For the first time in its 145-year history, Philander Smith College will offer a graduate degree, a Master of Business Administration, that will start in May.
This will make Philander Smith the only historically black college in Central Arkansas to offer an MBA degree. An initial group of 25 students is expected to start the 36-credit hour program, with options for online and in-person classes, according to the college. Concentration areas will include project management and management.
“For the busy working professional, ours is an accelerated program that will allow students to matriculate in as little as 12 months,” President Roderick L. Smothers Sr. said in a news release from the college Wednesday. “Additionally, our project management track will be offered fully online, and for students who desire an on-campus experience, we will have a more traditional accelerated format focused on general business management.”
Applications for the new MBA program are slated to open Feb. 1, and more details are available at www.Philander.edu or by contacting the college’s Division of Business Administration at (501) 370-5360, according to the college. The Higher Learning Commission’s Institutional Actions Council approved the new program in November.
“When our 10-Year-Long-Range Strategic Plan was implemented six years ago, one of our key goals was to establish an MBA program,” Smothers said in the college’s release. “Thus, I am tremendously proud that our team — led by Dr. Cedric Stone, Division of Business Administration Chair — helped make possible the historic pivot in our status from college to university.”
Founded in 1877, Philander Smith College is one of the oldest private, historically Black institutions of higher learning in the state, according to the college. The liberal arts college is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and is the only United Negro College Fund member school in the state.
The college is also planning a significant renovation of its Dr. Joycelyn Elders School of Allied and Public Health, slated to start this spring, a $29.5 million project divided into two phases, according to the college. The first phase is a $9.5 million plan, which includes renovating and expanding existing research laboratories, clinical and other instructional spaces, while the second phase will create a $20 million Allied Health complex.
The Elders School is housed at the Harry R. Kendall Science and Health Mission Center, which was completed at the college’s Little Rock campus in 2004 with an $8 million grant from Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church.
In the latest U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings, released last fall, Philander Smith College ranked 41st for regional colleges in the South and tied for 40th among national historically Black colleges and universities.
According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, alumni include Dr. Joycelyn Elders, a former U.S. surgeon general; the Rev. James H. Cone, a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York; Lottie Shackelford, the first woman to serve as Little Rock’s mayor; former National Football League player Elijah Pitts and former Harlem Globetrotters basketball player Hubert “Geese” Ausbie.
Print Headline: Philander Smith College to begin MBA program
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