A Successful MCM February Residency!

Last week, I hosted my first Master of Communications Management (mcm.mcmaster.ca) residency as Program Director. It was a chance for me and our new program assistant, Janice Peltier, to have our initiation as the new management team. The residency went very well!

Residency is a very special time in the MCM calendar. It is a period of five days when the students come together from across Canada at McMaster’s beautiful Ron Joyce Executive Education Centre for five days of intense learning, networking and relationship-building. Residency is truly a hot-house environment for ideas and problem-solving. Students gain as much confidence from one another’s professional stories as they do during class through case studies.

Students are immersed in the world of business, management, communication theory and public relations strategy for five full days of learning and friendship. They form friendships that last a lifetime – friendships which often result in long-standing and mutually-beneficial professional relationships. Instructors also come to campus for a week of intense teaching.

MCM instructors are either leading academic thinkers or cutting edge practitioners, who apply the latest pedagogical techniques to support the many different learning styles and needs of post-graduate, professional learners. Students develop close ties with faculty, who are then available for advice and counsel throughout the rest of the term through McMaster’s proprietary asynchronous on-line learning environment. MCM is truly a community of leaders – students, faculty and alumni – who are mutually supportive.

For February Residency 2012, our instructors were:

  • Dave Scholz, Vice-President, Leger Marketing
  • Al Seaman, Professional Accountant and Professor of Business
  • Michael Meath, President, Strategic Communications, LLC
  • Peter Vilks, Former CEO and Professor of Business
Quite the team.

The McMaster-Syracuse Master of Communications Management is a very special degree.  It is really an MBA that has been catered for professional communicators, who want to take their careers to the next level, however they define that level. It’s more appropriate than an MBA for because we’ve catered the courses to meet the special requirements of the professional communicator, whose organizational role is unique. Blending core MBA courses with cutting edge communications and public relations research, strategy and technique make the MCM Canada’s premier management degree for communicators.

Many students who have a few years of work experience in communications (we require a minimum of 3 years work experience) take the program because they want to make the move into management in their organizations. Our students have ranged in age from 25 to 60 and the administrative team does its best to build a cohesive cohort each year that will work well together for maximum mutual learning and benefit.

MCM is truly a special degree. I accepted to become Program Director because I believe that communications management is becoming more and more important as an organization executive function and I am convinced MCM is the premier tool for professional communicators to get into the executive suite and take their seat at the senior decision-making tool.

With the advent of social media and integrated marketing communications, communications is becoming central to management, as the examples of Apple Inc and other communications-savvy companies have proven. I am convinced that winning organizations recognize that communications should be part of decision-making from the get-go, rather than a unit that is told to implement ideas from on-high.

We designed the MCM to create a unique blended business and communications degree that will enable communicators to speak the language of the executive suite and take their seat at the decision-making table.

I want MCM to become synonymous with “vice-president communications,” or “chief communications officer.” It’s working – our alumni are already experiencing success and promotion within their organizations. I invite you to check out our MCM Facebook Page to read their profiles and testimonials.

MCM Financial Management ClassProfessor

Professor Al Seaman explains a financial management point during MCM February Residency.

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