In order to fulfill the requirements to earn the MHA degree, students must meet the following requirements: 

1. Full Time Residency:
   1. All Sloan students are required to be enrolled in and complete a minimum of 12 credits 
      each semester. Petitions for reduced residency are not considered.
   2. Degree Requirements for the MHA degree are: 
      a. Satisfactory completion of sixty (60) credit hours of graduate-level coursework (i.e., 5000-level courses or higher), which includes the required core courses and approved elective credits but excludes Sloan colloquium credits. Students can take courses below the 5000 level, but those credits do NOT count toward the required 60.
      1. Sloan core/required courses must be taken in the required sequence. 
         c. Satisfactory completion of four total credits (1 credit each semester) of Sloan Colloquium (e.g., PUBPOL 5990, Challenges & Trends).
      2. Credits for PUBPOL 5990 do not count towards the 60 credit hours required for 
         graduation from the Sloan Program.
      3. Credits for PUBPOL 5990 must be earned on a pass/fail basis (these do not 
         count toward a student’s total pass/fail limit). 
         d. Satisfactory completion of a 400-hour full time, approved summer internship between the first and second year of the program. 
         Note, while only 60 graduate credits are required to earn the MHA, Sloan students may take up to 22 credits each semester (inclusive of PUBPOL 5990) as long as they can maintain satisfactory academic progress and demonstrate healthy wellbeing. Taking more than 22 credits in a given semester will not be 
         approved. 
         

Additional requirements for 5-Year Bachelor/MHA degree: 
All the requirements of the MHA apply to the Bachelor/MHA. In addition, the following special requirements apply to students in the Bachelor/ MHA program which warrant separate explanation for clarity.

1. 1. Admission to Sloan’s five-year (4+1) Bachelor/MHA program is limited to Cornell 
      undergraduate students only in approved majors of study.
      1. Students must satisfactorily complete the same sixty (60) credit hours of coursework required for the MHA and the 1 credit per semester of PAM 5990 (4 credits total; 2 during the senior year and 2 as a graduate student) and the summer internship requirement.
   2. During the senior year, the Bachelor/MHA student will take first-year Sloan courses, 
      which will be double counted to satisfy both undergraduate elective requirements for the Bachelor degree at Cornell as well as graduate requirements.
   3. By April 15th of the senior year, students must formally apply to the Cornell Graduate 
      School and pay the application fee (fee waivers are available).
   4. Students who are making satisfactory progress in Sloan during the senior year will 
      automatically be admitted into Cornell’s Graduate School for completion of the MHA 
      degree. 

Evaluation of academic progress is based on the following criteria: 

1. Full time enrollment (a minimum of 12 credits per semester).
2. Satisfactory progress in meeting Sloan degree requirements regarding required and elective courses and completing the summer internship.
3. An overall GPA of 3.0 or greater, at all times, in all courses taken for a letter grade and counting toward the required 60 credits for graduation.
4. A grade of C or higher in all required Sloan courses except PUBPOL 5951/5952 which requires a higher standard.
   1. Grades of C- and lower in required courses do not constitute satisfactory progress and require a student to retake the course or take an approved alternate course.
5. A grade of B or higher in PUBPOL 5951 and 5952 Field Studies, the integrative “Capstone” project courses.
6. Withdrawing from a class (i.e., taking a “W”) or taking an incomplete (i.e., taking an “I”) are 
   allowed only under highly extenuating circumstances and require pre-approval from the academic advisor, the program director and the college. For purposes of computing Sloan overall GPAs and evaluating academic progress, a grade of “W” in a required course is counted as an “F”.
7. In core courses where a student failed to achieve a minimum C grade, credits for that course will not count towards the 60 for graduation and the grade will not be counted in GPA calculations.
8. Any student with a cumulative Sloan GPA that does not meet the required 3.0 threshold after their fourth semester will not be eligible for graduation. 
   

Failure to Maintain Satisfactory Progress: 
In the event a student is observed to be making less than satisfactory progress, the student will be notified in writing and required to meet with the program director to discuss any relevant circumstances and determine a positive course of action. A notice of Academic Probation will be placed in the student’s file. A student may be required to leave the program for lack of satisfactory academic progress and/or inappropriate conduct although all efforts will be made to co-create with the student a positive plan of action. 

Student Advising and Progress to Degree:
Assignment of a Faculty Academic Advisor: 

1. All students are assigned a faculty academic advisor (“Committee Chair” on Graduate School forms) and a minor member for the Graduate School Special Committee (Nicholas Sanders, Director of Graduate Studies, is automatically appointed by the Graduate School to serve as the minor member).
2. Academic advisors will provide ongoing advice and support during the program and are required to approve student elective courses during the mandatory student-advisor meeting at the beginning of each semester.
3. Students may change their advisor after consulting with the program director. Any change to the Special Faculty Committee requires the completion of a “Special Faculty Committee Selection and Change” form. All signatures are required. Completed forms are to be returned to the Sloan program assistant. 

Progress to Degree Form (PTD):
To monitor student progress and ensure student success, each student must complete the relevant semester information in the “Progress to Degree Form” at the start of each semester beginning with the first semester in the program. Forms are due, with advisor approval, within two (2) weeks after the start of each semester via Cornell Box. 

