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Management of Aging Services (MAGS)

Management of Aging Services (MAGS)

Erickson School

Professors
ECKERT, J. KEVIN, Ph.D.
FULMER, WILLIAM E., Ph.D.
MORGAN, LESLIE A., Ph.D.
RONCH, JUDAH L., Ph.D.
SACHS, DAVID H., M.B.A., M.P.A
THOMAS, WILLIAM H., M.D.

Associate Professors
MAJESKI, ROBIN, Ph.D.

Assistant Professors
CARDER, PAULA C., Ph.D.

Degree Offered

M.A. in Management of Aging Services

Program Description

The M.A. in Management of Aging Services at the Erickson School provides integrated, interdisciplinary professional training for leaders in the growing aging services sector. Graduates of the program will meet a growing workforce need for leaders with professional education to serve in management positions in public, private and non-profit/advocacy organizations providing services to older adults. This program prepares students for these professional careers through integrating knowledge and skills from three well-established graduate education/training areas: aging, management and public policy. Graduates will enter careers uniquely equipped to lead organizations innovatively and address problems in this critical area. The program goal is to prepare graduates to apply this integrated perspective in leadership positions in a broad array of aging services organizations from government agencies/organizations and advocacy/non-profit groups to a variety of positions in the for-profit business arena.

Targeted toward early- to mid-career professionals interested in progressing in or entering the aging services arena, this program adopts an accelerated, cohort model of instruction. The program, scheduled primarily during weekends, with a few, multi-day instructional periods, offers the full professional program in a 15-month timetable. Full-time participation is expected for maximum effectiveness. Taught by individuals or faculty teams from differing disciplinary backgrounds, the cohort of students will encounter the critical skills relating to understanding varying perspectives on addressing the challenges in service delivery.

Degree Requirements

Completion of the M.A. degree requires a maximum of 36 credits. The core consists of 27 credits of core courses, integrating the knowledge and skills from aging, management, and public policy areas, and completion of a 9 credit track specializing in either seniors housing or in community and consumer based programs. Core courses address content from multiple perspectives simultaneously, furthering the integration and applied nature of the degree.

Program Admission

General admission requirements are those of the UMBC Graduate School. The GRE or GMAT are generally required if a student’s undergraduate GPA is below 3.2; students applying with a successful history of graduate education (12 or more credits with a GPA of 3.0 or above) or other special circumstances may also request exemption from the GRE/GMAT. Additional letters of recommendation, a professional resume, and essay are required (For more specific details visit www.erickson.umbc.edu). Applications will be reviewed by a committee of faculty appointed in the Erickson School, with interviews prior to recommendation to the Graduate School for final admission decision.

Learning Objectives

The curriculum consists of a blend of core courses which draw from and integrate our three focal areas, inclusive of their history, theory, current knowledge base and fundamental analytic/practice skills. Track specializations enable students to specialize toward distinct career trajectories through greater depth of exposure in a substantive area. Upon completion of the requirements for the proposed degree, the student will be able to:

• Exercise a holistic set of skills and knowledge that integrates management, policy, and aging.
• Apply core management fundamentals of strategy, marketing, operations, finance and accounting to aging services organizations across the private, public and non-profit sectors
• Demonstrate a knowledge of normal human aging on the individual level, including social, psychological and physical aspects
• More effectively provide leadership to their organizations and manage other individuals
• Understand the societal implications of an aging population for public policy, the economy and major social institutions
• Evaluate a broad range of organizational outcomes utilizing research, policy and business criteria for performance
• Effectively apply critical thinking, effective communication and creative problem solving to their organizations
• Describe in detail the existing array of public sector aging services agencies/programs, the role of policy in framing their actions and funding, and the emergent private sector organizations developing desired services for this population.

