UCD creates Global Energy Management degree
The University of Colorado Board of Regents approved a new Master of Science degree on October 7, 2008 for the University of Colorado Denver Business School. As a master's degree located within the largest accredited graduate school of business in the state, the focus of the Global Energy Management (GEM) degree is on the business side of energy management, educating the industry's future executive leaders. The program's first cohort class will begin their first term in January 2009.
"The Global Energy Management program at the University of Colorado Denver Business School is a master's degree program for those who wish to make the energy industry their lifelong career—those who want to rise to the very top of energy companies or want to start their own energy company," said John Turner, PhD, director of the GEM master degree program at the UC Denver Business School. "Most universities only offer an energy management emphasis to accompany a general management degree—GEM is a full-degree program designed with a specific career goal in mind and it is the only MS program of its kind."
According to a 2006 report in the Oil & Gas Journal, 40 to 50 percent of individuals in upper management in energy companies were and are eligible to retire in the next five years, leaving a serious knowledge and experience gap between middle and upper management.
"The Global Energy Management program allows us to help fill an urgent need for energy company leadership as this generation of executives retire," said University of Colorado Denver Chancellor M. Roy Wilson. "This is just the type of work at which UC Denver excels—combining world-class education for our students with real-world solutions for our local and global communities."
Working together, the UC Denver Business School and the GEM advisory board, made up of executives from energy companies and government, developed a curriculum to deliver the specific education and skills that industry representatives desire from their future leaders. As a result, GEM students receive a specialized and tailored education that not only assures they will be 100 percent functional within the industry after graduation but that also they will be immediately ready to lead their companies.
"The University of Colorado is dedicated to addressing the educational needs of its students in preparing them to be leaders in increasingly specialized industries," said University of Colorado President Bruce D. Benson. "In this changing global economy, energy company executives are looking to cultivate current employees for leadership positions while energy employees are looking to expand their knowledge and their opportunities for growth in the industry—GEM addresses this need and is a program employees can complete while continuing to work."
The GEM program offers a unique, hybrid, online approach which allows students to continue working full-time no matter where they live or travel, completing the degree in 18 months. Students and professors spend only four consecutive days (Fridays through Mondays) in Denver at the start of each three month term. Afterward, students return to their homes, families and jobs while continuing their education online through video conferencing, presentations, online discussions, video lectures, podcasts, DVD downloads and more.
GEM is a tuition funded program with no general-fund support.