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MBA education: Celebrity schooling

20 January, 2010

Can you learn to be a business titan online? The first students of the Jack Welch Management Institute will soon know. After a semester-long delay prompted by a Welch illness, classes began Jan. 4. The school promises to “supercharge” its programs (which include a master of management and an MBA) with the philosophy and methods of Welch, whose two-decade tenure as CEO of General Electric became legend. Welch helped design coursework, and will provide weekly videos discussing his views on current events.

The Institute is part of Chancellor University in Cleveland, Ohio, formerly the bankrupt Myers University; entrepreneur Michael Clifford, who has made a business of resurrecting flagging schools, is behind it. Welch invested US$2 million for a 12% stake in Chancellor. (In 2006, he also lent his name to Sacred Heart’s University’s business school in Fairfield, Conn.)

Until recently, Welch regarded online MBA programs dubiously. But he and wife Suzy endorsed the concept in their joint BusinessWeek column in 2008. “An MBA from a top school will always have cachet,” they wrote. “And attending a campus program has inimitable virtues. But ? people working all day and studying online all night have the kind of “grrr” most companies could use.” Learning to growl may be Lesson 1.

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