Podcast featuring Dr. Marie Gould Harper, Dean, Wallace E. Boston School of Business and
Dr. Wanda Curlee, Program Director, School of Business
Not all MBA programs are created equal. In this episode, learn about the value of a master’s in business administration and some of the exciting concentrations available for students to specialize their skills. APU Dean of Business Dr. Marie Gould Harper talks to Department Chair Dr. Wanda Curlee about recent business administration program updates including courses on artificial intelligence (AI) and project management. Learn how these concentrations developed out of discussions with corporate leaders about what skills they’re looking for in employees.
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Dr. Marie Gould Harper: Hello everyone. Welcome to our podcast today. I am Marie Gould Harper, and today we have a special guest, Dr. Wanda Curlee. She is going to speak to us about the Master’s of Business Administration, otherwise known as the MBA. We have heard a lot about that particular degree, how popular it has been in the past, but it’s making a comeback. And Dr. Curlee is going to talk to us about that today. Dr. Curlee, welcome.
Dr. Wanda Curlee: Thank you, Dr. Harper, for having me here at your podcast.
Dr. Marie Gould Harper: And one of the things I wanted to give you the opportunity to do is to share some of the background for yourself, as well as some of the projects that you are currently working on.
Dr. Wanda Curlee: Absolutely. I was in corporate for 30 some years doing basically project management, project portfolio management and program management. I was in various industries, I did government contracts, I did IT, I did software finance. So I’ve got a wealth of information on project management.
I decided to go and get my doctorate when I was still at AT&T because I realized the doctorate gives you some credibility, maybe not in corporate, but at least in academia. And I knew I wanted to teach eventually. So, I have a Doctor of Management in Organizational Leadership.
To me, that was the best thing for me because that’s what project managers do, they deal with organization. So slowly, I started converting over to academia and I was fortunate enough to be hired by American Public University as a part-time faculty and then ended up as full-time faculty, and eventually as a program director, and the title and responsibilities were recently changed to department chair, and I handle all business administration items.
So that would be an AA, associate’s Degree in Business, a Bachelor of Business Administration, and the MBA, of course. So, I do everything from associate’s degree all the way to the master’s degree, and keeping my fingers crossed that eventually we might go for a doctorate degree at American Public University.
But I do research in artificial intelligence, the practical aspects of it, because it is so important that business personnel professionals understand how to harness technology to make them a more value-add. And too many business professionals are scared of technology. And when I say, “harness the technology,” I don’t mean become a programmer and do ones and zeros. I mean, how to use that technology to further your career and further your value to the organization.
[Podcast: How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing the Workplace]
Dr. Marie Gould Harper: Well, that’s some good information. The MBA, first of all, there were some who thought it was dead on its last leg and it seems like in the last year or so, it’s made a comeback with different individuals, different organizations. What do you feel has contributed to the comeback of the MBA?
Dr. Wanda Curlee: Well, I’ve thought about that a lot. And I actually read an article by the Wall Street Journal. And in there, they made a comment which I found astounding. They said most MBA students can pay off their debt, if they have any student debt, within two to five years. Whereas individuals that graduated from law school are struggling to pay off their debt.
So to me, that opened up my eyes. Now I will say, I don’t know if the pandemic pushed people along to the MBA because now, theoretically, they had more time. So that’s a question and time will tell on that. I do know that the MBA in Europe has always been very popular and still is.
I’m glad that individuals are seeing that the MBA is important, but I think the MBA is at a crossroads. We, who run the business administration program, need to understand what employers want and employers want value-add. They want somebody that can jump in and put that learning to what they’re doing at work.
So, it’s very important for those of us that develop courses and update courses, making sure that we discuss it with employers. We at APU actually have an industry advisory council, which is made up of employers, and their input is valuable to us because we then understand what we need to do for our students and what they are looking for. And we have actually required some courses and started up some other courses in response to what they have said to me in our group.
Dr. Marie Gould Harper: Well, that’s exciting to hear. And as I heard you share information, it seems as though that you and your team work very hard to make sure you’re current and relevant. I’ve always said every school has a business program. So what makes you different? What makes you distinct?
