MBA Curriculum/Academic Map

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                                                  Master of Business Administration (MBA) Curriculum

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Required Introductory "Survey" Courses for Non-Business Majors Applying to the MBA Program!!  If this does not apply to your situation, please see the MBA "600" level core and elective course listing.

Applicants applying to the MBA program with a non-business undergraduate degree or applying to the MBA program for a second masters with a non-business graduate degree will be required to take and to complete 12 hours of graduate level “introductory” or “survey of” business courses.  These courses are “500” level graduate business courses that will introduce the non-business major to the various functional business concepts that define the core of business administration.  The introductory graduate courses must be taken and completed during the first semester before the graduate student can start taking the “600” level MBA core and elective program courses.  Below are the introductory graduate courses:

Required total MBA credits:  30-hours (10 courses at 3-hours/course)

Required Core MBA Courses (18-hours):

Required 12-hours of MBA course electives (total of four elective courses), to be chosen from a listing of MBA elective offerings that will be placed on Banner.

Admission of Undergraduates to Graduate Courses

Undergraduate Mississippi Valley State University students who have completed all required courses thus far and are within six hours of graduation may enroll in a maximum of six semester hours of graduate work. To be eligible to take graduate courses, undergraduate students must have a grade point average of at least 2.75 overall and in their major field.  Please contact the MBA Coordinator, Dr. Jimmie S. Warren, Sr. for additional information. 

A Note Concerning Financial Aid and Repeating a Class!!

There are times when students will want to retake a course or courses to earn a higher letter grade.  According to the MVSU Office of Financial Aid, federal student financial aid will cover any class or classes that you want to retake.  Financial aid will only pay for class retakes on two attempts. This means that you can only attempt a retake, twice, for a course.  If you want to repeat the course a third time, federal financial aid will not cover the cost of the course retake.  Federal financial aid will cover the cost of a third retake attempt for a course if the course is added as an additional third course to two graduate courses (six hours). These two graduate courses would need to be two courses that you have 1) not yet taken, or 2) have failed, 3) or a combination of scenarios (1) and (2).  If you are taking six or more hours, financial aid will only pay for the first six hours (two courses) that you have not previously taken or that you actually failed or a combination of the two scenarios, if you are wanting to do a third course retake attempt.  If you add a third course or three hours, as a retake, to your existing six hours (two courses) and this is a course that you previously took and passed, then, this will not negatively affect your financial aid.  Please contact a Financial Aid Counselor at 662-254-3767 if there are additional questions. Contact me, your MBA graduate advisor, if you are wanting to repeat a class. 

Note:  No MBA students are to register themselves for MBA graduate classes as the MBA Coordinator is responsible for registering all MBA students for classes!  Please follow the instructions below to choose your classes.  If there are questions, you can contact the MBA Coordinator (Dr. Warren), or simply send to the MBA Coordinator an email with your questions and concerns, or if you are on the campus, you can simply stop by the Department of Business Administration. (See details below)! 

All MBA students are registered for their courses by the MBA coordinator, no exceptions!  As the MBA coordinator and as the MBA graduate advisor, I am requiring that all students are to participate "administratively" in their MBA journey as you are participating, academically.  This means that the student will be responsible for choosing their courses (once they have viewed the available course listings for the respective term/session on Banner).  This can be done without having to actually log onto Banner.  Once you have chosen your courses, you will send to me in an email the names of the courses of your choice and I will register these courses for you.  This will be for documentation and records purposes that the student has given permission to register them for their chosen courses. 

Academic Probation Status.

If a graduate student has been placed on “Academic Probation” due to their GPA falling below the minimum requirement of “3.0”, they will be placed on “Academic Probation” for the following academic semester.  In addition, the graduate student will have one semester to raise their GPA to the required minimum of “3.0”.  If this is not achieved within one semester, the graduate student will be dismissed from the graduate program for at least one semester for academic underperformance at the graduate level.  After which, they can apply for readmission to the graduate program (see the readmission instructions under the “MBA Admissions Requirements” tab).  In addition, being placed on academic probation will negatively impact your being able to continue receiving federal student financial aid.

If graduate student wishes to receive federal student financial aid while on academic probation, they will need to submit a Student Aid Appeal (SAP) application to the MVSU Financial Aid Office to see if that office would rule to grant permission for the graduate student to receive federal student financial aid while on academic probation.  The graduate student will fill in the spaces on the SAP application that pertain to them and will then send the SAP application to their MBA graduate advisor (MBA Coordinator), as there are spaces that need to be fill in by the MBA graduate advisor.  In consultation with the MBA graduate advisor, at least two courses that the graduate student will choose must be placed on the SAP application.  These courses will be part of the plan to aid the graduate student with getting back on track, academically.  

Afterwards, the MBA graduate advisor will submit the SAP application via email to the Office of Financial Aid, and the graduate student will be “cc’d” also, in the email submission.  No courses can be registered for the semester until a decision has been rendered by the MVSU Financial Aid Office. In addition, the Financial Aid Office will only contact the graduate student, and not the MBA graduate advisor, about any decision that is made concerning the submitted SAP application.  So, it is “imperative” that graduate student let the MBA graduate advisor know of the final decision as soon as they hear from the MVSU Financial Aid Office concerning their SAP appeals application submission.  Additional information about the financial aid appeals process can be found on the MVSU Financial Aid's website.  

