Two things are known to be constant for anyone who has been around Northeastern long enough: innovation and change. D'Amore-McKim graduate programs, in particular, have been quite nimble through the years in order to meet both market and employer demand. An example of this is our MBA x and MS x options, which were created with the help of employer feedback that students should have perspective and knowledge outside of their chosen business areas to be successful in modern business. For instance, if students only learn marketing, can they truly be effective marketers of medical devices with no appreciation of what the healthcare industry is about? In addition, to allow for graduate business concentrations and coursework outside of our school, we had to make some innovative changes to the structure of our programs and we had to form even stronger ties with our colleagues in other Northeastern colleges.
These themes – innovation, change, and partnership – can be seen in our efforts to create new programs over the last year. I'd like to share more details about a few of our recent graduate program successes in these areas:
- We've seen some really big jumps in Fall 2021 graduate enrollment in programs that were recently added or reimagined to address market needs. For instance, the Quantitative Track in our MS in Finance program was added to our portfolio to provide a STEM-designated finance concentration. Year over year, this program had a 500% increase in new students (that's not a typo!). And enrollment in our recently created MS in Business Analytics program more than doubled. Other programs with notable enrollment increases include the MS in International Management and the MS in Accounting/MBA. A huge thank you goes out to our graduate programs staff for making these fantastic gains possible, especially during a few very different recruiting cycles due to the pandemic. I'd also like to thank our faculty who have really gone above and beyond to accommodate our robust new student cohorts.
- A few weeks ago we were finally able to publicly announce our partnership with the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science that will harness the healthcare and business expertise at both institutions to offer an online Master's in Management degree in digital healthcare transformation. D'Amore-McKim and the Bouvé College of Health Sciences will co-teach select courses with Mayo Clinic faculty. For instance, Marc Meyer, the Robert J. Shillman professor of entrepreneurship and the Matthews distinguished professor, will be teaching a course on innovation for new products, systems, and services. We're very excited to see where this new program will take us!
- Seven months ago we announced a collaboration between D'Amore-McKim and PwC to create an immersive graduate-level learning experience that uniquely integrates our course work with PwC experiential learning opportunities. I'm pleased to say that the initial cohort of certificate learners will complete their program this December, and the initial cohort of MS in Management students will complete their degree program in June 2022. All indicators are showing that this ‘While You Work' collaboration is successful, and PwC has shared that they would like to increase the number of master's students for Summer 2022 by at least 50%. The collaboration also supports PwC's efforts to recruit and retain diverse talent, as part of their ‘Access Your Potential' initiative. Our learners at PwC have consistently told us that they enjoy the program because the coursework is hands-on and directly applicable to their work at PwC, so we look forward to expanding these opportunities there.
Our portfolio of graduate programs continues to evolve to meet the needs of graduate business students in new markets and formats. These programs are an important part of D'Amore-McKim's success, especially since several recent reports continue to show that graduate education improves career outcomes, and we are striving to provide opportunities in this space. Thank you, again, to those that support our graduate programs.
Emery Trahan
Interim Dean
D'Amore-McKim School of Business