And it sounds like you’ve found the formula for your particular institution and hopefully that will set you apart from all of the other business programs, especially the MBA program. Now, another thing that you shared and I want to explore, you have identified the importance of artificial intelligence as it relates to the business world. I think that is key because you’re not going by the scientific approach that most people start with the technology, but you’re basically saying, “Here is a tool. How can we make it applicable to the things that we do from a daily operational standpoint?” Would you care to go down that road and talk about how has AI impacted the operations of most businesses in the world?
Dr. Wanda Curlee: I’m going to say that most Fortune 1000 companies have AI, a software AI, in their organization. The issue is, I’m not sure they exactly know how to use it. They bought it for something, probably to look at all the data that they have because let’s face it, corporations have so much data they don’t know what to do with it.
And it’s incumbent upon the business professionals that we’re teaching to go in and do a business case and say, I need it for X. So first, what we try to teach our students is to go and talk to IT because it’s a software, so IT probably has it and is responsible for it, and find out what that AI does. And if you can’t find out from IT, keep on going up the chain of command, until you can figure out what that AI does.
If you think that AI would be valuable to your organization, let’s say you’re a project manager, I’m a project manager by profession, I would then say, even the smallest project these days has vast amount of data. And if I needed to harness that data from the organization, I can tell the CEO or the C-suite that I can increase your ROI because having that data, analyzing it, and doing “what ifs” will end up having less failed projects in your organization and a failed project just takes from the bottom line constantly.
So that’s something that the project manager, especially if they’re doing a huge project, can build a business case. And, yes, you’re going to fail sometimes. Sometimes the C-suite or somebody in the chain of command is just going to say “No.” But think of what you’ve learned, and now you do have value-add. Try to find out more information and do it again in a couple of years, nothing wrong with that. People will see you’re passionate about it. Or maybe, if you don’t fit in the organization, maybe it’s time to look for another job.
Dr. Marie Gould Harper: You actually brought up some points that I never thought about, and that was the use of data. Originally, when you said it, I was thinking, “Okay, this is an opportunity for people to become comfortable with technology.” Because I think sometimes people hear the word and they get scared, but if you can show how it relates to your world, it might be a little bit better, which also ties into getting the MBA. Because I’ve always thought of the MBA as corporate’s way of saying, “What do you have to prove you have the basic foundation that we don’t have to teach you?” And that was the purpose of the MBA. But, somehow, I think so many were offered and not all were equal that they became disillusioned as to how effective it was. So maybe we’re getting a little bit better on how we present our product.
Now you were talking about the data and the business analytics as it relates to artificial intelligence. Do you see this, when we talk about our theme of looking forward, as an opportunity for our leaders to be able to predict better? I’m not going to say just solve the problem. Things that may be coming down the pipe and become obstacles. So we can think about ways to have a plan B and a plan C. What are your thoughts about that?
Dr. Wanda Curlee: It’s interesting that you say that because there was an AI and I can’t remember the name of the software that actually predicted the pandemic about three months before everything started in earnest. And people said, “Oh no, that couldn’t be, that couldn’t be,” but it did. Did we react to it? No, because it was just a small AI and it wasn’t really being used by anybody in medicine. It was just somebody’s own AI, which I found kind of interesting.
So, yes, I think eventually when people get comfortable with AI and understand that it is impossible to have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people looking at all the data of the company and then having to communicate with each other because my data could affect your data and so forth and so on, and understand that the AI is just a tool. It’s not a silver bullet. It’s not going to solve all your problems, but it could give you what-if scenarios. It can tell you, well, based on what’s happening in the market, these things could happen. And then the CEO or the COO or whomever, needs to react to what that data’s doing.
Same thing for a project, especially if it’s a billion-dollar or a million-dollar project, think of all the data that the company has, that they can go in and retrieve and say, “Wow, we’ve done something similar to this many, many times. What were the risks? What worked? What didn’t work? Were we behind schedule constantly? Were we ahead of schedule? Can we do it faster, leaner, cheaper?” And if we start trusting the AI, then it will help us. Again, we as humans make the final decision. We’re not to the days of “Terminator” or Data on “Star Trek.”
Dr. Marie Gould Harper: That’s what I think of when I think of AI.
