There is a list of corporations whose names have become synonymous with all that is wrong in business today: Enron, Arthur Andersen, WorldCom, or just about any one of the financial giants responsible for Wall Street’s financial meltdown.

But the St. Mary’s University Bill Greehey School of Business has newly retooled its Master of Business Administration degree, and its leaders fully expect the program will become synonymous with all that can be right in business.

The program, now known as The Greehey MBA, is an 18-month, cohort-based program that incorporates advanced, graduate-level academic preparation with a special emphasis on ethical leadership, corporate social responsibility, sustainability and social entrepreneurship — topics that have become hallmarks of St. Mary’s University and the Bill Greehey School of Business.

Tanuja Singh, D.B.A., dean of the Greehey School of Business, said that high-profile financial scandals tend to tarnish the image of all business professionals, not just those involved. Singh saw the St. Mary’s MBA as an opportunity to ensure the business school was doing its part to educate and prevent future problems.

“With all of these problems in the business world, people start to wonder if our business schools are responsible. What are they doing to prevent this?” Singh said. “And we asked ourselves, what should we be doing? We took a good look at what we call the ‘St. Mary’s DNA’ and what our core competencies are. We wanted to do something different, something that really responded to the needs of the market.”

Enlisting an Industry Perspective

To help her create The Greehey MBA, Singh needed a partner who could not only understand what was needed in business education, but who also knew what was needed in the business world. So in August 2011, she brought in Earnie Broughton as director of the MBA and Executive Education Program as well as executive-in-residence. Before joining St. Mary’s, he spent 30 years in business with 11 years as the ethics program coordinator for USAA, on the front lines of one of the hottest business issues in generations.

“I can’t think of a more interesting decade to have been involved in organizational ethics,” Broughton said. “Starting with Enron and continuing through the near economic collapse precipitated by the financial markets, we have been reminded time and again of the importance of ethics and values in guiding our choices and conduct at both individual and collective levels. In my view, the opportunities for game-changing breakthroughs in organizational behavior and individual conduct have never been greater.”

Singh and Broughton worked closely together to develop the new program, which is accepting applications through August 1 for its first cohort this fall. The program offers numerous changes from the program previously offered, which was Broughton’s goal. “It’s not just about providing an excellent academic preparation; it’s also about educating in the Marianist tradition,” he said. “That means educating the whole person − mind, body and soul. It is about empowering students to change themselves, and thereby change the company they work for.”

A New Kind of Program

Each cohort in the program will have 25 to 30 students, keeping the classes small and close-knit. There are no elective courses, so they will take all classes together and finish the program in unison, with two weeknight courses each week and selected Saturday classes for the first two semesters. In the third semester, there is a weeklong international field study component as well as a required internship or professional practicum. The students wrap up the program in the fourth semester. The Greehey MBA will start in the fall with only one cohort, adding more in the coming semesters.

“Our cohorts will stay small, but our idea is that it doesn’t take a lot of people to change the world,” Broughton said.

In the previous program, because students were not part of a cohort, there was not a lot of connectivity between students, who could take up to three years to finish the program. But developing camaraderie between students will be intentionally built into the new format, with events and programs held for both entering students and graduates. Broughton likes to think of the program as a journey that starts right after being accepted to the program and continues long after graduation.

A mainstay of the program is that it teaches the core competencies of an MBA program − accounting, finance, management, marketing − while integrating the hallmarks of the Greehey School of Business, such as ethical leadership, social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility and sustainability. A key part of that is the development of Advanced Behavioral Skills, or A.B.S., the so-called soft skills that differentiate good business leaders from great ones. Students will hear from industry leaders while also focusing on networking, persuasion, conflict management, innovation and the like. Broughton said that health and wellness − both physically and spiritually − will be part of the program as well.

“We are really going to be taking a holistic approach that is more than just theory,” Broughton said. “In the business executive ranks, there is not really much difference in IQs. What sets them apart is how well they play with others, network, mediate, negotiate. Also important is their ability to balance their work lives and their personal lives. We want to create balanced individuals who can lead balanced lives.”

Features of the Greehey MBA Program

• Small class sizes that allow personalized attention, one-on-one faculty interaction and the opportunity for peer-to-peer mentoring
• Evening classes in a Values-driven Leadership Lab held on selected Saturdays
• Focus on developing advanced behavioral skills, such as conflict resolution, teamwork, personal branding, and innovation and creativity − skills that distinguish top performers in business
• Modular overviews of essential business operational topics such as employee engagement, enterprise risk management and internal audit
• A built-in, concentrated international field study experience that prepares students to engage in business with diverse cultures
• A curriculum based on practical and applied experiential learning
• A required internship or consultative practicum to provide real-world experience with for-profit, not-for-profit and nongovernmental organizations on-site, virtually, or both

Click to Learn More About the Greehey MBA Program

Broughton: Not Your Typical Professor

With more than 30 years of management and executive experience, Earnie Broughton (M.A. ’93) is not your typical college professor. He followed a business career path, rather than an academic one, and focused on ethics not in a laboratory setting but in the business world.

“I was at a point where I wanted to know what I was going to do with the next 10 years of my life, and to be able to reinvent the St. Mary’s MBA program seemed like a once-in-a-career opportunity,” said Broughton, who had spent the previous 11 years leading organizational ethics at USAA.

He took on the USAA Ethics Program because ethics seemed to be the area most directly related to personal values and how they could transform a workplace. He noted that this is a paradigm shift in business thinking: At one time, ethics was more about following the rules than it was about doing the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do.

“Over the years, ethics has moved from an almost singular focus on compliance with laws and regulations during the 1990s to a more recent awareness of the importance of culture in establishing and reinforcing standards of conduct,” he said.

Broughton is intrigued by the emergence of social psychology and behavioral economics in the explanation of ethical − and unethical − conduct.

“Looking into the future, I see the beginnings of an integration of neurology and biology into a more comprehensive picture of individual ethics, moral reasoning and action,” he said. “The final piece of the puzzle will, I believe, be an acknowledgement that a deep and unifying view of spirituality is necessary to free us from the limited and self-interested world view and mindset that created these cycles of ethics crises in the first place.”

Once students complete the MBA program, Broughton wants them to leave with exactly what would be expected from a graduate-level program: academic preparation, practical skills, self-awareness, and a deep connection with both their classmates and the world around them. But he also wants them to leave St. Mary’s with something more: a life-changing experience, both professional and personal.

“I want them to look back on their MBA as an experience that separates the life they lived before entering our program from the ever-expanding circle of self-understanding, purpose and opportunity that comes after they graduate. That is a tall order, but anything less falls short of our tradition and mission at St. Mary’s.”