The business college launched a revised Master of Science in Administration degree program this past summer.
The MSA degree, a kind of MBA for administrators of nonprofit groups, started out in 1954 as a way for religious brothers, sisters and priests in administrative positions in Catholic education to attain needed business skills. The program later expanded to include religious and lay administrators of hospitals.
The new structure puts the degree within reach of not-for-profit organization managers who are unable to spend more than a month away from the office each year. All students undergo an intensive four-week session on campus the first summer. This is followed by single courses fall and spring semester, which generally are available on-line. Completing a second four-week session the second summer would bring a student close to completion, although students can take as long as four years to finish. Under the former timetable, students could take as long as seven years.
The new program costs about $21,000, roughly 5 percent more than the old.
Besides reaching out nationally (students in the inaugural group this past summer came from as far away as Los Angeles and Washington state), the new program targets leaders of all kinds of social-services organizations, not just schools and hospitals.
The program also addresses modern realities of the nonprofit sector with a core curriculum that covers fund raising, financial management, marketing, communications and ethics, among other topics. Electives include social entrepreneurship, investments, tax policies and e-commerce, as well as Catholic social teaching.
More information is available at the MSA program’s website (see links) or by calling the program’s office at 219-631-3639.