Bainbridge institute could offer JH-based MBA by '08

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

By Grace Hammond

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-The first courses of a Jackson Hole-based Masters of Business Administration degree program in sustainable business could launch within months.
The Washington-based Bainbridge Institute intends to open a learning center at the Teton Science Schools in Jackson. BGI’s first offering would be a Certificate in Sustainable Business that consists of three courses: Introduction to Sustainable Business, Systems Thinking in Action, and Sustainability, Community and Social Justice.
“If everything went our way we would open in the winter term,” said Gifford Pinchot, president of BGI.

The nine-credit certificate module serves as the foundation of the school’s MBA degree. The completion of the first certificate module may coincide with the launch of a full-fledge Jackson-based MBA program if BGI is granted Wyoming licensure and “if we can get all our ducks in a row by then,” Pinchot said.

“It’s quite likely that there will be an MBA program in Jackson,” Pinchot continued. “We are hoping to do it in fall 2008. The certificate would end that summer and we’d be just ready to start the MBA the next semester.”

Pinchot is “optimistic” that the program will receive licensure by the state. “There’s nothing they’re saying that makes us think they would not say yes,” he said. “They’re going by the books. The state of Wyoming wants to be responsible. That’s their job.”

A warm reception
BGI faculty members were surprised by the exceptionally warm reception they received when they began conducting sustainable business programming in the area about a year ago. Jackson Hole residents turned out in droves to hear them speak – even in blizzard conditions.

“Jack Shea, the head of Teton Science Schools, just rolled out the carpet for us,” Pinchot said. “This has never happened to us before. He introduced us to all the movers and shakers in town.”

The school began to investigate the idea of opening up a learning center in Jackson that was based at the Teton Science Schools.

“[It] is a great institution, and they are showing every sign of being great partners with us,” Pinchot said. “They have been very, very helpful.

“I believe that we have seen a lot of what we need to see,” Pinchot continued. “A school needs both students and financial support to function, and I believe we’re being signaled by the community that both of those are present.”

If the MBA launches as planned, there are implications for local businesses, local employers and the Jackson Hole workforce. For example, area businesses will have a larger pool of area applicants to choose from when they need to fill management positions.

“It’s so expensive to live in Jackson that it’s very difficult to bring people into small business that didn’t get into the housing market earlier,” Pinchot said. “As our graduates come out in the area, there will be lots of people with new talents, skills and abilities who have somehow solved their housing problem, and we [can] turn them into business management candidates.”

Bainbridge Institute 101
BGI is based at Islandwood on Bainbridge Island, Wash., just outside of Seattle. The school currently offers an MBA in Sustainable Business, and certificates in Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship, and Sustainable Business. The Higher Education Coordinating Board of Washington State has allowed BGI to confer the MBA degree since 2002. The school is in the process of applying for national accreditation through the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, Pinchot said.

BGI’s programs prepare students to build enterprises that are economically successful, socially responsible and environmentally sustainable. The curriculum aims to preserve the rigor of a traditional MBA program while infusing sustainability – including both environmental and social responsibility – into each course.

In 2006, BGI beat out more than a dozen highly ranked business schools – including Yale, Berkeley, Duke and Stanford – by finishing fourth in the annual LEEDS/Net Impact International Case Competition hosted at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The school has seen a dramatic increase in enrollment over the past five years. Enrollment has jumped from 34 students during the charter year to almost 200 this school year.

“One of the cores to our success is the idea of community,” Pinchot said, “and that works very well with 150 people on campus. If you are much beyond that, it’s too hard, and in that sense the community begins to break down.”

For this reason, BGI wants to open other learning centers rather than expand at its current location. The Jackson-based sustainable business certificate program would accept around 30 students, Pinchot said, and students could begin the course during any term.

The MBA is a “residential program supported by distance learning,” said Miguel Esteban, the director of enrollment, management and marketing. Pinchot called it “a hybrid program.” Intensive classes are held on-site once a month, from noon Thursday to mid-morning Sunday. The remainder of the program is completed online. Students view slides, chat with peers, raise their virtual hands and share control of documents through online software called Elluminate.

