Backgrounder: UVic and TELUS introduce customized MBA

The MBA degree that will be offered for TELUS managers by the Sardul S. Gill Graduate School, within UVic’s Peter B. Gustavson School of Business, is the first customized graduate degree that the business school has developed for a corporate client.

An initial cohort of 20 TELUS employees has been admitted to this customized MBA, with an emphasis on leadership and strategy, and will begin the program in October 2015. The two-year degree will be offered again in 2016 or 2017.

In addition to MBA core and specialization courses (such as studies in operations management and corporate ‘intrapreneurship’), the focus will be on developing participants as leaders within TELUS.

Course content has been modified for the TELUS context, incorporating telecommunications industry case studies, examples and guest speakers. There will also be several TELUS-specific group and consulting projects interspersed throughout the program, including working with one of TELUS’s international operations. Participants will apply their skills and knowledge to a variety of customized leadership scenarios.

The MBA for TELUS allows participants to continue working full-time at the company with a partially reduced workload. During their studies, students will be paired with a mentor from the TELUS leadership team.

Face-to-face delivery of the program will take place in Victoria and abroad. Online components will be delivered making use of TELUS collaboration tools. The digital delivery includes everything from video lectures and discussion boards that can be accessed on demand, to virtual classrooms where participants use personalized avatars to interact with instructors and classmates while completing assignments.

The 20 participants in the program were vetted by internal TELUS performance criteria; they also met UVic's graduate admissions requirements.

TELUS put out an RFP for a custom Master’s program in Leadership and Strategy last spring. Nine universities were invited to bid and UVic’s Gustavson School of Business was the successful proponent.