Bridging program to assist potential MBA students

The University of Saskatchewan's College of Commerce is hoping to encourage more Aboriginal people to consider enrolling in its MBA program, thanks to a newly announced bridging program being funded through a donation from Scotiabank.

Plans for creation of the Scotiabank Master of Business Administration Bridging Program were officially announced on Feb. 22, made possible by a donation of $250,000 from the financial institution. In addition to the bridging program, the money will also fund creation of a scholarship program for Aboriginal students in the university's MBA program.

The bridging program will be one week long and will be offered once a year beginning in May 2007. The program will accommodate up to 15 participants who are considering entering the university's 12-month MBA program.

The University of Saskatchewan is the only university in Canada that offers an MBA with a specialization in Indigenous management, but participation in the bridging program won't be limited to students planning to enter that specific specialization. Other areas of MBA specialization offered by the college include agribusiness management, biotechnology management, health services management and international business management.

There are a number of factors that prevent more Aboriginal people from applying to the college's MBA program, explained dean of commerce Lynne Pearson.

"One is that this is a 12-month program and the first four months have to be taken on a full-time basis, and sometimes it's very difficult for people to get away for a four-month period, although they can do the rest of the program part-time. And another situation is, you know, if we could do this in downtown Merritt, B.C. or in other places, people would be willing to come, but to have to come physically to Saskatoon is sometimes a bit of a barrier for people. And sometimes it's just concern about the unknown and we think that the bridging program is certainly going to overcome that unknown and give people the confidence that they've got the skills and abilities to participate in the program."

"We have a growing number of people that are interested in coming. They have questions and we feel this would be a good way to entertain those questions and to give people a practical sort of step up and into the first term," added Warren Weir, chair of the MBA program's Indigenous management specialization. "We're excited about it and we think it's going to make a big difference."

According to Weir, the bridging program builds on the success of existing programs at the university designed to support and encourage Aboriginal students.

"We have a very successful bridging program that's in a larger scale with the Native Law Centre here at the university. I work with the folks over there and we were talking about some of the difficulties and challenges that we were facing recruiting and bringing aboard First Nations and Metis and Inuit students into our Indigenous management specialization and thought that maybe a similar shorter version would be a good way of not only introducing students to the program here but also helping them to prepare to succeed once they were here and within the program.

"We have also for the past five years offered what we call a graduate management admission test preparation-GMAT prep-course. It takes place over a weekend ... and we found that people, even in that short period of time, become more comfortable with us. A lot of our potential students don't live in Saskatoon. They come from across Western Canada and even from Ontario and the East Coast. And it was a way of introducing people to the campus, to the folks here and to our program. And we thought, why don't we extend that," he said.

"The main objective is to get students that are almost ready to apply, fully apply with their full package, ready to go. So, for example, one of the things that the student needs to do is to successfully complete and score 500 or better on the graduate management admission test. So part of the bridging week will be to do prep for that and maybe even have some students take the exam. The other thing is we have math, stats and economics prerequisites. We may find that there's a small subgroup within the larger group that's short on math, for example, and we'll do some tutoring, some mentoring, and get people ready to pass that exam. There's the orientation component and then there's also just getting everything ready for the application package, the reference letters, and just making sure we have everything ready to go for a full blown application."

For more information about the bridging program or the scholarship, visit the College of Commerce Web site at www.commerce.usask.ca or call Warren Weir at 966-2468.