M.A.C.S. Professional Management Course Descriptions

Students must satisfy a minimum of 9 credits of Management Courses

PMGT 601: Leadership and Self-development I: Leadership Styles (3 credits) This course will help students define leadership styles and set personal goals. Students will integrate conceptual knowledge and self-awareness within the context of ethical practice, social responsibility, and innovative practice.

PMGT 605: Digital Ethics and Intellectual Property (3 credits) Examination of ethical issues as applied to digital and traditional sound and imagery in film, video, and photography. Students will examine current and historical events where the manipulation of imagery and sound, context, and point of view attempt to produce propaganda and other manipulated viewpoints. Includes a review of practices related to copyrighting work and control of intellectual property.

PMGT 608: Principles of Project Management (3 credits) This course is intended as an overview, describing the fundamental principles, processes, knowledge areas, and tools and techniques of project management. Students will learn how to manage the "faster, better, cheaper" pressures that most organizations face. Topics include the project management life cycle, selecting projects, project planning, quality management, and controlling projects.

PMGT 610: Strategic Management (3 credits) This course prepares students to assess their organization's strategy, culture, and operations and analyze competitors and the larger industry. Students will learn to use strategic management tools and develop their analytical skills in order to identify opportunities for competitive advantage. They will also use quantitative tools to measure organizational performance in order to achieve economic and environmental objectives. The course teaches students how companies, institutions, and regulators can incorporate the concept of triple-bottom-line reporting.

PMGT 611: Communications (3 credits) This course gives an overview of the elements of effective professional communications: clear, concise writing; successful public relations strategies; advertising; traditional and current marketing principles; crisis management; and use of emerging technologies such as social media. This course will explore these communications elements as they apply to nonprofit organizations, arts organizations, and self-promotion.

PMGT 614: Integrated Marketing Communications (3 credits) A strong brand authentically represents an organization's vision and culture while also conveying key messages. Integrated marketing communications (IMC) strategies focus on building brands by developing relationships with customers. The focus of this course is on how to develop a strategic message and communications plan that is integrated across media both online and offline to create a consistent and seamless experience. Students will formulate and analyze promotional goals; develop campaign messaging, strategy, and creative media plan; select appropriate channels for relevant audiences; and learn tools to evaluate the effects and results of a campaign and determine its success. This course will use examples from social marketing and cause marketing that address social, cultural, and community issues.

PMGT 616: Financial Skills and Managerial Accounting (3 credits) This course covers the creation and interpretation of financial statements, with a particular focus on building financial statements, cash flow, accounting controls, financial analysis, cost-benefit analysis, financial budgeting and applying accounting information for managerial decision-making. The course stresses using financial information within organizations for understanding and analyzing activities and operations. Students learn linkages between accounting information and management planning through cost analysis (including activity-based costing), operational and capital budgeting, and performance measurement. Students learn how to build financial models, analyze business plans and to justify management decisions to create financially sustainable organizations.

PMGT 617: Principles of Marketing (3 credits) The purpose of this course is to look at marketing as a broad concept, beyond the usual functions of selling and advertising. Students will explore the principles of marketing management and the tactics for achieving strategic marketing goals. Students will also investigate relevant social and ethical issues related to marketing. The course goals are for students to develop competency and apply the concepts and skills learned in order to produce a professional quality marketing plan. The plan should include an analysis of the customer (including the customer identity, segments, values, and behavior), a clear and compelling value proposition or unique selling proposition, incorporate all the elements of the marketing mix in appropriate ways, and utilize the tools of segmentation and SWOT analyses to guide strategic marketing decision making.

PMGT 621: Fundraising (1.5 credits) This course provides guidance and resources in fundraising for programs and organizations. Topics include private and public funders, innovations in fundraising, and broader issues surrounding philanthropy, community, and service.

PMGT 623: Grantwriting (1.5 credits) This course provides guidance and resources in the craft of grant writing for programs and organizations. Topics include private and public funders, grantsmanship, and grant management.

PMGT 626: Nonprofit Leadership and Management (3 credits) This course provides the broad knowledge necessary to understand and successfully contribute to the nonprofit organization. Topics covered include: understanding the place of nonprofits in society; developing, guiding, and managing a board; program development and evaluation; volunteer development and management; fundraising and development; ePhilanthropy; and other selected topics.

PMGT 630: Designing and Delivering a Learning Experience (1.5 credits) This course will engage students in preparing for, planning, and delivering a learning experience. Topics will include analyzing and targeting a specific audience; choosing appropriate teaching methods for a given audience; developing and producing content; facilitating discussions; and using an array of top technology tools. Participants will be introduced to prominent theories of teaching and learning, and will be challenged, throughout the course, to integrate the theories in practical applications. Emphasis is on relevancy to a participant's field of study. The course will culminate in participants delivering an impactful learning experience in a face-to-face or online environment, or other medium of their choice.

PMGT 636: Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship (3 credits) An exploration of innovative responses to social needs, the role of private initiatives in the private and nonprofit sectors, and the challenges associated with these initiatives in the U.S. and internationally. Theoretical issues such as defining the social good and assessing the role of market forces, philanthropy, and government are reviewed. Practical issues include developing an organizational mission, recognizing specific opportunities for social improvement, forming an enterprise or working in an organization that responds to those opportunities, and developing organizational and funding strategies.

PMGT 638: Innovation in the Social Sector (3 credits) Through an examination of innovative foundations, students are introduced to tools and frameworks that help boost innovation and will be able to generate and test particular ideas about how to identify and address social and environmental needs facing us today. Students will become more creative in spotting opportunities to create public value, to imagine solutions to problems that have confounded others, and to become more resourceful and more disciplined in testing and adapting these ideas as one continues thinking and learning about what is both valuable and possible to do.

PMGT 641: Social Networks and New Media (1.5 credits) Introduction to using online social networks and emerging new media to engage in community building, whether it is around a cause, interest group or a business. This course introduces students to the concepts related to virtual communities and social capital. It starts by examining the impact that new media has had on culture, politics, traditional media, commerce and relationships. From there it explores the rapidly changing tools for collaboration, curation, consensus building and social media marketing in an online environment. Lastly, the course examines the ethical, legal and provenance issues that arise. Part theory, part sociology with a mixture of business and marketing strategy, students will walk away with their own actionable social media campaigns.

PMGT 643: Writing for Different Audiences (3 credits) This course gives an overview of the elements of effective professional communications, including writing clear, concise copy; communicating ideas across a platform of mediums; and identifying and writing to specific audiences. This course will explore these communications elements as they apply to nonprofit and entrepreneurial organizations, arts organizations, and self-promotion.

PMGT 644: Strategies for Reaching the Media (3 credits) An overview of the elements of effective professional communications, including writing clear, concise copy; successful public relations strategies; traditional and current marketing principles; crisis management; and using emerging technologies, such as social media. This course will explore these communications elements as they apply to nonprofit and entrepreneurial organizations, arts organizations, and self-promotion.

PMGT 650: Models of Social Entrepreneurship (3 credits) This course explores different organizational models of how people are working to change the world in positive ways. Looking beyond the traditional categories of non-profit, for-profit, government and education, innovative models that are being developed to address the pressing social and environmental issues faced by communities are identified and analyzed. The topics include: earned income, social ventures, hybrid organizations, crowdsourcing, cooperatives, community engagement, grasstops partnerships, and co-working. Students evaluate existing models to determine their strengths and opportunities for improvement related to their context, resources, power relationships, and their value as solutions to specific problems.