MBA News Digest Academy Podcast Series: Recent Episodes
Rodney G. Alsup, D.B.A., CPA, CITP
Are you ready to take your career and your graduate program to the next level? Want to learn what other graduate program managers from around the world are doing to take their programs to the next level? This podcast will help you learn proven strategies and tactics other program managers use to advance their programs. Rodney Alsup, founder of the MBA News Digest discusses curriculum management, program assessment, recruiting and enrollment, alumni relations, social media, social media marketing, content marketing and marketing strategies, bringing you the latest from graduate program thought leaders around the world. Learn how the most successful programs in the world are managing their programs and how you can model their proven strategies and tactics for your own graduate program. Rodney’s MBA News Digest podcast features interviews with program managers, faculty and influencers from the world of graduate business. The discussions revolve around their real world efforts, strategies and tactics, what works (and what doesn’t) and how you can model these insights for your own graduate program.
Most graduate programs stay in touch with their alumni. Almost none of them are actually learning anything from it.
A call. A newsletter. A reunion invite. That's a relationship — not a research instrument. And it tells you nothing about whether your curriculum actually worked once your graduates were out in the world using it.
There's one tool most programs already have that could answer that question. It just gets retired the moment it would start paying off. That tool is the Bridge Matrix. This episode discusses how the Matrix can be turned into a "Post-Graduation Intelligence System."
RELATED CONTENT:
"Do You Have a Tool That Can Show Whether Your Curriculum Still Works One, Three, Five, or Ten Years After Graduation?" LinkedIn Newsletter, August 5, 2026. Click here to view the Newsletter Episode via LinkedIn - FREE A shorter introduction to PULSE, written for a two-minute read.
Read the full Play — with the cadence, the implementation plan, and a worked example — at rgalsup.com/pulse/. It's FREE. And you can download a PDF copy of the play.
Most graduate programs run three conversations that never touch: what learners need, what curriculum teaches, and what employers expect on day one. The Bridge Matrix is a single tool — built on Bloom's Taxonomy — that plots all three on one grid, so the gaps between them become visible instead of assumed. This Play walks through how to build the matrix, read it, and run it twice: once to plan a curriculum cycle, and again to prove what changed.
Your graduate program probably has a mission statement.
Here's the problem: it almost certainly belongs to someone else.
Most graduate program mission statements are one of two things:
• The university's institutional mission with a discipline-specific phrase inserted.
• Something so broadly worded it could apply to any program at any institution in the country.
Neither of those is a purpose statement. And both fail the program in ways that compound.
A statement that could belong to any program belongs to no program.
It can't help an admissions team recognize a well-matched candidate. It can't help a faculty member design a learning experience specific to what this program is trying to produce. It can't help a staff member support a struggling student. And it can't give an alumni coordinator a reason to stay in relationship with graduates five and ten years out.
The revised Play 0.1 — The Program Purpose Statement — explains the difference, walks you through building one, and gives you eight tests for knowing when what you wrote is strong enough to carry the weight the rest of the Playbook will place on it.
If you have a mission statement and you're not sure it's doing the work a purpose statement needs to do, the Compass Test in Section 3 will answer that question in about four minutes.
It's Free.
🔗 Play 0.1 — The Program Purpose Statement: https://rgalsup.com/play-0-1-the-program-purpose-statement/
🔗 All published Plays: https://rgalsup.com/grad-program-intake-playbook/
The Graduate Business Curriculum Roundtable just released a study of 69 graduate business schools examining whether institutions have the organizational systems to detect external change and translate it into sustained curriculum adaptation.
One finding stood out: roughly a third of schools have the operational capability to adapt — but don't consistently activate it. The researchers call this "Latent Agility," and it may describe more institutions in this community than the more dramatic "high-friction" cases that usually get attention.
I summarize the findings and what they mean for program-level leadership — including a discipline-neutral framework for assessing where your own program might fall, regardless of where it sits within your college or university structure.
I'd be glad to hear how this framework lands for your institution.
🔗 Access Research Entry 001: https://rgalsup.com/research-entry-001-curricular-agility-in-graduate-business-education/.
🔗 To view all published plays, visit: https://rgalsup.com/grad-program-intake-playbook/.
The GBCR report itself is available through the Graduate Business Curriculum Roundtable.
Three Ways to Engage — All Free
I built the Playbook to be useful, not to be sold. That means no paywalls, no retainers, and nothing to register for just to read the work.
