A brand-new major at the University of Central Oklahoma is preparing students for the future of business and rapidly developing technology.
This fall, the university is rolling out its first MBA program specific to artificial intelligence and the changes it’s bringing to the workforce.
Madeline Mitchell Stacy teaches the 3-course program.
“Ensuring that these students are mastering the fundamentals and the basics,” she says.
She began seeing the need while teaching an adjunct class three years ago.
“We found was that this curriculum was making a profound impact in our students’ careers,” she explains. “They were getting promoted faster. They were getting jobs they didn’t think they otherwise could get. They were moving up. They were getting differentiated opportunities within their organizations.”
She believes understanding and implementing A.I. has become the bare minimum in business, but where it’s emerging may be a surprise.
“51% of those jobs requiring AI skills actually are not in IT, or computer science like you might think,” Mitchell Stacy points out. “What’s interesting is this reflects my experience and background.”
Mitchell Stacy’s background includes working for business management consulting company Deloitte. She worked with Fortune 500 businesses from coast to coast.
“It could be strategy. It could be governance. It could be implementation; actually, not the IT function,” she says. “More often than not, it was really the business decisions where you know, your data, you could be in accounting or finance or legal or marketing or operations or something else. You could be an aerospace and defense or health care or energy, or some other industry and no group is really impervious.”
It’s the reason she now helps prepare future business leaders. The degree involves A.I. Foundations, governance, and strategy. She says it’s also about learning the balance between innovation and responsibility.
“How do you be a responsible steward of this technology and your data and also make sure that our Oklahoma companies do not become the next Blockbuster or Kodak?”
She says studies have shown that jobs requiring A.I. Skills are paying over 60% more than those that do not. The number of jobs that do, she says, also continues to grow at a rapid rate. Mitchell Stacy expects class enrollment to do the same.
So far this semester, 20 students are seeking their MBA in AI management.