Program of Study

The following courses are required for the degree:

Core Courses

AGNG 600: The Social and Policy Contexts of Aging (3 credits)
AGNG 604: Policy Foundations of Aging Services (3 credits)
AGNG 605: Applied Managerial and Policy Economics (3 credits)
AGNG 610: Leadership, Management and Organizations in Aging Services (6 credits)
AGNG 612: Finance and Accounting in Aging Services Organizations (3 credits)
AGNG 624: Strategy, Marketing and Service Delivery (3 credits)
AGNG 625: Research and Evaluation in Aging Service Organizations (3 credits)
AGNG 660: Capstone in Management of Aging Services (3 credits)

Track Courses (9 credits)

Currently two tracks are available in the program. Further details on these options are available on the Erickson School’s Web site.

1. Consumer and Community-Based Programs
2. Seniors Housing

COURSE LISTING

AGNG 600
Social and Economic Context of Aging [3]
Human growth and development in the second half of life occurs in a dynamic context of multiple environments i.e. individual, family, society and the world. This foundation course in the Master's in Aging Services degree program uses a wide range of materials to explore well-being as we age, the challenges and resources that exist in our culture(s) that influence how we pursue meaning in this era of our lives, and how social institutions, services and policies - and their historical evolution - work to help or hinder this pursuit. A central concern for this course is how services may optimize the lives of older persons and their families now and in the future.

AGNG 605
Managerial and Policy Economics [3]
This course offers a rigorous, multi-level content including a core of managerial economics (economic behavior, marginal analysis, market production and cost, market structures, economics of strategy, and incentive conflicts and contracts), together with an investigation of how macroeconomic policies interact with organizations providing services to older adults, and ultimately influence the economic well-being of older adults. The managerial economics core relies on case studies to convey the key content of microeconomics applied to aging services and their clientele. By contrast, the macroeconomic and policy portion focuses on the fiscal challenges facing the federal government to continue to support programs that benefit older adults and how these programs affect directly the country's overall fiscal well-being. Following an analysis of the current and projected financial status of the key entitlement programs such as Social Security. Medicare and Medicaid, topics including intergenerational accounting, the intergenerational transfer of long-term debt and proposed policy solutions will be explored.

AGNG 610
Leadership and Organizational Change in Aging Services I [3]
This is the first of a required two-semester sequence that focuses on the human dimension of organizations in aging services. The role of leader, manager and participant are explained through increasingly broad frames of analysis, from oneself, to other individuals, to teams, to organizations to society overall across two courses. Specific content for this course explores micro concepts of personal and team management, including individual roles within teams, effective management of individuals and teams. Special skill foci, which cross-cut both semesters, include: leadership vs. management; ethical management; problem solving and conflict resolution; leading change in the organization, and; comparative organizational management for public, private and non-profit aging services providers, including identifying and working with external stakeholders. Skill and knowledge areas will be informed by challenges and opportunities facing leaders and managers of aging services organizations, including use of guest speakers/presenters.

AGNG 611
Leadership and Organizational Change in Aging Services II [3]
This is the second of a required two-semester sequence that focuses on the human demision of organizations in aging services. The role of leader, manager and participant are explained through increasingly broad frames of analysis across the two semesters, from oneself, to other individuals, to teams, to organizations and society overall. Specific content for this course explores these frames through understanding macro principles of organizational behavior, such as organizational design, organizational culture and alignment, and societal leadership. Special skill foci include: leadership vs. management; ethical management; problem solving and conflict resolution; leading change in the organization, and; comparative organizational management for public, private and non-profit aging services providers, including identifying and working with external stakeholders. Skills and knowledge areas will be informed by challenges and opportunities facing leaders and managers of aging services organizations.