Dr. Wanda Curlee: No, we’re nowhere near there. I like to tell students that AI is a toddler now. It’s gotten out of its infancy. It’s now a toddler. And we also have to think about the ethics of AI. Remember AI is just a software tool. It’s neither ethical nor unethical, but it’s learning constantly. And if it’s got the wrong algorithm to learning, it can create things that are not ethical.
There have been some AI set, and I’m not going to mention the company, but it was using it for human resources to call which resumes they were going to forward. And it ended up that was basically only choosing males. And it finally dawned on somebody, and it wasn’t anybody in HR, it finally dawned on somebody that, “I’m not getting any resumes for women. What’s going on here?” And they found out that the algorithm was learning wrong. So, we as humans, again, have to test the algorithm as well. That is incumbent on us.
Dr. Marie Gould Harper: That’s great to know, and that’s very interesting because sometimes we get new technology and people think it’s going to solve everything, it’s perfect, but we have to play with it to make it work how we want it to work.
Now we have been talking about AI and some business analytics and some other things, but I wanted to go back and ask you, how have you integrated these new tools into your MBA program?
Dr. Wanda Curlee: We do have a class on AI at the MBA level. The students absolutely love it, but I think it has a little bit to do with the professor that normally teaches it as well. You could have the best class in the world, but if the instructor’s not willing to give and teach the students, the students aren’t going to take in the AI.
[Related: A Course in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Offers Intriguing Possibilities]
So I always ask my faculty to be enthusiastic, to be there, to give them real-world scenarios. How we’ve used AI? How AI can be used? What research have we found? I’m on a research committee of five of us, and we’re actually looking at AI in an online environment at the graduate level, mostly. And we ask students, what would you think about having AI teach the class? Or what would you think about AI grading your papers? And there are actually some universities, not the one I’m currently at, where AI does grade the papers. The instructor has to go and look at it to see if it agrees, but basically AI does a very good job of that.
So AI can help you do the mundane and give you more time to do the value-add. Where is the value-add? It’s being with the students. So that’s an interesting dynamic as to how much the faculty want to have AI, because they might think they’re going to be replaced. And, again, we’re not there. We are not there. And how much the AI can help you be a better faculty member or a better student for that matter.
Dr. Marie Gould Harper: Yes. As you speak about that, we can think about any business. I was thinking that it helps do the time to count the widgets, where you can be more creative and think about the big picture of any position. Doesn’t have to be a senior-level one. And that’s the beauty of it, and that’s usually the type of response that I give people who, when I discuss these type of new tools, “Oh, it’s going to replace me. They’ll no longer need me. They’ll go to robots,” and everything like that.
So, I’m glad that you’ve shared some information. You’ve put it in what I call “layman’s terms” that it’s easy for anyone to think in. And there are some people who can stop thinking about the “Terminator” when they hear AI.
Dr. Wanda Curlee: That’s right. That’s right.
Dr. Marie Gould Harper: Certain age group.
Dr. Wanda Curlee: We always think that technology’s going to replace us, but with every technology, when laptops came in, it created all new jobs that we hadn’t even thought about. So AI’s going to do the same thing. Yes, there’s robots there and there’s some learning robots, but, again, it’s the person that makes the final decision, not the robot, unless it’s a mundane task, taking a package off of this shelf and putting it onto that pallet. If it’s a complex situation, it’s still the human that makes the final decision or should be the human that makes the final decision.
[Podcast: The Future of Humanoid Robots using AI]
Dr. Marie Gould Harper: Exactly. Now I wanted to, for a brief moment, switch over to your profession. It seems as though project management is still hot. How is that particular area doing with your program? Do you see a lot of interest from prospective project managers? Or are they seasoned project managers coming over to get a degree?
Dr. Wanda Curlee: We see a little bit of both. Our university actually has an IT project management, and then we have a business project management. And while you may take the business project management, you say, “Oh, I’m not going to get involved with IT,” that’s not true. You’re looking at the IT from a business perspective, not from the ones and zeros.
[Podcast: AI Will Change the Future of Project Management]
And that’s where I got started was doing software on the business side, not on the IT side. And it’s a wonderful place to go. I’m what they call an accidental project manager. I knew nothing about project management, but once I learned what it was, I found out, “Wow, that’s what I did in the military. I did projects all the time.” And all of us do projects. When you’re creating a new class for the MBA program, that’s a project because it’s something brand new and it has a start and it has an end.
