Leighah Beausoleil
Asst. News Editor
Framingham State University has received full accreditation from the International Accreditation Council for Business Education (IABCE) for the Master of Business Administration (MBA) program.
The accreditation was announced in a University press release December 2019.
IACBE is one of the top three business education accreditation agencies, according to MBA Director Steve Moysey.
The MBA program was evaluated in terms of course content, the cost structure, faculty, what they are teaching, what type of students are coming into the program, what the results of the program are, and what people have to say about the program, he said.
The accreditation allows prospective students to know the program has gone through a rigorous evaluation process, said Moysey.
The accreditation “basically tells prospective students that our program at Framingham State ... has actually been vetted by an outside international body that has given us the seal of approval that we have reached and exceeded the threshold of standards that we are compared against other institutions that offer graduate business education,” Moysey said.
He added the MBA program was not internationally accredited when he took over three years ago. This became a problem when the undergraduate business program received its IACBE accreditation.
“It behooved us to actually continue the work that had been sort of the trail that had been blazed by the undergraduate programs, and then work with IACBE and all of our constituencies, faculty, students, and alumni,” he said.
“The alumni were a very important element to this because they’re the ones that have been through the program,” Moysey added. “[They] had comments on where it was great and where it could have been a little better.”
The accreditation “puts us on a level playing field with other institutions that are internationally accredited,” he said.
According to Moysey, the MBA program has two concentrations – management and biotechnology operations.
“The MBA with a concentration in biotechnology operations is unique to this geographical area and has been designed because Metrowest Boston is the second largest hub in the country for biotechnology companies and life science organizations,” he added.
Moysey said the MBA program is for people who want to enhance their careers and get a leg up on their peers.
The MBA uses a hybrid program of both online and in-person classes on alternating weeks, according to Moysey.
This system benefits their student demographics, Moysey said. The majority of their students are in their mid-30s with jobs and families. The hybrid allows students flexibility in their schedules so they can pursue their degrees.
Moysey explained students have the ability to work at their own pace online as well as develop connections through face-to-face interactions.
The class sizes for the program cap at 25 to allow for a better faculty-student ratio, Moysey said.
The in-person classes are regularly paced, spanning over 12 to 15 weeks, while the online classes are accelerated to approximately eight weeks, Moysey explained.
The MBA is a four-credit-hour program, unlike other universities that have three-credit-hours programs.
This is to ensure the students get more detail and in-depth information in terms of subject matter, Moysey said.
“My vision for the MBA program has been the same from day one – to make it a cost effective, relevant, connected, engaged experience for our students, who then take what we teach with them,” he said.
“From day one in the classroom, they are getting up-to-date cutting-edge material that they can use in their workplaces – in their personal lives.
“Once you’re in the program, you are one of us. You are family. My job as the director of the program is to make sure that the program, A runs smoothly, and B meets the expectations of our customer base,” he added. “But also, we’re there to support those students that come into the program.”
Moysey said, “For us, one of the biggest elements of our job – a considerable element of our job – is student success.”