By Gerianne Downs, Associate Director of Communications
SUNY Plattsburgh’s School of Business and Economics has partnered with CVPH Medical Center to bring its business expertise to employees in leadership there.
The in-person program, launched last semester, is a six-week series of classes held on the CVPH campus and taught by SBE faculty from different disciplines as well as SBE alumni.
Brian Neureuther, dean of the School of Business and Economics, said the program was a year in the making, when CVPH President Michelle LeBeau reached out to him “about the possibility of training staff in management,” Neureuther said. “We began discussions — the university’s provost, myself, Dr. Samy Garas and CVPH management — to talk about their needs.”
The resulting classes cover managing organizations, evidence-based decisions, regulations, accounting and finance, leadership, and strategy, with the first cohort, which are all day and taught on Fridays, beginning in October last year.
The next session began after the start of the spring semester in February and will run through mid-April; the third session will begin in May and run into June. Garas, associate professor of accounting, expects to see it continue.
After last fall’s pilot program, an invitation was extended to Alice Hyde Memorial Hospital in Malone, Garas said. Now, half of the participants drive the hour to and from Malone on class days to participate.
Neureuther said that negotiations took time “because we wanted to fully understand what it was that they needed.”