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A general classroom at the University of Yesteryear.

An MBA classroom today. Things have really changed.

"UT led the charge for MBA program restructuring across the country, and this program was widely recognized and studied by other MBA competitors"

—Dr. Sarah Gardial,
Associate Professor and Assistant Dean UTK College of Business

Historical Perspective

The MBA degree has a long and respected reputation in the business world. The basic structure and content of an MBA degree was spelled out in a Ford Foundation report in 1960, and this model was widely adopted by MBA programs around the world. Along those lines, UT launched its first MBA program in 1966.

Unfortunately, MBA programs continued to look much the same for the next 20-30 years, despite a rapidly changing business environment. Eventually, this produced a strain, as 1960's era MBA programs across the country came under increasing fire from corporations in the mid 1980's. The MBA was becoming irrelevant, they said. MBA graduates did not have the skills to be successful; companies were spending millions of dollars retraining MBAs, and MBAs were known for their arrogance and job-hopping.

In 1988, the University of Tennessee decided to reexamine its MBA program. It convened a meeting between UT faculty and representatives from several Fortune 500 companies, including Xerox, Procter and Gamble, and Texas Instruments. Industry talked, and the academics listened. The result of that conversation was a radical restructuring of the UT MBA in 1991. This program was the first of its kind in the country to offer a fully integrated first year curriculum. UT broke the old Ford Foundation model, and created a new program with the following objectives:

· To not only teach business basics, but to help students understand the interrelationship between the various business functions

· To create a curriculum based upon real world companies and real world applications - to focus on "what every manager needs to know" and to throw out theory which wasn't relevant

· To enhance students' leadership skills, specifically by emphasizing the skills necessary to work in a team-based environment, and to strengthen communications skills.

With this program, UT led the charge for MBA program restructuring across the country, and this program was widely recognized and studied by other MBA competitors.

If the program begun in 1991 was so good, why did UT restructure the program again, launching its latest program in fall 2001? The answer is simple: because the business world keeps changing. In light of changing technologies, globalization, information management, and cross-corporation partnering, we continue to change in order to stay relevant to the business world.

To learn more details about our new, integrated 17-month program, see the Program Details section of this web site. We think you'll be excited about what you see, and impressed by UT's continuing commitment to innovation in MBA education