“It’s probably the most robust web-conferencing tool available,” Esteban said. “It’s pretty powerful. There’s a whiteboard and a number of people can speak at the same time. Or if there happens to be a lecture, the moderator can control [the features].”
There are synchronous aspects, like class meetings and group work, and asynchronous functions, like posting a paper to a site for other students to comment on.

Each Jackson course would be led by both an academic and a practitioner, as in Washington, Pinchot said. The academic provides a scholarly and theoretical look at the subject; the practitioner teaches from their own experience. Pinchot believes that the program could find some academics and practitioners in Jackson Hole, but would initially bring in “at least half of the team, people who’ve taught with us before.”

Because the MBA program only requires professors to be on site once a month, it is a plum position for faculty who can’t afford housing in Teton County. Registration and other support services would probably continue from the Washington-based office and an onsite dean is a possibility, Pinchot said.

“There’s no reason a lot couldn’t be done from Jackson if the right people show up,” Pinchot said.

Putting the degree to work
Pinchot believes that there are many “under-employed” people in the city and the state. BGI programs would allow them to continue their education and launch their careers without leaving Jackson.

Annie Jack is the local contact for BGI’s programs. “I’ve been the person on the ground here in Jackson, fielding inquiries from potential students,” she said. “We’ve been so overwhelmed with people wanting to do the program. So many people leave Jackson, dragging their feet, so they can go to school … . It seems the educational opportunities are elsewhere.”

Jack is BGIs “first Wyoming employee.” She heard about the MBA program when she was looking at sustainable business programs across the country.

“I really want to create my business connections in Jackson, and I decided it was worth it to help to make this project come into fruition,” instead of attending a program out-of-state, Jack said. She plans to become a student on the Jackson campus when the program launches.

“My interests right now are in green marketing and event planning, but I think part of the appeal of the program is to learn to be more creative in how I approach my future career,” Jack said. “Anything I do needs to be connected to my environmental and social values.”

There are two BGI graduates and two current students now living in Jackson, Pinchot said. The students fly to the Washington campus nine times a year – once a month during the fall and spring.

BGI students are individuals who “want to do well [for themselves] but also do good” for the planet, Pinchot said. BGI alumni and current students include a waitress-turned-student body president and the head of environmental research for a major gasoline company. Other students are engineers, nonprofit administrators, park rangers and Navy officers.

Some students are entrepreneurs who seek to launch their own businesses after graduation. Others are “intrapreneurs” who want to create change in organizations they already belong to. Some want to move up from lower-level positions, and others are focused on helping their businesses become more effective.

The typical BGI student is 37 years old, but students range from 22 to 67 in the current program, Pinchot said.

“That diversity is helpful,” he continued. “We can’t go much younger, we don’t want too many people just out of school. They ask good questions, but we want people who are experienced with discussion. Who your classmates are is just as important as who your faculty are.”

Students attend nine months out of the year, and 80 percent of BGIs current students work full-time.

“Graduate programs in general have a very high divorce rate,” Pinchot noted. “Ours does not. We think and talk about the issues involved in that, and giving students the summer off is an example of that.”

BGI graduates find work in everything from nonprofit organizations to large corporations.
“It’s all good,” Pinchot said, “and that’s our school motto. We give people the tools to proceed with the track they want to take.”

Two shades of green
Jack said that BGI does not feel that its program parallels the plans for the Teton Institute, which was initially conceived several years ago as an area graduate business school and executive training center.

“We’ve talked to enough people involved in [that project] that we feel that BGI is a pretty different project in terms of content and scope,” Jack said. “Probably the greatest advantage to us in the situation is we don’t need to build anything. We’ll utilize the facilities that already exist.”

BGI’s Esteban said, “We’re aware of [The Teton Institute] and we hope to learn from their experience. They did some market research which we’re now reviewing.”
Pinchot spoke highly of students who enter BGI programs.

“What’s exciting is that there are a bunch of people out there who want their lives to mean more than just making money,” Pinchot said. “But at the same time, they want to provide for their families. We’re providing people with the ability to succeed with their values in tact.”

Potential applicants are encouraged to get in touch with BGI. Visit their website at http://www.bgiedu.org/ or contact Annie Jack at 733-9225 or annie.jack@bgiedu.org.

PERMALINK:
Bainbridge institute could offer JH-based MBA by '08 | Planet JH News Article: General News

Leave a Comment