Proxy (Student Signatures) Permission Statement 

Because the MBA program is 100% and fully online, there are documents that need student signatures such as the Class Schedule Adjustment or Drop/Add forms that are used to document and to register courses for students with the MVSU Office of Student Records.  This requirement of student signatures in this kind of online environment can be inconvenient for many students who live out of state or for many students who might live within the state of Mississippi, but, live many hours away from the MVSU campus.  So, as the MBA coordinator, I can sign proxy for students on those documents needing their student signature, I just require something in writing from the student giving me permission to sign proxy for them for those kinds of documents.  The narrative statement has to be plainly stated, similar to this: "I give, Dr. Warren, permission to sign, on my behalf, the Class Schedule Adjustment or Drop/Add form associated with course registration for the term or semester in question".  This will be for documentation purposes and records, also.  You will not be registered for courses until you provide this "permission proxy narrative" with your course choices in your email!    

Note:  If you do not wish to provide this permission narrative and you wish to sign the Class Schedule Adjustment or Drop/Add form with your own or personal "wet" signature, you can simply and properly fill out the form (name and courses), sign it and date it and email the form to me.  Again, the form must be properly filled in and signed and dated or I will return the document back to you to be corrected.  

Now, if you have questions about the course choices such as "...which MBA electives should I take", this is where you would either send me an email with this question or you can simply call me and I will advise you on this matter.  The MBA core courses are not electives and they will be taken by "ALL" MBA students during their tenure within the MBA program.  However, not all MBA graduates will take the same electives as the MBA electives are courses that are geared more toward a "personalization" or geared more toward the specific interests or emphasis of the individual student.  This is where an MBA student might need advising to aid with making the best choice for which MBA electives they should take.  It will all be based on the MBA graduate's specific individual interest beyond or in addition to the MBA core courses.  There is no specific sequence for taking the first five core MBA classes; however, you can only take what is being offered for a particular semester or particular summer term.  Graduate classes are not offered during Winter Term sessions. The classes that you will be taking will be on the learning management system (LMS) Canvas and you will need to contact Mr. George Huntley (662-299-1220 or 662-254-3624)  to be given your Canvas login credentials.  In addition, we are requiring all students to have and to start using an MVSU.edu email address.  Upon joining the MVSU MBA program, you will need to contact the MVSU IT department to get this established. 

Instructions on how to view the current class or course listings for a particular term without having to log onto Banner!!

1) Go to the MVSU.edu home page.

2) Hover your mouse cursor over the "Academics" heading from the list of title headings below the MVSU name/logo.

3) Under this title heading (Academics), find the sub-title "Academic Year".

4) Under the "Academic Year" sub-title, click on the link "Semester Schedule of Classes".

5) Next, on the "Dynamic Schedule" page, in the drop down window, click on the term for which you are looking, and click                submit.

6) Next, on the "Class Schedule Search", you should see all of the departmental programs in a window. Find the department        program of your choice (Department of Business or Accounting) and click on that department and click the "Class Search" tab (at the bottom) and look to see what graduate courses are listed for that department.  Undergraduate and graduate classes will all be listed on the same page.  However, remember, all graduate classes start with the number designation "600".   

Once you have chosen at least two graduate courses, send these to me in an email with the names of your chosen courses and I will register them for you.  By this, you are giving the MBA Coordinator permission to register you for your chosen classes and this given permission will be documented!  In addition, you will provide in the same email, giving me permission to sign, on your behalf (proxy), the Drop/Add form/document that is associated with course registration.  You could choose a combination of any two courses or any combination of three courses from the course listing.  You should be able to click on each of the classes to see the number of available seats, also.  You will not be able to register for the MBA capstone course (BA 655) if you have not taken at least 21 to 24 hours of a mixture of the first five required MBA core courses and several MBA graduate electives (totaling 21-24 hrs).  If you have any questions, do not hesitate to call me.

The Capstone Course Concept (BA 655):  A Synergistic and Integrative Approach!

The capstone concept or capstone course is a course that assesses a student’s ability to integrate (in this case, at the graduate level) all of the information and knowledge from coursework to which they have been exposed, in a synergistic manner, to produce and to actualize possible solutions to challenges that impact the discipline or degree area; in this case, the competitive and ever-changing business environment.  This is done (for the MVSU MBA capstone course) via assignments that include graduate level written paper assignments (individual and group or team) and via the student’s ability to articulate their thoughts a logical, informative, insightful, and meaningful manner that is free of ambiguity and not open to misinterpretation.  In the capstone course, MBA students will draw on the various business disciplines (at the graduate level) of marketing for managers, economics for managers, finance for managers (including some investment concepts), accounting for managers, operations management, globalization concepts and some HR concepts. 

The MBA capstone course, BA 655, is a heavy writing emphasis course that focuses on the graduate student being able to communicate their thoughts and ideas in a coherent manner that has scholarly, academic, and practical application, again, free of non-professional writing errors.  Because the MBA program is a 100% online professional level graduate business program, graduate level online classroom activities, also, include responding to and answering online discussion questions and responding to and discussing the responses of their graduate colleagues; all in the online or virtual classroom environment.  Students will be in, almost, constant communication with their online classmates or colleagues.  MBA graduate students will be tasked with taking all of the knowledge to which they have been exposed during their tenure in the MBA program and demonstrating that they are able to critically think about the challenges that organizations face and that they are able to put forth solutions that can address these organizational challenges in a dynamic and ever-changing competitive environment. 

2022-2023 MBA Academic Map

(Older Version of MBA Academic Map)