Week-in-Residence

Vanderbilt students begin their Executive MBA experience with a rigorous one-week residency in New Harmony, Indiana. Intentionally remote from the everyday demands of personal and professional life, this historic community provides the perfect backdrop for full immersion in the program from the outset. Founded in 1825 as a base for a Utopian society, social reformers, scientists, philosophers, artists, educators and geologists arrived on the "Boatload of Knowledge" to this wilderness town along the Wabash River; they believed that education for all was the key to a better way of life. New Harmony serves that role today for our Vanderbilt Executive MBA program—it is a key to a better way of life that benefits our students, their families and their organizations.

The Week-in-Residence eases the transition to the alternating Saturday class format of the program. It provides students with time to get to know one other and the faculty; to become acquainted with the objectives and mechanics of the program; to regain and refresh valuable perspectives on being a student; and to begin their C-Team routines such as setting expectations for performance, strategies for studying and when and how often they will meet and communicate with one another.

The Week-in-Residence accounts for a substantial portion of the first semester's curriculum. During this week, C-Teams take shape and begin working on the challenges of group assignments; additionally, key classes—Executive Leadership, Managerial Accounting, Statistics and Managerial Economics—are launched.

Leadership

With sophisticated diagnostic tools available to evaluate executive aptitudes, students will assess and understand their personal styles and how best to integrate them into a team dynamic.

Managerial Accounting and Statistics

Students will take part in the initial classes of Managerial Accounting and Statistics and quickly become absorbed in the quantitative skills and tools that become the foundation of the two-year Executive MBA curriculum.

An introduction to economic incentives

In an Apply-it-now Experience, each C-Team will identify and examine a "perverse incentive"—an incentive program with good intentions but undesirable behavioral outcomes that is currently in effect within one of the C-Team's organizations. The team's initial assignment will focus on restructuring the incentive to work as intended.