AGNG 612
Finance and Accounting in Aging Services Organizations [3]
Managing the financial efficacy of the aging service organization is one of the fundamental responsibilities of a leader in aging services. This course focuses on developing a mastery of the foundations of accounting and finance across public, private and non-profit organizations. The course examines how accounting principles and control systems are used to communicate important information about an organization to both internal and external audiences. The course focuses on the role of managers in developing, deploying and managing these systems. The course also examines how organizations raise, manage and invest capital, and it investigates role of capital markets and how organizations manage their relationships with them. Topics to be covered include: understanding the purpose, content and construction of financial statements and how they are appropriately and strategically analyzed; how organizations raise and invest capital and manage financial assets; managing the budgeting process; financial and operating control and the evaluation of performance through management control systems. Throughout the course the focus will be on a managerial perspective. Special attention is given to differences in these application between private, non-profit and public sector organizations.

AGNG 624
Strategy , Marketing and Service Delivery [3]
All organizations must formulate objectives and develop and implement a plan for achieving them. The primary objective of this course is to help students develop the ability to think more strategically about issues facing aging services organizations in the public, private and non-profit sectors. The course takes a broad view of the environment in which aging services organization operate, viewing the organization as the unit of the analysis and drawing upon ideas and concepts from other courses in the program. Segments include fundamentals of strategy and strategy tools, understanding and marketing to customers, delivering superior products and services, the role of information and learning in strategy formulation and implementation, and ethical aspects of performance in these areas. The course also examines how government, technology and other environmental factors impact organizational performance and how leaders can strengthen their organization's ability to deal with such factors.

AGNG 625
Research and Evaluation in Aging [3]
Research and evaluation, whether informal or structures, are key to an organization's effectiveness and can take many forms, ranging from performance indicators to experimental designs aimed at testing interventions. Understanding exactly what information one needs (the research question), how this information can best be obtained (the method), ways of interpreting relevant data (analysis), and how to best incorporate knowledge into practice (application) are the key components of this course. Students will be introduced to the fundamentals of research and evaluation from a variety of frameworks and approaches including qualitative (e.g., focus groups, interviews), quantitative (e.g., surveys, measures of change over time), using archival data, and others. Throughout the course, students will conduct critical reviews and critiques of research and "best practice" articles to include identifying the methodological strengths, weakness and potential confounders, evaluating the value of the information provided, understanding the appropriate scope and limitations of the findings, and determining the applicability to their own organizations. Students will participate in small "mock" studies throughout the course to gain a first-hand understanding of the mechanics and challenges of various research and evaluation approaches. Teams will develop and complete a small research or evaluation project applicable to their organizations.

AGNG 641
Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Design in Aging [4]
Sustained and meaningful change in Aging will require the development of new products, services and policy for older adults. As our society ages, existing public, private and non-profit organizations will need to fundamentally rethink how they operate. To succeed, they will need to approach challenges and opportunities with fresh ideas and new approaches. Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Design in Aging builds upon MA in the Management of Aging Services core material in aging, management and policy, to enable students to lead their organizations in tangible new directions. The course introduces design thinking as a powerful approach to foster innovation, whether at the level of products and services, policy initiatives, or the creation of a new organization. To develop skills as design thinkers, students immerse in an intensive design exercise working in teams on an actual design problem. The course also explores two other fundamental issues: how organizations can develop the capacity to innovate on a sustained basis and how the process of creating new organizations compares across the public, private and non-profit sectors. Students will apply the concepts of the course to their areas of concentration to fulfill their concentration requirements.

AGNG 642
The Historical and Cultural Perspectives on Long Term Care Services [1]
This course is about the interplay of historical and sociocultural factors shaping Long-Term Care (LTC) services in the U.S. Throughout our history, individuals who lack either personal or financial resources have relied on a patchwork of local charitable organizations. Without family or strong ties in an ethnic/religious group the only alternative was the public poorhouse or a religious or service organization almshouse. With the enactment of Social Security in 1935 a new era of policy making and entrepreneurial ventures sprang forth creating the LTC and aging service sector of today. Despite the dramatic increase in programs, housing and care options available to older adults, longstanding cultural and ideological tensions combined with emerging trends will challenge leaders of aging services.