The Graduate School of Management at University of California Davis is trying to launch a first-in-the-nation stackable certificate program for a Master of Business Administration.
The certificates could be attractive to people who are a few years into their career and who decide they need more skills, said H. Rao Unnava, dean of the Graduate School of Management.
"If you complete all the certificates, you earn an MBA. But you don't complete the entire MBA program, you've still got the certificate," Unnava said.
Without the stackable certificates, "if you leave after a year, you have nothing," Unnava said.
The certificates should also be attractive to people who want to refresh skills in a rapidly changing business environment.
The stackable certificate program needs to be approved by UC Davis' Academic Senate.
Currently, UC Davis is the only University of California school with an online MBA, and it is expanding to add an online master 's degree in management.
According to UC Davis, each of the certificates could be achieved by completing four graduate-level classes. By stacking six certificates, students can earn an MBA from the Graduate School of Management. They wouldn't have to be completed sequentially. Students could take courses to get a certificate in accounting, marketing, leadership, business analytics, management and operations, or other fields that work for them.
By separating the fields of study into certificates, they could become more popular to more potential students, said Tim Akin, executive director of marketing with the Graduate School of Management. One of the markets for the certificates could be as an amenity for companies to send their employees to get additional skills while they are still working.
They are, however, real classes with real tests and requirements, Akin said.
This fall, the Graduate School of Management is launching a lifelong learning platform free for alumni, where they can view existing video courses and homework assignments of current Graduate School of Management classes. In some fields of learning, some courses from just five or 10 years ago are now far out of date, Unnava said.
