By Riley Eike
Contributing writer
St. Bonaventure University School of Business partnered with LBL Strategies, a strategic management education company based out of Chicago, to offer a continuing education certification in strategic management.
The course will be a 10-week, online program resulting in a certificate awarded jointly by St. Bonaventure and LBL Strategies. The class begins the week of Jan. 25 and runs through the week of April 4.
John B. Stevens, a management professor, said anyone could take the non-credit bearing course.
“We are marketing (the course) to people who have already graduated and have already been in the world of work for a period of time,” Stevens said.
But, it is not limited to past Bonnies, according to Stevens.
The fee for the course is $1,695, and the money goes to Bonaventure and LBL Strategies to compensate the professor and the company.
“There is a revenue share there that has been negotiated,” Stevens said. “The university is going to benefit from it financially, and the more people that take it, the more we benefit from it.”
The class is limited to 20 participants. So far 12 people have registered for the class this semester, and the deadline for turning in the money has been pushed back to the week of Jan. 25, Stevens said.
The online interface allows for live interaction with the instructor from Chicago, as well as the freedom for students to work without having to do their work at the same time.
According to the class’ syllabus, the eight main modules of the course are assessing and organizing strategic management; environmental analysis and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats; strategy formulation; defining the direction of the strategy; strategy identification; evaluation and selection; strategic operating planning; strategy implementation; and strategy management as a continuous process.
“You may take this to add to your professional resume of skills that you have that would allow you to move up in an organization into a management position and beyond,” Stevens said.
If there is enough interest in the course, the school will look to offer it again in the fall, Stevens said.
“Ultimately, if this goes well, we could see offering other courses like this through St. Bonaventure as a way of expanding our market and expanding the services we provide, generating revenue for the school in a different kind of context,” Stevens said.
eikerr13@bonaventure.edu
