are critical, even in today's tough financial climate. "Drexel is teaching this top ranked MBA in Sacramento with the same curriculum and the same professors, who often fly to Sacramento to teach." Attend an upcoming Information Session to learn more.
Senate President Steinberg Wows 100
Thirty Master's in Public Policy students in Philadelphia joined 70 students and faculty in Sacramento for the second program in Drexel's speakers series titled "What It Means to Lead: Coast-to-Coast Conversations with Business and Civic Leaders." The guest was California Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, one of the state's most powerful elected officials, fresh from his success in crafting a remarkable legislative package for controlling the state's most precious resource: water. In an intimate session, the senator spoke about personal experiences that have shaped him as a leader, the principles that guide him, and the heavy demands that leadership imposes on those who lead. "Wonderful," "remarkable," "so open," "totally different from what I expected,"—these were some of the comments from our students afterwards.
Waste Connections CEO Ron Mittelstaedt will be the next Leadership Speakers Series guest on January 7, 2010. If you have enrolled in a Drexel graduate program by then, you will be invited.
Drexel's iSchool Connects with University in China
Across the country and across the globe, the iSchool at Drexel is having an impact in the field of information science and technology.
This fall, faculty from the iSchool at Drexel participated in the 5th International Conference on Webometrics, Infometrics, and Scientometrics (WIS) and the 10th Collnet Meeting at Dalian University of Technology (DUT) in China. During the visit, Dr. David Fenske, Dean of the iSchool at Drexel, signed a research and teaching agreement with DUT, which will establish a Joint Institute for the Study of Knowledge and Visualization and Scientific Discovery. This institute aims to facilitate and consolidate long-term international collaboration between the colleges in such research areas as information visualization, infometrics, and scientometrics, among others. Drexel's iSchool has been named among the "most innovative" IT schools in the country by Computerworld.
Drexel's MS in Information Systems is taught at the Sacramento Graduate Center, with a new cohort starting in March 2010.
Drexel MS(LIS) Professor Honored
Dr.
Linda Marion, who taught a course for Sacramento's Library
and Information Science Master's program during its first term, was
honored by Drexel University as one of the 2009 Outstanding Online Instructors
during National Distance Learning Week. Dr. Marion's major teaching areas
comprise core courses in the MS program. Her background is in the social
sciences, and her professional experience includes academic and corporate
libraries. Prior to joining the library and information science profession,
Dr. Marion was a licensed psychologist. Her primary research interests
focus on aspects of formal and informal communication including bibliometric
studies of scholarly literature and analysis of the LIS and IS/IT job
market.
The MS in Library and Information Science is one of Drexel's most popular programs in Sacramento. Drexel's MS(LIS) is one of just 62 such programs in the country accredited by the ALA. It is ranked 11th in the nation by U.S.News and World Report, with specialties in Information Systems and Digital Librarianship rated fifth and sixth, respectively. It is the perfect degree for someone who loved the liberal arts in college and understands the critical role that the "knowledge industry" will play in our world's future. Stop by the Graduate Center to meet Dr. Toni Carbo, world-renowned in LIS circles, or attend an Information Session. The next cohort starts in March 2010.
The Drexel InterView™: From Philadelphia to Sacramento and Beyond
The Drexel InterView™, a series of lively, half-hour interviews hosted by Dr. Paula Marantz Cohen, distinguished professor of English at Drexel University, premiered in 2004 on Drexel's cable television station, DUTV. Less than six years later, the program can now be seen on more than 258 stations across the country, including PBS station KVIE and Access Sacramento in Sacramento.
The Drexel InterView™ features conversations with nationally known and emerging talents in the arts, culture, science, and society. Among those who have appeared on the program are former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani Hon. '09, MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews Hon.'03, and cultural and social critic Camille Paglia.
Starting next month, 3CTV will broadcast 40 episodes of The Drexel InterView™ to 110 California community colleges and its eight partner university television stations. 3CTV is responsible for all broadcast, program selection, and scheduling for all California community college television. 3CTV's partner institutions include City College of San Francisco, Southwestern College, Long Beach City College, Butte College, Irvine Valley College, San Bernardino Valley College, Cerritos College, and San Joaquin Delta College.
Learn more by visiting The Drexel InterView page.
