ORONO – If you want a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Maine Business School, you’d better have a passport. An international consulting project is now part of the course requirements.

The business school is rolling out revisions in the master of business administration program aimed at responding more quickly to the expectations of business and industry, and also immersing students sooner in business decision-making.

Professor Rick Borgman, director of the business school’s office of graduate programs, said the redesign of the MBA requirements keeps the University of Maine competitive with the nation’s top business schools.

“We’re taking a good but traditional program and we’re simply adding on,” he said. “We still require 10 classroom-based courses as we’ve had in the past, but we’ve added an expanded experiential component that includes consulting projects, a trip abroad and a residency week.”

Borgman said the revisions were among “the first wave” of changes sweeping business schools nationally as they build more practical experience into curricula. Modifications include adding to the UMaine MBA features that traditionally are found in many executive MBA programs.

“I would call it think-on-your-feet learning experiences, not just classroom learning,” he said. “We’ve still got that. Most if not all of the changes we’ve made to our MBA program are the changes being made in the top 25 MBA programs nationwide.”

The residency week allows incoming students to learn about business fundamentals and each other through activities in leadership, technology, communication, actual real-world cases and a Maine Bound challenge.

A streamlining of the curriculum now allows the often older, more experienced graduate students to acquire required foundation material through accelerated courses or via online noncredit tutorial courses. They may concentrate on graduate level courses without having to take undergraduate classes with younger students.

In addition to the hands-on emphasis, students may now choose to specialize in either finance or decision sciences, or follow the traditional general management track, according to Borgman.

“We’ve raised the bar here,” Borgman said. “Our expectations are high for our students. We believe the new curriculum will challenge and excite our students.”

UMaine has offered the international project in a foreign country as an elective in the last two years, but Borgman said students and faculty found the experience abroad so valuable that the graduate committee for the business school made it a requirement.

“It’s a real-world business experience,” said Daniel Innis, dean of the business school. “It’s an experience that has cultural differences and students learn how interesting business can be in a global economy.”

The overall goals of the curriculum changes include teaching better communications, leadership and problem-solving skills, on top of traditional business basics such as accounting, marketing, finance and management. While the MBA attracts some students with undergraduate business degrees, the program draws many students with degrees in nonbusiness disciplines, such as English or engineering, Borgman said.

John Simpson, president and CEO of H.E. Sargent Inc. in Old Town and a member of the UMaine business school advisory board, said the revised MBA better prepares students to re-enter the work force with new management skills augmenting the work experience many brought to the program from previous careers.

And as business increasingly becomes more international, domestic and foreign consulting experiences are especially important elements of the program, said Simpson, whose company’s parent corporation, in fact, is German.

Also, Simpson added, the residency week, in which long-term relationships develop among participants, may be “the single most important thing that has happened.”

It provides an introduction to case studies and allows students to meet one another before being split up by class or work schedules. That improves student initiative and morale, Borgman and Simpson said, particularly when the typical MBA student may juggle a job, family and classes.

Jean Deighan, president of Deighan Associates investment management firm in Bangor and a UMaine business school advisory board member, believes the new MBA creates a more attractive incentive for Maine students who leave the state for undergraduate studies.

“I think it’s one way to get the kids who have gone out of state to get their education to come back to the state to get their MBA and become a part of our business community,” she said.