ACU in business course

Sydney
11 November 2001

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ACU in business course

By Chris Hook

The Australian Catholic University (ACU) will offer streamlined, workplace relevant Master’s degrees in management that can be completed in as little as eight months.

The Accelerated Management Program will offer custom-made quality courses in the workplace, allowing busy managers to upgrade their skills while they work.

ACU Vice-Chancellor, Prof Peter Sheehan, said the course content would be “truly post-graduate in content and depth of study.”

The course – an Australian first – would be offered to participants in or near their workplaces in small workshop style classes facilitated by staff with practical experience and qualifications in the field.

Although new to Australia, similar courses have been running at Regis University in the US for almost 20 years.

Regis University’s business arm, New Ventures, will work in partnership with the ACU, providing experience and expertise in course design.

Regis University chancellor Fr David Clarke says the course developed out of the recognition that adults in the workplace have had years of study and work experience and need courses delivered to their requirements.

“These people when they learn something, instead of squirreling it away they’ll store it up for a few hours and then test it,” Fr Clarke said. “I looked around and saw that schools were not meeting the needs of adults.”

But Fr Clarke said the introduction of student- oriented courses needed “an academic culture shift” because many university courses were designed for the benefit of teachers rather than students.

After several years, the structure fell into place and once the business community experienced graduates from the course, they too hopped behind the idea setting up a business advisory group.

Regis University now has 17 client universities offering similarly accelerated courses.

“We think there’s a wide need and universities need to find a way to deliver it,” Fr Clarke said.