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School of Management Delivers Special M.B.A. Program to Northrop Grumman Employees
By Robin Herron
Over the next five years, the School of Management expects to reach 75 Northrop
Grumman Information Technology employees with a special version of its part-time
M.B.A. program. Using a combination of online and traditional classroom delivery
methods, the program will be available to Northrop Grumman employees at locations
around the country.
“The School of Management is leveraging its expertise in distance learning
to serve the educational needs of the professional business student,” says
Andres Fortino, director of the M.B.A. and M.S. in Technology Management programs.
“In this program, we’ll be doing a blended version of distance learning
using an approach we call Classroom Plus to extend the classroom environment to
those in separate geographic locations. We’ll be doing a lot of teaching
and learning online, but we’ll still have face-to-face residencies and also
use video conferencing. You still need the face-to-face experiences in management
education to get the synergy going—to get more intense and frequent ‘aha!’s
in the learning.” George Mason’s M.B.A. residencies will be conducted
several times per year at the company’s Reston facility.
Under the contract specifications with Northrop Grumman Information Technology,
three cohorts of students will undertake the program, beginning with a group in
the spring of 2003. The company is offering the program to promising employees
it plans to groom for executive positions. Applicants will be required to meet
the same admissions criteria as traditional M.B.A. applicants, and the program
will adhere to the existing curriculum, with electives tailored to the industry
and management-level focus of each student.
“We are pleased to offer our high-potential employees this unique M.B.A.
program,” says Pat Sherod, executive director of organization and workforce
development at Northrop Grumman Information Technology. “This program offers
the blend of online learning and face-to-face experience. It will provide our
leaders with an M.B.A. program that is customized to the federal contracting industry
and supplemented by special guest speakers, presentations, and projects typical
to our IT environment. Participants will have exposure to Northrop Grumman Corporate
and the IT sector leadership.”
Northrop Grumman Information Technology is an IT leader and provider of advanced
IT solutions, engineering, and business services for government and commercial
clients. Headquartered in Herndon, Virginia, the company has more than 22,000
employees and expertise that spans information systems integration; command, control,
communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; enterprise
hardware and software solutions; training and simulation; base and range support;
signals intelligence; space systems; and specialized scientific, engineering,
and technical services.
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