SBC Foundation awards $150,000 to EMBA program

The SBC Foundation has awarded Sacramento State a $150,000 grant to aid in the development of its Executive Master’s in Business Administration (EMBA) Program.

The Sacramento State College of Business Administration, which has offered a state-supported Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) degree program on-campus since 1956, is offering the new master’s degree program off campus to make it more available to working professionals in the Greater Sacramento region.

“This program will create successful partnerships among the students, employers, business community, faculty and staff,” said Sanjay Varshney, dean of the College of Business Administration. “We hope that this approach will help ease the students back into a classroom setting, maximize their learning opportunities, and produce the next generation of visionary business leaders.”

The College of Business Administration has produced more than 2,000 MBA graduates in the 49 years it has offered the MBA program. Most of the MBA graduates work in the region, and many have become successful business leaders and entrepreneurs.

With this grant Sacramento State will be able to implement marketing materials to promote the program, offer training workshops for program faculty, organize orientation sessions for new students and conduct program assessment.

"SBC is proud to support this exciting learning initiative," said Adam Grzybicki, SBC’s Sacramento external affairs manager. "As a telecommunications industry leader, SBC recognizes that today's students need the skills and knowledge to work in a world where advanced technologies are the norm. Investments in education are investments in the future success of our business."

Brand new for fall semester 2005, the Executive MBA Program was designed to blend quality faculty, talented candidates and relevant curriculum in order to deliver cutting-edge executive educational programs and services to the region’s next generation of senior executives.

“We hope to serve as many as 70 students during the first year," Varshney said. "We greatly appreciate SBC's commitment to and support of education in our community."

Since 1996, the SBC Foundation, the philanthropic arm of SBC Communications Inc., contributed more than $108 million in grants to K-12 and higher education initiatives. Last year, nearly 40 percent of the Foundation's grants went to programs that support educational improvements in SBC's 13-state territory. The Foundation funds education initiatives that support improved student achievement, teacher preparedness, minority student success and increased use of new technologies that bridge the divide between students who have access to advanced technologies and those that don't.

Key projects include the Education for the Future Initiative, a national program that addresses the issue of systematic improvement for increased student learning; the SBC National Telecommunications Partnership Awards, which recognize organizations that demonstrate the most innovative use of technology to enhance education; and the National Urban League, to support its creation and maintenance of community technology centers.