Courses—MBA

0-F, S, Sum

Serves as the entry point for new students in the MBA program. This course is designed to onboard students by introducing them to the scope of the program and its integrated design and learning objectives. The orientation will also help students understand program expectations and time commitment and prepare themselves for online communication and technology requirements necessary to successfully complete their online MBA degree.

3-WSP

Examines and applies mathematical and statistical methods to improve data literacy and develop tools to improve management decision-making. Familiarizes students with the assumptions underlying various statistical techniques and assists in identifying their appropriateness in a variety of situations. Students perform statistical analysis and interpret results that contribute to information-based decision-making. Students may choose to waive this course and substitute an elective if they have earned a B− or better in at least two of the following undergrad/graduate-level courses: statistics (level 200+), data science (level 200+), calculus or a 200+-level college math course. Prerequisite: MBA 501

3-S

Examines and applies mathematical and statistical methods to improve data literacy and develop tools to improve management decision-making. Familiarizes students with the assumptions underlying various statistical techniques and assists in identifying their appropriateness in a variety of situations. Students perform statistical analysis and interpret results that contribute to information-based decision-making. Students may choose to waive this course and substitute an elective if they have earned a B− or better in at least two of the following undergrad/graduate-level courses: statistics (level 200+), data science (level 200+), calculus or a 200+-level college math course. Prerequisite: MBA 501

3-S

Focused on improving leader efficacy in developing peak organizational and people performance. Performance contributors and/or detractors are studied from a biblical perspective as students examine how recent trends in workplace “advances,” scientific findings, and human resource best practices confirm and/or conflict with God’s design of humankind. Prerequisites: MBA 501, 630

3-Summer

Prepares students to effectively extract and utilize information in financial statements. The relation between financial statement representation and underlying business activities is emphasized. Specific topics to be addressed include revenue recognition practices; obligation measurement; and the impact of organizational form on accounting measures of performance, digital platforms, and GAAP. Students may choose to waive this course and substitute an elective if they have earned a B− or better in at least two of the following undergrad/graduate-level courses: Financial Accounting, Managerial Accounting, and Cost Accounting. Prerequisites: MBA 501, 630

3-S

Considers how organizations assess and manage risks in external and internal environments and adapt daily operations and long-term plans to minimize unexpected losses. Students learn how to identify and categorize risks, how to develop and prioritize responses to risks, how risk affects strategic planning and daily operations, and how insurance and other tactics and strategies mitigate risks. Enterprise risk management, governance, and contingency planning are considered for the entire organization, including accounting and finance, sales and marketing, human resources, and information technology. Prerequisites: MBA 501, 630

3-Summer

Emphasizes the decision-making and discipline of financial management. Subjects include financial reports and metrics, financial analysis and planning, financial forecasting, financial markets, financial leverage, working capital management, capital budgeting processes, cost of capital, and the evaluation of domestic and global merger and acquisition opportunities, including takeover and antitrust strategies. Students integrate a biblical and ethical framework that helps guide financial management decision-making. Students may choose to waive this course and substitute an elective if they have earned a B− or better in at least two of the following undergrad/graduate-level courses: Corporate Finance I/II; Investment Management; or Money, Banking, and Finance. Prerequisites: MBA 501, 630

3-S

This course examines marketing, sponsorship, branding, ticketing, media, and fan engagement strategies in the sport industry. Students will analyze how sport organizations build revenue, deepen fan loyalty, activate partnerships, and communicate across digital, live-event, and community platforms. Special attention will be given to sponsorship development, sport consumer behavior, athlete branding, social media, and the role of sport organizations in shaping community identity.

3-Summer

This course explores the economic and financial foundations of sport organizations. Students will examine revenue generation, budgeting, valuation, media rights, sponsorship income, ticketing, facilities finance, donor revenue, and financial decision-making in professional, collegiate, nonprofit, and community sport settings. Emphasis will be placed on responsible financial stewardship and strategic revenue development.

3-Summer

This course focuses on the operational, legal, ethical, and governance issues involved in managing sport organizations and events. Students will study facilities, game-day operations, event planning, risk management, compliance, league and conference structures, stakeholder coordination, and administrative decision-making. The course emphasizes ethical leadership, organizational effectiveness, and service-oriented management in sport contexts.

3-F

Generative AI (GenAI) is ushering in a new age of productivity in business. Managers who ineffectively adopt it risk being outpaced by forward-thinking competitors. This course equips students to drive impact in any industry using GenAI tools. You’ll learn to engineer effective prompts, integrate AI into workflows, and develop innovative GenAI solutions, as well as explore ethical considerations and future trends.

