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Week of 5 February 1999 Vol. II, No. 22 Feature Article BU at TU On-site MBA program caters to packed schedules By Hope Green Hungry to learn but starved for time and capital, many rising corporate stars hesitate to pursue a master's degree. At one local firm, however, employees have received an educational offer they've found too hard to pass up. In a new partnership that Boston University School of Management officials are calling unique to New England, SMG has teamed up with Thomson Financial Services (TFS) to deliver an on-site MBA program at the company's South Boston headquarters. The firm is picking up the tab through a tuition reimbursement program. "They couldn't have made this more convenient if they'd held the graduate courses in my cubicle," says Tim Fahey (SMG'01), a TFS institutional sales representative. A subsidiary of the Toronto-based Thomson Corporation, TFS supplies information services to banks and other financial institutions. Classes for 23 of TFS's 2,000 Boston employees began last month in a renovated facility within the Thomson Place office complex. Thomson University's 29-month format is similar to SMG's regular parttime MBA course load, except that it adds an intensive weeklong leadership seminar and two workshops in business writing and presentation skills. Thomson University students participate in an orientation exercise designed to build team skills. This game involved a brain teaser, and the group pictured chose to write clues on strips of paper. Photo by Bill Moree In an effort to "Thomsonize" the program, says William Bigoness, SMG associate dean for executive learning, professors will invite guest speakers from the company and incorporate TFS case studies into the curriculum. A bonus for the firm, he says, will be the expanded opportunity for collaboration among its 35 separate entrepreneurial units. Even so, the students will be required to earn the last 16 of their 64 credits at BU's Charles River Campus, where they will attend elective courses from the regular part-time MBA course catalogue. "The danger of a customized corporate program is that there could be a certain degree of insularity," Bigoness explains. "So we'll bring them to the campus and mix them in with students from other companies." The first group of Thomson University MBA candidates will start mingling at BU in the fall of 2000. The program, company officials say, serves a dual purpose for TFS. It adds to the company's arsenal of knowledge and competitive skills, and in an increasingly tight labor market it offers an attractive bonus to workers. Jennifer Gravelle (SMG'01), a Thomson ESG client services representative, is a case in point. "Many of our employees are young and tend to move on quickly," she says. "This is an incentive for people like me to stay." A second session of "BU at TU," as Thomson students call it, is slated to begin in January 2000. Other New England companies have expressed an interest in launching on-site SMG programs, and according to Edwin Murray, the program's faculty director, the school will eventually employ videoconference technology that will beam courses via satellite to TFS offices in New York, Chicago, Dallas, and Atlanta. While the on-site MBA is a novelty in the Boston area and unusual elsewhere, Bigoness says, it is also a sign of the times. "This is one example of how business schools are offering their clients more flexibility, more choices, and more quality. We're trying to practice what we've been preaching to the Fortune 500."