The Texas Tech Board of Regents approved the establishment of a new dual degree program, this time between the Rawls College of Business and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. The idea for the program was born after students pursuing degrees in such areas as biomedical sciences and biotechnology began adding business curriculum to their workloads, and will offer the opportunity to earn an MBA and either a doctorate degree in biomedical sciences or a master’s degree in biotechnology concurrently.
Bill Pasewark, associate dean of graduate programs and research at Rawls, said the students who were seeking classes at Rawls alongside studies like cell phsyiology and molecular biophysics recognized the importance of something outside their own realm of highly specialized sciences - the need for business sense.
"It gives them a business background on top of that, so they maintain that science core, but they’re going to have a business 'shell' on the outside of that," Pasewark said. "That’s going to allow them to do one of two things: either bring a product to the economy themselves, or it’s going to teach them how to deal with business people within their company, so they have better knowledge about how to get a product to market."
Dean of HSC's biomedical sciences school, Brandt Schneider, agreed that the business knowledge provided in the courses of an MBA are crucial even for those in seemingly far away fields like bioscience.
"No matter how much all of us went to college and didn’t want to have any math or any economics involved, the reality is: everything we do, from our households to our jobs, is a business," Schneider said. "So it gives [students] the skills that they need to succeed in a business world, in an economic world."
The MBA offered will also tailor the business knowledge provided in the courses to the industry that many students in biosciences are entering, like pharmaceuticals, Pasewark said.
"It adds an emphasis on the science aspect," he said. "So for example, all of their electives in this program are going to be geared toward people who have STEM undergraduate degrees. And all the examples that are used in class are going to be related to sciences and technology. We’re not going to be talking much about Walmart, for example. We’re going to be talking about pharmaceutical companies, and companies that produce medical devices that would be directly related to what they want to do when they get out."
This isn't the first collaboration between Rawls and the HSC, Schneider noted. Among the dual degree programs available between Texas Tech University, the School of Law and the Health Sciences Center, the business school and the health community have joined forces to offer programs blending business with degrees in pharmacology and medicine.
And it likely won't be the last collaboration either. Pasewark and Schneider hope to create more dual degree programs in the future.
"We feel like this is a cresting wave," Schneider said. "This is great, these programs, but it’s great because it’s the beginning of a lot of things we can do. We would like to have put together a variety of dual degrees with Texas Tech, in that you can mix and match a lot of interests. It’ll help build our enrollment, it’ll help build their enrollment, it’ll help us all get better students, it’ll help our students be more successful."
