An Introduction

David Baucus, Academic Leader, Otago MBA 

A little about me. We go by first names at the Otago MBA, so I'm David to all involved in our programme. My title is Academic Leader and my responsibilities include maintaining the academic integrity of our programme and mentoring students through our Live Case and BUSI 540 consulting experiences. I mostly hang out with students and disrupt productivity in our MBA offices, a job for which I am well suited.  

My family, wife Melissa of 36 years and our two sons, arrived in Dunedin from the United States almost one year ago. I remember the feeling of moving to New Zealand as a little like dropping off the edge of world: we knew nothing of the city or an Otago. What is an Otago? The decision to come here took at least a month, but we finally decided the adventure was worth the risk: besides, decisions based on fear are usually bad choices.  So, we left Louisville, Kentucky--home of the Kentucky Derby, bourbon and Fried Chicken--and landed 8,600 miles away in Dunedin. I can report that the transition has not been without challenges, but we made the right decision.  

I know something about the design of educational programmes and project-based learning from introducing the concept of mentored learning experiences at Utah State University in the mid 90s and after experimenting with an Accelerated Business Launch programme at the University of Cincinnati in 2003. I also draw on almost thirty years of experience in strategy design (i.e., business models) and ten years in systems neuroscience. My background has been invaluable in articulating the business model underlying our Otago MBA programme: we offer a very thoughtfully designed learning experience tailored to the individual.

Consider the following: we (all people) acquire knowledge about the world in multiple ways. For instance, we gain familiarity and intuition through experience (e.g., a consulting engagement) and rely on experiences to define who we are as people (e.g., business professionals). We cannot gain this kind of knowledge otherwise. Experience, however, does not generalize well (e.g., across contexts/companies, time or cultures) and leads to faulty thinking, such as reasoning from opinion. To paraphrase the philosopher Goethe,"He who can only reason from the experience of one lifetime lives from hand to mouth, a subsistence existence."  

I'm also a photographer

Comprehension comes from reaching beyond experience to think conceptually. Stay with me here. We grasp the meaning of events in our lives by processing experiences into words; understanding comes in Aha! moments when you can explain what happened in words. But we're still talking about the experience of one lifetime. Conceptional reasoning and knowledge come from reaching beyond experience to ground your thinking in additive bodies of knowledge (i.e., science).  That's when you become truly powerful and the reason you would choose to attend the Otago MBA programme.

In other words, we combine practical learning experience (i.e., real projects) to build intuition and help define you as a business professional, with shared inquiry (i.e., the means to conceptual reasoning) into the most compelling challenges facing global business leaders today, while grounding your thinking in science (i.e., credible academic frames in business). It doesn't get better than this.

I encourage you to apply to our Otago MBA programme and look forward to working with you.

Cheers,

David