CIM Executive MBA Fact Sheet

Introduction


The current CIM Program is a joint initiative between member institutions and the concrete industry. It provides students the opportunity to enter an industry that has a need for professionals with the skills to meet the growing demands of a progressive, changing concrete industry. This broad education enables graduates to select a career path in virtually every aspect of the concrete industry. The mission of the CIM program is to furnish the concrete industry with its future leaders.

The need for such a program was first recognized in 1994. What resulted was a highly successful partnership between the concrete industry and Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) to develop the CIM program. The great success of the MTSU program coupled with the continued need for industry-educated graduates over the past five years has brought about the expansion of the CIM program to Arizona State University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, California State University - Chico and Texas State University - San Marcos. Since the programs initial graduating class in 2000 there have been 450 graduates. Most impressively nearly 80% of those graduates have remained in the industry. The NSC is considering next steps in continuing to advance the program. One distinct possibility is to develop and launch a unique world class executive MBA in CIM.

This document outlines such a proposed program for the Concrete Industry. The basis for the proposed program has been jointly developed by members of the CIM National Steering Committee (NSC), MTSU CIM program director, and faculty and administrators from the graduate program at MTSU’s Jones College of Business.

The CIM/MBA Opportunity

Currently there are numerous graduates some with as many as ten years of industry experience that have achieved various levels of management responsibility throughout the concrete industry. The Executive model for a specific industry has been successfully accomplished at other institutions, with programs for banking, healthcare, education and technical fields. An Executive like MBA in CIM would be the first of its kind for the concrete industry. A broad reaching concrete industry survey was conducted in 2007 regarding many aspects of the CIM program. Among the questions asked of the industry was (1) whether an Executive MBA program was a good idea. (2) would companies support their personnel to participate in a concrete related masters program? For those companies who had a familiarity with CIM the response was very positive. Based on the survey results through its education committee the NSC began to develop the vision as to what such a program might resemble.

Vision

The vision is to develop a truly unique Executive MBA in Concrete Industry Management. The plan that has emerged requires that the core MBA courses that are typical in a traditional MBA will undergo an infusion of concrete and construction related case studies, financial statements, IT systems, spreadsheets and business law germane to the industry. In addition to the eight core courses the plan envisions three to four new and unique executive level courses on subjects and content important to the concrete industry.

Potential Recruits

Potential industry professionals who would participate in the proposed program will have a minimum of 5 years of experience in the industry. As each sponsoring organization will select its candidates, it is expected that participants will hold at least supervisory positions or above in their respective organizations. Candidates will posses at least an undergraduate degree from an accredited institution of higher education. While participants must have at least a bachelor’s degree, that degree would not have to be a CIM degree or even a business administration degree. Since CIM is still a young degree program, it is anticipated that most interest would come from industry professionals with business, liberal arts, and engineering or other technical degree backgrounds.

Program Development

In order to accomplish the vision of a unique Executive MBA, an important aspect will be the infusion of the concrete content into the base curriculum and the development of exclusively executive content concrete related courses. Traditional MBA lesson plans and course materials will need to be altered for this to be accomplished. This could not be easily accomplished if the professors developing and teaching course content are not familiar with the concrete industry. To overcome this obstacle a select group of interested MBA faculty with vast industrial experience will collaborate with current CIM faculty and members of the NSC education committee in order to make their current MBA courses tailored to the proposed new program. As part of the curricula development, over the next two years, the faculty will be spending significant time in the industry as faculty interns. These internships would be developed by the NSC education committee and designed to serve as a crash course to bring professors up to speed on concrete and its multifaceted industry. Additionally professors will attend industry venues such as the World of Concrete (WOC) in order to supplement their internship experience. This concept was tested at the 2010 WOC when three Professors from MTSU’s MBA program attended the show and participated in various education opportunities. The professors that participated ranked this experience highly as a means to gain industry knowledge.

Proposed Timeline

Provided the industry, after being furnished this latest update, is still enthusiastic about such a program, the initial launch would occur in the summer of 2012. The current plan calls for an 18 month program working in 10 week blocks and resulting in 36 credit hours. Consideration was taken for the construction schedule as to when the candidates would be on campus. A high percentage of classes would be conducted in a distance learning format. Key industry venues such as the World of Concrete would be utilized for some of the required on campus time. This would also allow for renowned guest lecturers to be utilized when appropriate

Financial Parameters

Program Cost:

The cost of the proposed CIM Executive MBA program would be $39,000 per participant with a minimum of 25 participants. This fee represents the total academic cost of the program per participant. There are three prerequisites (Statistics, Accounting and Finance) that are $1000 each and the total price includes that cost. If a student is waived from one or more of the prerequisites the appropriate deduction will occur. Transportation to and from hotel and daytime meals and snacks are included as well as all textbooks and resources needed for the class. Items not covered by the fee are travel expenses, lodging and airfare for each campus or venue visit. A survey of Executive MBA programs was done to compare the cost effectiveness of the MTSU CIM MBA and premiere programs averaged $50-$70K.

Link to CIM Executive MBA Survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RT2QYS9

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