Program Features
Today’s greatest business challenges require visionaries with the courage to look beyond the surface for answers. In the Design Leadership MA/MBA, you’ll master creative approaches to strategic decision-making while also learning how to apply these skills to complex management challenges and business opportunities. Earn two degrees from two world-renowned institutions at the same time for less money and in less time—a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and a Master of Art (MA) in Design Leadership from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).
The Design Leadership MA/MBA is the only program in the United States where students earn simultaneous graduate degrees from a business school at a major research university and a premier college of art and design, both of which are recognized globally among the most innovative institutions.
Students in the Design Leadership MA/MBA program are open-minded creative thinkers. They aspire to be transformative leaders at the highest levels, leveraging a next-generation approach to research analysis, management, and problem-solving. A strength of the program is the breadth of backgrounds that comprises each cohort. Students come from business management, marketing, engineering, finance, art and design, architecture, fine arts, and other fields.
In 20-24 months, you’ll earn an MBA and an MA in Design Leadership through a program designed to grow valuable new skills in an accelerated, online format. Our curriculum blends traditional and project-based courses that are delivered online with the same rigor you'd expect from in-person classes. This program begins with a MICA-run, three-credit summer intensive called Foundations of Design Leadership. In the fall, students enroll in classes available through Carey Business School’s Flexible MBA program and in MICA's MA in Design Leadership curriculum.
Studying with a cohort of peers, you’ll learn through innovative experiences that immerse you in real-world situations. And you’ll emerge from the program with expertise in strategy formulation, audience targeting, research, and design thinking that’s driven by a collaborative and creative approach to problem-solving.
Credits: 2.5 each
Forms of business have been in use since tribes of primitive people began to move into close proximity to one another. Business itself has always been innovative as the result of our innate curiosity and creativity, but the development of mass industry at the turn of the 20th century forced business to lose some of its creative power. That creativity was replaced with speed, consistency and a need for duplication. In the 1950s something new happened to industry that began a second renaissance for business. We’ll discuss that change and how it’s evolved. In this course students will learn how creativity, what we refer to today as design, has created a new source of competition for businesses and has allowed for consumer benefits that were once considered unnecessary, bringing consumer satisfaction to the forefront of new products, services, experiences, and communications. Students will learn how to use a structured design process to create consistent results, drive increased revenue, expand market share and immediately contribute to their employers’ operations or their own business. Elements of the process will be studied and put into action.