So, yes, we see project managers, especially for women, come into project management because they do want to be in IT. And some of them switch over to IT after they’ve done project management for a while because they see the beauty of it. So they not only switch to IT, maybe being a director or a supervisor, but they have that project management experience now and they know what to look for. They know the questions to ask.
And you don’t have to be a ones and zeros person to be an IT director or a supervisor. I don’t know a one from a zero and I led massive software integrations over the whole enterprise. You just have to know the questions to ask and be a value-add. And I find women do very well in project management.
Dr. Marie Gould Harper: And I’m glad you said that because I’ve seen certain articles that discuss, this field is one that will assist you to break into what has been perceived as a male-dominated field. Would you care to share anything about the certification exam?
Dr. Wanda Curlee: Sure. There’s various associations for project management. The most well-known one is the Project Management Institute and it is international and they do have certifications. I have several of them. The most popular one is the Project Management Professional. That’s what most people that are going into the profession make themselves different from another project manager that doesn’t have the certification. That’s one.
There is one called the CAPM. It’s a certified associate project manager. That’s somebody that wants to stay at the lower levels of project management. But truthfully from everybody that I know that has taken the CAPM, as they call it, and the PMP, they said the CAPM exam was more difficult than the PMP. I don’t know. I never took the CAPM, but it was interesting to hear that. And then they have other certifications that either take you up the chain of project management or show that you have specialized training in something.
For example, there’s the Risk Management Professional. So if you want to set yourself aside as a risk management professional, you can take the exam. There’s also one for agile. There’s one for project portfolio management, that’s where you’re looking at all the projects for the enterprise or an organization and understanding where you have to bring in resources or where you’re going to miss resources or what’s the biggest risk projects. And do we want to have that much risk? So you move around the projects and present it to a leadership and they make the final decision. You make the recommendations, leadership makes the final decision.
Then there’s Program Management Professional. A program has a start, but it may not have an end because it has a lot of projects coming in. For example, you might be putting in enterprise-wide software and you have all kinds of different little projects that make up the whole program. And it may even include all the maintenance and all the updates to it. So, the program never really ends because you’re still doing all of that.
Dr. Marie Gould Harper: Okay. That’s very interesting. Even within project management, there’s a lot of different roads that you can take based off of your interest and your level of expertise, where you are, and where you would like to go. And I think that’s very helpful too, because some of the subjects we’ve been talking about have become buzzwords. And my concern, as you explain everything, is people don’t have the full effect of what these different areas are and how it can apply to them.
I’m excited about your programs, especially your MBA program. I hear a lot of different things are coming down the track, not only what we are talking about, the different topics or concentrations that you can have in your MBA, but just how to present a MBA to different audiences based off of what they have a need, like an accelerated one, a one year one, an executive MBA. I mean, that’s almost like making vegetable soup. What am I going to throw in next?
Dr. Wanda Curlee: Absolutely, absolutely.
Dr. Marie Gould Harper: But I want to thank you for coming and sharing such relevant information with us today. And as we continue to go on and people are looking at what they want to do next, I think you have opened some doors of opportunity for them to think about in the next couple of months. Do you have any parting words for us?
Dr. Wanda Curlee: Thank you so much for having me at your podcast. And, yes, I would like to emphasize to our audience that when you’re selecting a MBA, choose the one that’s right for you. Do your homework. You’re going into a business administration degree. So you, as the student, prospective student, need to understand what you want out of the degree, what your employer or prospective employer would want out of the degree.
And remember not all MBAs are created equal. You need to look at what each MBA that you’re looking at offers you and if it offers the right things, and also look at how you’re going to pay for it. Are you going to do it all on student loans? Do you have some savings? So all of those are relevant, and also make sure that the MBA program is accredited. Not all are, and it’s very important that it should be accredited. So, thank you again, Marie, for having me here.
Dr. Marie Gould Harper: Oh, you’re most welcome. We look forward to seeing you again. And in terms of your final comments, I would like to say, excellent. I think you have set up our audience to not only be practical, but to think about customizing the process as it applies to their particular situations. And for that, I want to say thank you for the guidance. And to my audience, I want to say thank you for participating. I hope Dr. Curlee has given you some information to think about what’s next and how it applies to your career.
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