3-F

Just like you wouldn’t use a financial model to drive a marketing campaign, different business use cases require different AI tools. In this course, students will explore the potential and limitations of AI technologies, learning to identify business problems suitable for AI solutions and build effective AI implementation strategies. By the end of this course, students will address key challenges and solutions in AI implementation.

3-F/S

Alongside powerful data-driven solutions, AI opens a Pandora's box of ethical issues: data privacy, bias, transparency, and balancing automation with human oversight. AI governance may be the biggest ethical issue of our time, something essential for any manager to understand before implementing this new technology. Students will develop AI policies for ethics and compliance, mitigate AI-related risks, and communicate governance standards to stakeholders.

3-F/S

AI projects can help predict trends and optimize operations, allowing businesses to understand not just what has happened but what will happen—and what should be done about it. By the end of this course, students will be prepared to drive financial and operational impact by managing AI project lifecycles: developing comprehensive project plans, managing data and models, ensuring effective deployment, and communicating progress and outcomes to stakeholders.

3-F

Storytelling is one of the oldest and most powerful tools for action, and this course empowers MBA students to transform raw data into compelling narratives that drive business decisions. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to create data queries and visualizations, integrate data into business planning, and effectively communicate your findings, helping organizations turn data into a strategic tool for competition and innovation.

3-F

Spreadsheet tools are the most universal and easily accessible program for most people to use and interpret data—and a vital skill for any analyst to know. In this course, students will learn data cleaning, financial modeling, optimization, and data visualization using PivotTables and PivotCharts, enabling students to analyze complex datasets, create forecasts, and effectively communicate insights to support data-driven decision-making in business contexts.

3-F/S

Managers who hope to stay competitive in business analytics need to be able to scale their analytics—and Python provides that solution. This course covers Python's significance in business analytics, setting up the Python environment, and learning basic syntax. You’ll leverage three of Python's essential libraries—NumPy for numerical data, Pandas for data manipulation, and Matplotlib for data visualization—to use data to solve complex business problems.

3-F

Companies storing information are responsible for keeping it safe—and face consequences if they don’t. Who's at fault after an attack and who must be informed? This course covers corporate governance principles, risk identification methods, business regulations, accountability, and audits. In a data-driven world, business leaders must handle data responsibly, and by the end of this course, you'll learn how to manage the growing legal obligations around cybersecurity.

3-F

In order to ensure a house is safe, we need to know how it’s built. It’s the same for cybersecurity: to ensure systems are secure, we need to understand their design and the unique security challenges of different network architectures and data storage solutions. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to critique security for various network designs, including IT and OT systems, cloud environments, data storage, and IoT networks, in terms of cyber risk.

3-F/S

Cyberattacks today are inevitable—but the extent of the damage may rely on how much you, as the manager, are prepared. By the end of this course, you’ll know how to create risk management strategies before, during, and after cyberattacks, developing incident response plans, understanding frameworks like NIST and MITRE ATT&CK, identifying proactive and reactive protection techniques, and debriefing with 'hotwashes.'

3-F/S

To defend against hackers, you need to think like a hacker. This course covers the fundamentals of ethical hacking, from Linux commands and open-source tools to attack tree construction and vulnerability research. By the end of the course, you'll be able to use what you’ve learned to analyze, interpret, and communicate penetration tests and security strategies to executives.

3-F

Investing involves risk—but this course teaches you how to manage that risk and make the right decisions to build and protect your wealth. What portfolio decisions are safer? How can companies thrive by balancing debt and equity? How can options mitigate risk? By the end, you'll have the financial acumen to make informed investment decisions, optimize portfolio performance, and master strategies for risk management, capital allocation, and sustainable financial growth.

3-F/S

Finance isn’t a static field, and understanding disruptors like blockchain and cryptocurrency allows you to capitalize on opportunities that are revolutionizing financial operations. Students will describe and evaluate blockchain, analyze cryptocurrencies, and assess decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. By course end, students will be ready to explore blockchain and crypto career opportunities and lead discussions on these cutting-edge technologies.

3-F

Healthcare systems are complicated structures beholden economically and legally to many different stakeholders and policies. When those factors change, they have consequences. Aspiring managers must be able to make informed decisions about what to do in the face of change. By the end of this course, aspiring healthcare system managers will be prepared to analyze the economic impact of policy changes on their institutions and tackle challenges such as hospital mergers, new payment models, regulated drug prices, and Medicaid insurance bids.

