Athabasca University is celebrating an online milestone this year.
AU president Dr. Neil Fassina is proud of the online Master of Business Administration that AU offers and has offered for the past quarter century.
“We were the world's first online MBA. That happened in the mid 90s so we're celebrating the 25th anniversary,” Fassina stated.
“If you consider what that meant at the time, we launched in ‘94 and remember the internet in ‘94? When 56 k was considered high speed and we waited for that agonizing sound of fingers on a chalkboard and knowing we were connected,” he continued. “Heaven forbid some of your family lifted the phone up because that was the end of your connection.”
“I had a former faculty member share with me they were in a different part of the world, and they had to download their student's assignments and took them three days,” Fassina laughed. “Now if we wait three minutes, we're just losing it.”
The online MBA gives students the flexibility to study at their own pace while maintaining and job and home responsibilities without having to move near campus.
“One of the visions that we have within our action plan is what we call ‘Moving Beyond Place.’ We want to be able to create relationships and belonging without having a physical presence, and what that does is it flips the lens,” Fassina explained.
“Where brick and mortar environments ask you to leave your environment to become part of theirs. we look at it and say, ‘Who you are, what you've done, the community you're embedded in, the job you have, the dependents you have, the friends you have, that actually makes you a better learner,’ because you're bringing the richness of your day to day experience into your learning environment.”
This model has worked well for alumni over the past 25 years who have gone on to head international nonprofits, create companies, or change the way business views hockey, like Nathan MacDonald does. MacDonald was a member of the first cohort of the Business of Hockey program and graduated in 2018.
The Oct. 17 fete will take place at the Matrix Hotel in Edmonton and include a symposium and a Hall of Fame Awards Gala.
The symposium will be comprised of distinguished guests like Dr. Stephen Murgatroyd who was the Founding Director of AU’s MBA, as well as alumni Curtis Stange, Chief Strategy and Operations Officer for ATB who graduated in 2000, and 2002 graduate Cathy Cummings, the executive director of the International Alliance of ALS/MND Associations.
“If you're not online, you're not in the game,” Fassina stated regarding the successful program.