Sacramento MBAs Place Third in International Business Competition
There is nothing easy about assuming leadership in a company that has no clear direction, is failing to meet customer demands, or is experiencing financial difficulties. Yet that was the theoretical challenge facing four MBA students from the Center for Graduate Studies. Despite their diverse backgrounds — or perhaps because of them — Samuel Applebaum, Robert Dodge, Scott Freeman, and Steven Pon took third place recently in the Capsim Foundation Business Simulation, an international competition involving 185 teams from colleges and universities around the country including Dartmouth, Baylor, Texas Christian, and Brigham Young.
Although the Foundation Business Simulation is billed as a "game," it required plenty of time and effort from all four members on the Sacramento team, who have full-time jobs, attend graduate school several nights a week, and are also married with young children. During the qualifying round, the group met eight nights over a two-week period to make decisions concerning their fictionalized company. Each simulated year, the management team must make key decisions in research and development, marketing, finance, human resources and production. In later rounds, decisions in total quality management are added.
The diverse skills of Applebaum (a doctor), Dodge (an information technology director), Freeman (an accountant), and Pon (an engineer) proved to be a winning combination. "Each one of us brought different things to the table and had different perspectives," said Pon, project manager for PASCO Marketing in Roseville, California. "How our team, with its different perspectives, made decisions was pretty interesting," said Freeman, who is financial planning director for Lakemont Homes. "It was absolutely a great experience," said Applebaum, a family physician with Sutter Medical Roseville. "If you did something like overproduce a product, thinking you could sell more, then you didn't, you would have to take out a loan the following year to make up for that mistake." Dodge is the owner/developer and director of Web marketing for Magnadyne Corporation.
The worldwide competition included teams from Taiwan, Canada, Poland, Australia, and Austria. Drexel entered 15 teams, including the one from Sacramento. "Just being the number one team from Drexel was very nice," Freeman said.
KCRA 3 Features Drexel HRD Student on Veterans Day
Genevieve "Gennie" Hudson
and her family were featured
on NBC's local affiliate KCRA 3 Sacramento on Veteran's Day. Gennie,
an Army veteran, served in Afghanistan and Iraq. She is now a graduate
student in Human Resource Development (HRD) at Drexel, under the new
GI Bill's Yellow Ribbon Program. Drexel has committed $2 million to offer free
education to an unlimited number of post-9/11 military veterans across
all of the University's full- and part-time programs.
"Drexel University honors and proudly supports the men and women who have served our country in the armed forces," said Dr. Salvatore Falletta, associate clinical professor and associate program director for Human Resource Development (HRD) — also a veteran who served over 10 years in the U.S. Air Force.
Recruitment has already begun for Drexel's MS in Human Resource Development in Sacramento, which will begin in March 2010. Those with questions should contact Dr. Salvatore Falletta, at salhrd@drexel.edu or call the Graduate Center at 916-325-4600.
This was just one of many news stories about Drexel's Yellow Ribbon program. Learn more about the Yellow Ribbon Program on Drexel's Financial Aid website.
Lamarche'ing to Excellence in Student Service
You might wonder whether a private, nationally ranked, East Coast University, even with 118 years of experience, is really serious about duplicating its excellent student service 3,000 miles from its home base. Juanita Lamarche is one more answer. She comes to Drexel's School of Education in Sacramento after having spent seven years supporting faculty, counseling working adult students, and coordinating schedules for another university in the region. She knows online pedagogy and the ins and outs of Blackboard. She's full-time at the Drexel Graduate Center as a graduate program manager and counsels students in the MS Higher Education, MS Human Resource Development, and EdD degree programs. Embodying Drexel's commitment to community, she's also the co-founder and center director of Mindfulness Counseling Center, a nonprofit counseling center for the underserved in El Dorado County. She's pursuing her master's in psychology; and if you really want to go off-line with her, she has two decades of experience as a service manager with Porsche, Jaguar, and Land Rover. How's that for high-end quality?
News from the EdD Bureau: Learning Together Across Our Differences
An underlying learning principle in the EdD is the notion that learning is social. When people seek answers through collaborative processes, rich understanding develops and unforeseen knowledge is generated. Doing so with colleagues from different perspectives and geographies makes such social learning all the more powerful. So it is for those taking courses in the EdD. For example, within the course "Educational Leadership and Change," learners engage in a "cross-disciplinary" group problem focused on change and how leaders respond to it. The challenge has two key learning components:
- Identification of change(s) in K–12, higher education, and business organizations created by technological innovation and global/economic trends in the past two decades.
- Application of principles of sustainability and global change to identify a leader's options for managing change in each identified area.
