Teaching Finance in an On-Line Program

In 2006, a private highly ranked AACSB accredited business school introduced a hybrid face to face and on-line MBA program, tailored towards working professionals. The features of the program were highlighted by the ability of the participants to receive their degrees in just over two years while maintaining their full-time jobs. The growth of the program has far exceeded original projections, and enrollment currently stands at over four hundred participants in three locations. Tuition was recently increased to over seventy thousand dollars for the two year program. In addition, the pedagogical tools learned by the faculty and administrators are now being utilized in all other undergraduate, graduate, and executive education levels. Because the program curriculum spans both face to face and on-line learning, as well as a multi-disciplinary content and process, it has been challenging from the faculty side along a number of dimensions. This paper – which is more like a roadmap - seeks to express the content and pedagogical angles from the view of one discipline's experience, so that other faculty and administrators can benefit from seeing this particular “early adoption” approach to delivery of this type of program. In short, the author hopes that this paper steepens the learning curve for others who are thinking of delivering or teaching in this type of programmatic model in the future