Residence Periods + Online Structure

No matter where you live, you can complete your Executive MBA for Strategic Leadership in just one year. Your class time is divided into four two-week residence periods and 15 online distance-learning sessions.

Residence Periods

Four times each year, you'll leave the demands of work and family to spend two weeks focused exclusively on your Executive MBA studies.

During these High Compression Learning^SM residence periods, you'll take classes, meet with faculty advisors and leadership development coaches, and work on project teams with your peers. One of the residence periods is a global immersion seminar.

You'll also spend plenty of time forming relationships with your classmates—bonding, no doubt, over your shared coursework—and getting to know the University of Tennessee faculty. We encourage you and your classmates to enrich one another's learning environment by sharing your business experiences and providing practical examples of what you're learning. It's the kind of knowledge that no textbook alone can ever give.

Instead of teaching elective courses or classes on separate business disciplines, your professors will address real-world problems from multiple perspectives and focus on common challenges that executives share across all industries. We call this holistic, integrated approach the Executive Core.

After each residence period, you'll complete a series of Comprehensive Strategic Assessments (CSAs)—written assignments applied to your own organization using concepts and tools you've just learned. Potential topics:

• Financial analysis
• Customer value analysis
• Assessment of supplier and customer conditions
• Competitive environment assessment
• Exploration of international possibilities
• Process analysis
• Critical review of the role of IT in the organization
• In-depth analysis of human capital

Your final CSA will recommend strategic actions for your organization based on what you've learned throughout the year.

Online Structure

When you're not in residence, you'll be participating in online distance-learning sessions. These sessions are held at two-week intervals on Wednesday evenings from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET.

Class time is dynamic and interactive, just as it would be in person, and gives you the chance to connect with your classmates between residence periods. Faculty hold discussions and answer questions about assignments. Guest speakers talk about burning topics in organizations such as talent management, branding efforts using social media, and the fallout from the recent mortgage crisis. You may be participating from a distance, but you won’t skip a beat in the learning process.

Visit our Executive MBA academic calendar page to view session dates and times.