Read the Plays. Every Play is free at rgalsup.com. Start wherever your program needs the most help — each one stands on its own.
Join a free webinar. I will be hosting free monthly or quarterly webinars on specific Playbook topics, built around real conversations with people working on the same problems you are. Registration will be required. Watch rgalsup.com and this newsletter for dates.
Talk to me directly. If something here is hitting close to home for your program — faculty enablement, hidden data in your platforms, evidence that nobody is using — I would genuinely like to hear about it. Free one-on-one conversations are available via Calendly at rgalsup.com. Availability is limited on my end, so if you see a slot that works, grab it.
The offer is open. The work is real. And if this research hit you the way it hit me, I would love to talk it through.
If your graduate program feels like it's stuck on a "recruitment treadmill," exhausting itself every cycle just to maintain the status quo, it may be time for a structural shift. Transitioning from survival to flourishing requires us to stop viewing the intake process as a one-time transaction and instead design it as a long-term partnership. This newsletter serves not just as a publication, but as a workshop for you to engage with. My goal is to assist you in architecting and iterating your own design-driven intake playbook. Every two weeks, I will share a modular "Play"—a specific tool, template, or strategy—that you can integrate directly into your program's playbook. By the end of our first cycle, you will have a documented, evidence-based system customized to fit your unique graduate culture. Let's start building your playbook. Listent to this episoce and then subscribe, follow, or connect with me via LinkedIn by clicking here.
A new report, the CHLOE 10 Report, was just released, and its findings are a wake-up call for our higher education institutions. The report, which is a collaboration between Quality Matters, Eduventures, and EDUCAUSE, tracks 10 years of online learning growth and reveals a boom in short-term credentials and uneven progress on AI across higher education.
The top-line finding is impossible to ignore - nearly 90% of colleges and universities plan to expand their online programs in the next three years. This isn't just a reaction to a trend; it's a strategic shift driven by soaring student demand.
Listen to learn more. Or click here to view a written summary and to get a link to the report.
I applaud the University of Rochester for their forward thinking, planning, and action. Navigating the chaos being created by the current administration is not going to be easy. However, I think working together as a united campus and community will make it a survivable situation.
I hope this episode of the GME News Digest podcast offers valuable insights into the adaptive strategies of one of our leading institutions in these challenging times. For more discussions like this, stay tuned. Until next time, keep seeking knowledge and visit the GME News Digest website for additional resources.
This podcast incorporates key points from the University of Rochester's academic budget and planning update, ensuring listeners gain a clear understanding of the ongoing efforts and strategies in place to navigate the institution through these challenging times.
These strategies provide insights into how graduate business program leaders can deal with the chaos being created by the current administration.
Welcome to the GME News Digest podcast series—your source for insights, strategies, and inspiration in graduate program management. Whether you're an experienced program leader, part of an administrative team, or a dedicated academic faculty member, this is the space where I explore pressing challenges in GME and uncover actionable solutions. I’m Rodney Alsup, and in today’s episode, we’ll tackle a topic that resonates deeply across Executive MBA programs and all graduate business programs: helping learners overcome their fear of finance and accounting.
#BusinessEducation #Simulations #ExperientialLearning #GMENEWSDigest
Welcome back to the GME News Digest Podcast Series. Hi, I’m Rodney Alsup, your host for this episode, “Embracing Skills-Based Hiring in Graduate Programs.”
Ashley Mowreader’s insightful Inside Higher Ed article inspired this episode. Her title, “What Skills-Based Hiring Means for Higher Ed” caught my attention, so I thought I would explore its significance for the graduate education community. Her article was among the twelve pieces of content I included in last week’s curated selection for GME News Digest subscribers.
Who is your graduate program designed to serve?
Or can you describe your program’s target audience? Would your answers be the same or different for each question? Should they be the same or different? Or could they be the same or different? How would the major role players that support your graduate program respond to these questions?
The question “Who is your graduate program designed to serve?” isn’t just critical – it is a keystone of strategic planning for a graduate program.
Click here to view the blog article: Who is your graduate program designed to serve?
