Apples to Apples

There are a few different options when a student is considering doing an MBA at the U of U.
There’s the full-time day MBA program, there’s the executive MBA, and there is the night Professional MBA program, which boasts,
“A rigorous 48 credit hour program with flexibility to create an individualized educational experience”.

The PMBA program is a two-year program for professionals that work during the day. Although the course line-up shows students taking 6 semesters to graduate and finishing in August, many students in past cohorts have taken an extra course here and there to be able to complete the program in 5 semesters so that they could graduate in May. That is what many in the PMBA graduating class of 2011 had also intended to do.
So it was a shock to many students when we received an unexpected e-mail Monday morning from the Assistant Dean of the business school saying:
_______________________________________
From: [mailto:DESB-ProfessionalMB@umail.utah.edu]
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2010 10:46 AM
To: pmba-2011@lists.utah.edu
Subject: [pmba-2011] Message to all Professional MBA students who have registered for additional credits

Dear Professional MBA Class of 2011,

As per the policy of the Professional MBA program, you should be registered for a maximum of six credit hours in summer semester and nine credit hours in fall semester. If you have exceeded these prescribed numbers of credits, please withdraw from these additional elective courses by 12:00 noon on Wednesday, April 21. If, after that time, your schedules have not been adjusted, the PMBA Office will drop courses for you. In an effort to provide students on the wait lists an opportunity for electives, the elective courses will be dropped first.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Brad Vierig,
Assistant Dean
______________________________________


During the course of Monday, many students tried to contact the dean’s office and the PMBA office to get clarification of this said “policy”.
As a matter of coincidence, the Dean, associate dean, and assistant dean, all have taken the next 2 weeks off and cannot be reached until early May.

In one of my e-mails, I stated that I am not the only person that is having a hard time understanding this.
To which, I got this response from the PMBA advisor,
“Actually, the vast majority of students don’t seem upset by this”.

I couldn’t believe it. So I sent out “feeler” e-mails to people in class that I frequently talk to.
As of last night, 24 hours after the e-mail was sent, I had received e-mails from at least 25+ students who are also having a hard time understanding this new policy, and saying that it was effecting their future plans/goals. And I hadn’t even contacted half of the cohort. So I'm really interested to know how many this “Vast Majority” the PMBA is referring to really is.

I met with a PMBA advisor yesterday wanting answers to my questions:
-Why are they instituting this new policy?
-If it has always been a PMBA policy, why are they only starting to enforce it now, half way through our program?
-- If they have decided to enforce it, shouldn’t they wait for the incoming cohort this fall?
-Where has this policy been provided to me in writing?

The Advisor first of all, in my opinion, was thrown under a bus from the dean’s office administration. They left her here to deal with complaining and upset students by herself, even though she has no power to do anything about it.

It was a frustrating meeting.

When I asked why other cohorts up to this current year were able to take excess credit hours but we are now not, she said, “This is a completely different program than past cohorts. We’ve changed things.”, And just kept insisting that this was a completely new program, like comparing apples to oranges.

Even though it is comparing PMBApples to PMBApples.

When I asked where this had been provided in writing that we couldn’t take excess hours, she said, “We never said you could”.
I said, “You never said we couldn’t”.
And another round or two of “We never said you could”, “You never said we couldn’t” passed.
In my understanding, unless specified otherwise by a department or program, protocol follows University regulations. And University regulations allows students to register for as many hours as they feel they can handle the coursework for.

I’ve asked the PMBA advisor to schedule an information session with the dean’s admin as soon as they are available. Which will be in early May. Which may be too late. Because as the e-mail said that we received two days ago, our classes are being withdrawn without our permission today, as I type this.
I and many students are very frustrated because we can't seem to get answers, even though we are trying to follow the proper chain of command.

Does this make any sense? Any suggestions on how to get answers?