March 11, 2015

By Rumasa Noor

UW-Whitewater’s Golden Key International Honor Society organized an event on March 2, as a part of Key to Success: Masters Series program. The event featured speaker Dr. John Chenoweth, dean of College of Business and Economics (COBE),  who spoke about the different graduate programs offered by COBE.
“We have now six graduate programs as well as a variety of certificates in the college,” Chenoweth said.
Golden Key Society constitutes the top 10 percent of students from the university, said Amy Kuhlen, President of Golden Key International Honor Society.
“What makes us different from a lot of other honor societies like Beta Alpha Psi is only accounting,” Kuhlen said. “Golden Key is a general society so it’s all majors across the spectrum.”
The accounting major said the group saw a decrease in membership last semester, which is why they decided to organize the Key to Success program, to reach out to the students across campus and have them get involved in the organization and the program.

Programs and Certificates
The graduate programs include Master of Business Administration (MBA), Master of Professional Accountancy (MPA), Master of Science in Applied Economics (MS Econ), Master of Science in Environmental Safety and Health (MS Safety), Master of Science in Education in School Business Management (MSE) and Doctor of Business Administration (DBA).
Chenoweth said the college also offers graduate certificates which consist of Business Foundations, Human Resource Management, and Project Management programs.
A disadvantage of certificates is that students are unable to receive financial aid to pursue them.

Graduate Programs
UW-W MBA program includes emphasis on Finance, Project Management, Supply Chain Management, Human Resource Management, Information Technology Management, Management, International Business, and Marketing. It also provides an option to customize the degree.
“We do have students that do a customized option that might be because they can’t decide between project management and marketing so they take two courses from each,” Chenoweth said.
The COBE head said students from any field of study can pursue MBA, whereas MPA works slightly differently than that.
“The vast majority of students that are in MPA program are finishing up their undergraduate program at Whitewater in accounting, rolling directly into the MPA,” Chenoweth said. “Unlike the MBA where there are a lot of possibilities in terms of a career, for the MPA, the idea is you want to be an accountant, so they teach you everything you need to know to be an accountant and primarily I would say focused on a CPA.”
He said, although, students with any major can enter MPA but they would have to do quite a bit of accounting coursework to get through the program.
The Masters of Science in Applied Economics, a newly introduced, year-long program that has 20 students mostly consisting of those who are about to finish their undergraduate degree.

Doctoral programs
COBE introduced doctorate of business administration, designed for full-time working professionals. It also consists of 20 cohorts who attend college over the weekend, and work full-time during weekdays.
“We require minimum six years of experience before you can even enter the doctoral program,” Chenoweth said. “They are taking nine credits every semester in addition to working 40 plus hours a week, most of these folks are midlevel or upper level managers.”
Chenoweth said managerial level experience is required of the cohorts.

Masters programs, COBE rankings
COBE isn’t racing to become the top-rated college but it is looking into being recognized, said COBE dean.
“Some schools sort of chase the rankings, we haven’t been a rankings chaser,” Chenoweth said. “Although we are starting to look in that space as well; it’s a nice value added for our graduates.”
He said the college has been recognized for its online degrees, which is where most of the degrees originally initiated.
Kuhlen, who is considering to come back to UW-W to pursue a master’s degree in accounting, said the Key to Success program has helped her learn more about the master’s program.
“Masters degrees are becoming more prevalent in today’s society especially for those who wish to advance in their career,” Kuhlen said. “Whitewater is definitely a very accomplished school to get your masters degree and we have plenty of options to meet anybody’s aspirations and goals.”