Creative thinking is essential, as the teams draw upon the knowledge and experience from their colleagues' wide array of backgrounds. By addressing this problem together, the team enriches individual member's understanding and practice of the leadership necessary in our changing times.
Team members in the California cohort learn with their counterparts from Pennsylvania in teams of four — two on each coast. To bridge the continent, learners use a range of technologies, some traditional (conference calls and faxes) and some Web-based (Wiki, Skype, blog, classroom meeting area within Blackboard). The means of communicating with each other, thus, is as much a learning experience as addressing the problem.
Drexel's EdD in Educational Leadership and Management has quickly become the Graduate Center's most popular new program. It is now enrolling students for the cohort beginning March 2010. If you have questions, attend an Information Session or contact EdD program director Dr. Ed Bureau at web28@drexel.edu or call the Graduate Center at 916-325-4600.
Sacramento Grad Students Meet Golden Dragons
Drexel has over 110,000 alumni worldwide. Two thousand of them live in northern California, and over 100 of them live in the Greater Sacramento region. In November, six of the University's newest members met Drexel alumni, including several of our oldest, as members of the inaugural classes at Drexel's Center for Graduate Studies in Sacramento had lunch in Granite Bay with some Golden Dragons (those who graduated from Drexel 50 years or more ago!). The students spoke about why they chose Drexel and how they are finding the experience, and the alumni said how proud they were that Drexel had chosen this region for its first-ever campus outside of the Philadelphia area.
Pictured here are Sacramento Dean Tobey Oxholm with two Golden Dragon graduates of Drexel's medical school (formerly the Woman's Medical College and Hahnemann Medical College).
Latinos and Higher Education: A Bicoastal Initiative
On Tuesday, October 20, Goodwin College's School of Education, in collaboration with community partners, organized the first Latino Heritage event to be broadcast bicoastal and online. The Exito Latino/Latino Success event was attended by over 70 individuals in Philadelphia, Sacramento, and online around the globe. The event had viewers from as far away as Australia! The program included several keynote speakers on both coasts who are well versed in the issues facing Latinos today.
In Sacramento, Dr. Jesse Ortiz, a professor at Woodland Community College, researcher and speaker on Latino affairs, addressed the demographic shift and economic impact the Latino population is having in California and the nation; leading Sacramento attorney Larry Garcia, of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Sacramento, CA Board of Directors, chair of scholarship committee, spoke on the critical importance of higher education's role in developing partnerships with Hispanic organizations; and Victoria Rosario, associate vice chancellor of student services, Los Rios Community College District, talked about the critical need of recruiting Latino students to postsecondary institutions and careers in higher education administration.
At the Philadelphia campus, the keynote speaker was Joe Garcia, leader of the National Congress of Puerto Rican Rights, who discussed the importance of involvement in Latino community organizations. These motivational speakers prompted several audience members to ask how they can get involved in planning for next year's event. Stay tuned!
Drexel Public Health Study: Seniors Should Eat More Fruits and Vegetables
A new study of adults aged 70 years or older found that increased servings of fruits and vegetables were significantly associated with a decrease of cognitive impairment, and that those eating three or more servings of vegetables per day had a 30 percent lower risk of death from heart disease.
The study was led by Dr. Longjian Liu, a professor at the Drexel University School of Public Health. The results of the study were first reported in the November 3, 2009 edition of Circulation, an American Heart Association journal.
GMAT Prep Session Scheduled — Sign Up ASAP
If you want to be part of Drexel's Part-Time MBA, in Sacramento or in Philly, you must take the GMAT; and unless you simply love taking standardized tests, you will want some help. For those who have already started the application process for the MBA cohort that will begin in March 2010, Drexel is offering a GMAT prep course on the weekend of January 16–17. We limit the number of students so each can have individual attention from the nationally acclaimed teacher we fly in from Boston. If you want to be included in this prep session, get started now on your Drexel application — it's online and easy to do.
Next Information Sessions: December 16 and January 9
Isn't it about time you put a master's degree, or a doctorate on your holiday wish list — or made obtaining an advanced degree a New Year's resolution? There's no better time than now to think about where you want to be in a few years, and we're convinced that Drexel's dynamic, proven approach to learning will position you for success. Attend one of our upcoming Information Sessions and find out for yourself. You'll have the opportunity to meet the dean, faculty members, current students, and future classmates. Parking is complimentary, food is provided, and you can explore our state-of-the-art facility while learning about the six degree programs that will start again in March. Register now.
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