The effectiveness of a graduate program depends on the understanding of individual learner journeys by program leaders and faculty, as well as the understanding of the program’s learner journey by individual learners. I explored these understandings from two distinct perspectives of the learner journey in my two previous episodes. One perspective was that of the learner, and the other was that of the program’s management. This episode's purpose is to show how aligning the two perspectives develops a framework for effectively managing graduate programs to the benefit of a diverse set of stakeholders, such as individual learners, faculty members, employers, and the community.
Click here to complete this 9 question assessment to see what your program's learner journey is telling you.
Once learners realize a learning need, they usually start a journey to address it. Many times, the journey starts out as self-directed and, at some point, it transitions to a guided journey. When a graduate degree program is involved, much of the self-directed journey planning starts with a web browser and an internet search. And during any stage of their search, learners may evaluate multiple journeys, all created by competing graduate programs.
The journey the learner ultimately selects is likely the one with the best guidance throughout each leg of the journey they are exploring. From a graduate program management view, the best guidance is likely provided by a journey organized around three systems:
- Lead Collection,
- Learner Conversion, and
- Fan Creation.
Designing and managing the journey with a systems approach facilitates the coordination of the program’s moving parts and components, which helps ensure learners receive the guidance they seek at each phase of any journey they are exploring. Let me give you an overview of each system and show you how they all connect.
Have you ever thought about the path learners navigate when they go from realizing their need to learn to be a loyal program supporter? When both learners and program leaders really understand the path learners follow, it’s like having a roadmap to success for both. A roadmap with interesting goals like identifying knowledge gaps, choosing a program, enrolling, and becoming a committed supporter. In the following episode, I describe six stages that most learners follow on their journey. Improving program effectiveness and reputation comes from understanding the learner journey and these stages. This episode is based on a blog article I wrote titled, From First Encounters to Lifelong Advocacy: Navigating the Learner’s Journey in a Graduate Program – The Learner View.
Our conversation focused on:
• How the coming baby drought will affect the future of business education?
• How generational behavior will affect the future of business education?
• How changes in the behavior of the middle classes will affect the future of business education?
• How gender shifts will affect the future of business education?
• How urbanization will affect the future of business education?
• How technological advances will affect the future of business education?
• How a culture of sharing will affect the future of business education?
• How changes in the medium of exchange will affect the future of business education?
Wharton Professor Mauro Guillén, recently named dean of Cambridge University’s Judge Business School, and author of 2030: How Today's Biggest Trends Will Collide and Reshape the Future of Everything joined me to discuss how B-School deans and graduate program leaders can prepare their programs for 2030 and beyond.
Dr. Bora Ozkan, assistant professor of finance at Temple University’s Fox School of Business serves as the academic director for the school’s Online MBA and Online BBA.
The reason Bora is joining me today is he’s responsible for the Fox School’s first-ever Virtual Reality or VR course that's offered to their online MBA students. The course, "Fintech, Blockchain and Digital Disruption," is a seven-week course that started March 19, 2020 and ends the last week of March. Twenty students enrolled for the course. The course was designed by Bora, a team from the Fox School’s Online and Digital Learning Department and Glimpse Group, a virtual reality and augmented reality platform company. I learned of the course from a US News article that I recently shared with MBA News Digest subscribers. After reading the article, I thought this would be something that MBA News Digest subscribers and podcast listeners would be interested in learning more about. I contacted Bora and he agreed to join me today for this interview. Bora, welcome.
Making graduate program management simple is almost never a consideration during the design phase of a new graduate program. Georgia State University's new MS in Human Resource Management program is an exception.
In this episode, two program faculty members discuss how the new program's design makes program management simple. Join me as we discuss how the program uses rubrics to track overall skill development progress for individual students and for the program; how metrics guide program data collection and reporting; how the program can track meta level skills by student; how the program gathers faculty input about student performance by using Qualtrics; and more.
During 2019 graduate management education was criticized for not being relevant. At the end of January, I received a press release from GSU titled “Georgia State’s Master’s in H.R. Management Responds to Emerging Business Needs.” I thought, here’s a response to that criticism, I wonder how they did it? Two GSU faculty are here today to help us understand the how.
During this podcast you will learn:
• How to scope and evaluate industry projects to align with learning outcomes
• How to identify mis-matched expectations and facilitate re-alignment
• 5 Practical Lessons from 5+ years’ experience facilitating industry-engaged experiential learning to 5000+ students
My guest for this webinar is Nikki James, VP of Learning & Experience, Practera, a company whose mission is to make it easy to design and deliver world-class experiential learning programs