EXECUTIVE PROGRAMS AT SPP

About 60 people—current students and some alumni—met on Sunday, August 28, 2005 in the Johnson Center on the Fairfax Campus to launch the new academic year for the master's program offered by SPP. Started in 1996, the program welcomed its tenth cohort this year, when Dr. Ann Baker became program director, taking over from Dr. Mark Addleson. The program, which enables students to study organization development and change management at the master’s level, is now part of the school’s branch of Executive Programs, directed by Lee Fritschler. “We have scheduled master’s classes so they can be taken on weekends and in the summer,” Fritschler explains. “That way, the master’s degree can be completed in two years.” The program was also recently given a new name to more clearly reflect its purpose: the Organization Development and Knowledge Management Masters program.

Under Fritschler’s direction, SPP has also begun to offer contractual, not-for-credit executive programs, specifically tailored to the needs of different companies. “For example, we’ve done three classes for the Verizon company, teaching their employees about telecommunication regulation policies in the United States,” Fritschler notes. “We also did three programs for the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, covering the topic of the media in China, the Middle East and Europe.” Most of these contractual courses have been given to government agencies and not-for-profits, though the school is also happy to work with corporations.