Tippie expands Cedar Rapids offerings

CEDAR RAPIDS - The University of Iowa's Tippie College is expanding its professional educational services at its Cedar Rapids center.

The university has offered a part-time MBA program, designed for those who work full-time, at the facility, 221 Second Ave. SE, for several years.

But this past fall, Tippie began offering a one-year graduate certificate in business analytics, and it will start offering multiday courses on project management starting in January.

'Gathering data is easy. But companies just don't know what to do with it,” said Nick Street, department chair of the management sciences department.

Street, who developed the program, spoke with area businesses such as Rockwell Collins and Transamerica to see what kind of workforce needs they had.

'We want to give (students) a good foundation. Teach the concepts in a hands-on way that can applied at their work,” Street said.

And though the program is only offered as a graduate certificate now, Kurt Anstreicher, an associate dean for the business college, said Tippie hopes to turn it into a two-year master's degree program.

The idea has been presented to the Board of Regents, he said, adding this fall's classes were 'off to a good start.”

The college didn't begin advertising the certificate program until the middle of the summer. But even still, Anstreicher said the two classes had about 20 students each.

The college hopes to expand the analytics certificate program to Des Moines and eventually the Quad Cities.

'The Cedar Rapids facility gives us the opportunity to start new programs because we have the infrastructure in place,” he said.

Dawn Kluber, an assistant dean in the Tippie School of Management, said while the business analytics certificate requires a college degree, the project management classes are for anyone in the Corridor who is interested in professional development.

These classes also will be offered at the Des Moines campus, with the potential to expand to other areas if they are successful.

'This area of expertise can be applied to many fields of business,” she said.

More information:

Visit tippie.uiowa.edu/executive-education to see the calendar of project management courses and tippie.uiowa.edu/business-analytics for information of the graduate certificate.