3-F

Should a hospital focus on pediatrics or heart surgery? How can clinics build and retain a strong workforce? What is the best strategy for negotiating with insurance companies? This course focuses on the management principles and practices that create successful healthcare organizations. Students will learn to navigate key management challenges, apply strategic analysis frameworks, and manage healthcare workforce and IT systems—all with an emphasis on ethical leadership, collaboration, and quality assurance.

3-F/S

Healthcare managers that can leverage data analysis make more informed decisions that lead to better outcomes. Data in a healthcare context brings solutions, but also unique challenges that managers must navigate to harness its potential. In this course, students will explore effective management and integration of data-driven decisions in healthcare. By the end, students will be able to strategize and communicate data insights to drive ethical impact in healthcare systems.

3-F/S

In health services organizations, bad financial management can cost more than money—it can cost lives, making financial acumen crucial for quality patient care. This course covers financial statement analysis, cost accounting, capital budgeting, and financial modeling, equipping future managers to make informed decisions around challenges such as evaluating insurance designs, assessing service line impacts, and analyzing new drug costs.

3-Summer

Focuses on the mechanics of financial statement analysis from various perspectives, including shareholders, financial analysts, boards of directors, investors, and business mergers and acquisitions. Topics covered are balance sheet and income statement analysis, ratio analysis, cash flow analysis, common size analysis, trend analysis, and earning analysis. Students analyze and evaluate free cash flow generation, profitability, operating efficiency, and the impact of leverage on business risk and return on equity. Students integrate a biblical and ethical framework that helps guide assure objective, i.e., bias-free analysis. Prerequisites: MBA 501, 630, Financial Accounting, Managerial Accounting, Corporate Finance, and one upper-level accounting course

3-F

Helps students understand the evolution of marketing communication as it becomes a functionally widened and linked activity. Students learn where each distinct communication function has resided and how they are forming a new entity called Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC). IMC involves the measured blending of disparate activities such as messaging, branding, advertising, public relations, sales promotion, events, and sales training into a tightly coordinated activity that provides maximum persuasive impact within targeted markets. Teamwork among the various individual organizations is essential to the success of IMC. Prerequisites: MBA 501, 630

3-Fall

Provides a biblical perspective of transformational leadership, focusing on two key components: that transformation is missional and intentional. Students examine how to navigate the current societal and organizational landscape in a faithful and integrated manner by considering transformation first on a personal level, then organizational. Includes a variety of resources, assessments, and coaching exercises. Prerequisites: MBA 501, 630

3-Fall

Examines domestic and global production and distribution of goods and services as guided by the free-market economy. Takes the perspective of the economist as advisor to managers and directors of a firm operating in an external economic environment and making operational and strategic decisions for the firm. With an understanding of supply, demand, and consumer behavior as a background, the course studies how firms remain competitive through the improvement of strategic thinking about competition in the market and efficient organizational structure and decision-making, especially involving allocating resources, managing production, and earning a profit under changing economic conditions. Prerequisite: MBA 501; corequisite: MBA 630

3-Summer

Provides a biblical perspective on ethics, morality, and social responsibility in relationship to individual leaders, organizations, the community, and global society. The interrelated nature of ethics, morality, and social issues is reviewed along with how societal views and actions influence and impact organizational performance. Emphasis on the decision-making responsibility of Christian leaders related to these topics that influence and shape organizational culture, policy, practice, and people. Prerequisites: MBA 501, 630

2-Fall

MBA entry course examining the running of an enterprise from the Chief Executive Officer’s point of view. Designed to help students develop their strategic thinking ability and learn methods for effective strategic planning. Students learn about framing theoretical and practical training to understand business practices and enhance organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Includes conducting external and internal assessments of an organization, identifying key strategic issues, identifying and choosing alternative strategies, and defending those decisions. Provides the framework for the final MBA integrated project, MBA 651 Integrated Project. Gives students the instruction and tools helpful for integrating individual MBA course learning into their final MBA project and presentation. Prerequisite: MBA 501

1-F

Final course in the MBA program. Students finalize a detailed personal plan focused on an existing company project, new business venture, creation of a new product or service, organizational process improvement, cultural change, or restructure of their current workplace department/organization. Students will present their integrated projects virtually and observe and interact with peer presentations. The project focus must meet established guidelines and be preapproved by the MBA Director. Prerequisite: Successful completion of 37 or more credits of approved MBA required and elective courses.