A group of Masters of Management - Co-op and Credit Union students. Photo: Tom Webb

SMU program offers unique service to co-ops

Six-year-old master’s program gives managers key industry skills in areas such as accounting, succession.

Despite economic uncertainty, recession and corporate breakdowns across North America one local business program is consistently garnering international interest.

Though not technically an MBA, the Masters of Management-Co-operatives and Credit Unions program at Saint Mary’s University is quietly providing a unique education to a unique brand of managers.
   
The program took on its first students in September of 2003 but it was a long fight for Tom Webb, the original mind behind the program.

“The chairman of the management department here [SMU] asked me about the idea I had for this program and I had to say ‘it’s dead.’”

Webb pitched the idea of a management program focused solely on co-operatives to St. Francis Xavier University in 1999 but it never caught on until SMU picked it up.
   
Webb, the program manager for the program believes it to be the only English program of its kind in Canada. Other universities such as Laval and Sherbrooke offer similar programs but with one key difference Webb explains: “These schools offer accounting, but it’s the same accounting offered in an MBA program.”
   
The SMU program offers accounting specifically for co-operatives and credit unions which Webb says is important for the success of co-operatives.

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The Sobey building, SMU campus where the Management-Co-op offices are located. Photo: Colin Nicolle

The graduate perspective

Sean Doyle, a graduate of the program and manager of the Seward Co-op in Minneapolis says that co-ops often suffer due to a lack of focus.

 “Some of the co-ops that don’t do well often don’t do well because they are more into the ideology of the co-op and not a balance between ideology and effective delivery of goods and services.”
   
Doyle says that the skills students pick up from the SMU program help to bring balance between ideals and business management.

The program only accepts applicants who are already managing co-ops. The idea behind it Webb explains is to take people who have experience and give them business skills to manage the books.
   
   
“I’ve heard people say that co-ops are yesterday’s solutions to yesterday’s problems,” Doyle says. “But programs like this one help people see that...that co-operation is a viable answer to many of the ills facing society.”

In the face of economic adversity

Donna Balkan, Communications Manager for the Canadian Co-operative Association, says that despite co-operatives doing well in the face of the recession one of the biggest threats to them now is succession.

“The average age of co-op managers  across the country is getting older...and it’s because co-operatives are not taught in most schools and most young people are not familiar with co-ops, its more of a challenge to recruit people who will run the co-operative sector in the future.”

Balkan believes that co-ops themselves are becoming more popular, but in different ways. Where once the agricultural, or rural co-operative was common we’re starting to see them in more urban centers.

“For example in areas like car-sharing...there’s a growing number of funeral co-ops...renewable energy and the other thing is with the interest in local food, food co-ops are gaining in popularity.”

According to the Canadian Co-operative Association in Canada alone there are 8,800 co-operatives. These co-operatives employ a total of 150,000 people and have assets in upwards of $250 billion.

Balkan also points out that of all the places for this program to be running out of, Nova Scotia is one of the most appropriate.

 “St. Francis Xavier was the home of what became known as the Antigonish movement in the ‘30s which was responsible for the growth of co-ops throughout the atlantic provinces...and elsewhere in Canada.”

Doyle believes the value of programs like the one at SMU are priceless.

“What this program really serves is taking the intellectual basis from which co-ops came from 160 years ago and carrying it forward to a new generation of leaders,” he explains, “and that’s not just a business strategy but also a way of organizing an economy.”

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