Staying Nimble To Meet Executive Needs

Since recruiting its first cohort in 2008, the University of Colorado Denver MS in Global Energy Manage­ment (CU Denver GEM) program has educated executives through booms and busts in oil and gas, and it has never ceased to adapt to industry members’ needs.

“I remember when I started in ’08, there was a conver­sation about peak oil, then the shale boom, then the ’14 downturn,” said Sarah Derdowski, executive director of CU Denver’s GEM program. “As much as our learning objectives don’t change, the way we teach those objectives changes, the examples, such as technology discussed, market forces or changing business models, like the fund­ing issues right now in oil and gas.”

Designed to be completed in 18 months, GEM curric­ulum consists of 12 courses, divided into 24 core cred­it hours, nine energy elective credits and a three-hour capstone course. Intermingled with energy business acumen and leadership courses are several technical classes, a feature which distinguishes CU Denver’s GEM program from EMBA programs. These courses ensure a well-rounded executive education, so that, upon gradu­ation, a CFO, for instance, better understands the actu­al science that his company’s geologists perform to find profitable acreage.

The curriculum is reviewed annually by faculty and an advisory council, which includes executives from leading oil and gas corporations, data analytics and alternative energy companies. In addition, each course is updated when it is offered, which occurs biannually.

“The only people looking at my curriculum are ener­gy professionals,” Derdowski said. “That makes it much more in tune with global trends.”

The course format of CU Denver’s GEM program is also adaptable; the program practices a hybrid model, allowing students to take classes from abroad via online resources. The hybrid format helps the program “better look at how to serve students where they are, and that means in the workforce,” Derdowski explained.

“All of our students work full time,” she continued. “They’re all going through the same walks of life and experiences, moving, getting married, having kids, all the things you shouldn’t do in a year while going to grad school.” These shared experiences help glue together the 30 students that form a given academic cohort in the program.

“Many students have been hired by other stu­dents, and several have created companies with each other,” Derdowski said. These connections are aid­ed by the GEM program’s exclusive alumni board and program.

Another community pillar is the Executive in Res­idence program, which connects students with three C-level energy executives. One-on-one conversations with these senior executives help students develop soft skills alongside the hard skills learned in class, and they grant important networking opportunities. In other words, “we bring in executives who are complementary to what we teach,” Derdowski said.

The collective features of CU Denver’s GEM program are critical to long-term student success. As Derdowski noted: “We want to give students the tools to be able to make solutions that work for everyone and are sustain­able, as opposed to a Band-Aid fix. Strategic, actual solu­tions.”

And clearly, graduates are proving that they can create these solutions in their companies, as 55% of CU Denver GEM alumni report a salary increase or promotion upon graduation.