Communication

1. Business writing skills

2. Presentation skills

Leadership Skills and Relationship Management

3. Leading, communication with, and managing others

4. Change management

5. Ability for honest self-assessment

6. Problem solving and decision making

7. Working in teams

Professionalism

8. Personal and professional ethics

9. Emotional intelligence and critical thinking

Knowledge of the Health Care Environment

10. Health care issues and trends

11. Health care legal principles

12. Health policy

13. Population health and the social determinants of health

14. Cultural competence

Business and Analytical Skills

15. Financial management and accounting

16. Organizational behavior and managing human resources

17. Strategic planning and analysis

18. Marketing

19. Information management

20. Operations management and quality and performance improvement

21. Quantitative skills

22. Planning and managing projects

23. Economic analysis and application

Each individual student’s competencies will be tracked over the duration of the program via periodic self-assessments, faculty assessments, and feedback on capstone projects.

At the student level, the “realistic” target that we set is that all students will attain a self-assessed level of 3 in all competencies by the time they graduate, and our aspirational or “stretch” target is that all students will attain a level of 4 in all competencies by the time they graduate.  This is based on the 5-point Likert scale that we use where: 

• 1 = Novice 
• 2 = Advanced Beginner 
• 3 = Competent 
• 4 = Proficient 
• 5 = Expert 

Sloan Competency Model and Method for Evaluating Student Competence 

The Sloan Program aspires to develop 23 distinct student competencies that are organized into five major domains: 1) Communication; 2) Leadership Skills and Relationship Management; 3) Professionalism; 4) Knowledge of the Health Care Environment; and 5) Business and Analytical Skills. Over the course of the program, Sloan Program staff will administer student self-assessments at three distinct time points, collect faculty assessments of individual students from core courses, and leverage the capstone projects as summative assessments of competency achievement. The Sloan Competency Assessment for Learning Evaluation (SCALE) will be used throughout. “SCALE” is how we measure Sloan students’ growth in knowledge, skills, and professionalism over the duration of the program. The collection of assessments will be discussed with students by their assigned advisors in conjunction with their progress to degree plans and long-term career planning documents. The resulting information allows us to carefully track student performance in accordance with our accreditation standards and to help us continuously improve the curriculum.

During each semester, practicing healthcare executives visit campus and give lectures, workshops and seminars as part of the Sloan Colloquium Series. The colloquia provide informal settings where students interact directly with high level professionals to learn about recent trends, issues and innovative developments in the field. There are often lively debates and interchanges between students and practitioners. Recent colloquia included speakers from academic medical centers, community hospitals, the VA system, medical practice management, bio-technology, insurance, management consulting and professional associations. Colloquia enable Sloan students to interact with industry practitioners in a seminar setting. Students are also invited to lunch with speakers on a rotating basis.

Professional Development Workshops

Each fall, first year students are required to attend a number of career and professional development workshops designed to hone their professional communication, networking, interviewing, negotiating, etiquette, and healthcare research skills. These workshops generally take place on select Fridays following our Sloan Colloquia.

National Experts Teach Specialized Courses

Sloan offers at least eight Practitioner-Led Intensive courses (PLICs) per year. PLICs are one- or two-credit weekend courses taught by experienced health care executives that allow students to develop expertise in a special topic or skill.

VUCA Leadership
Instructor: George Casey, Distinguished Senior Lecturer of Leadership (a retired four-star general who served as the 36^th Chief of Staff of the United States Army between 2007 and 2011)

Disruptive Innovation in Healthcare 1: Digital Health
Instructor: Terry Murphy (Sloan ‘86)

Disruptive Innovation in Healthcare 2: The Incumbents Strike Back
Instructor: Terry Murphy, (Sloan ‘86)

Designing a New Healthcare Payment System: Best Practices in Alternative Payment Design
Instructor: Carter Dredge (Sloan ’11)

Operations and Planning of Senior Living and Related Facilities/Programs
Instructor: Brooke Hollis (Sloan ’78)

Introduction to Quality and Quality Measurement
Instructor: Abhi Grewal (Sloan ’18)

Using Python to Analyze Data
Instructor: Keith Liao

Key Management Issues in the Biotech and Pharmaceutical Industries
Instructor: Sean Nicholson, Sloan Program Director

Facility Planning for Managers
Instructor: Brooke Hollis (Sloan ’78)

Fundamentals of Practice Administration
Instructor: Cathy Bartell (Sloan ‘90)

Private Equity in Healthcare
Instructor: Ed Han (Sloan ‘21)

The Healthcare Industry from a Consulting Perspective
Instructor: Ying Yang, Sloan Instructor, Assistant Director, McGovern Center Start-up Incubator

Collaborative Approaches to Quality, Safety, and Service for Patients
Instructor: Robert Lancey, MD, MBA (Johnson ’07)

Comparative Health Care Systems
Instructor: Angus Corbett, JD

The Politics Dance of Health Policy
Instructor: Lee Perlman (Sloan ’82)

In your second year, you will work as part of a three- or four-person team with your classmates to complete a year-long capstone project for a health care organization. You will provide expertise to a real client looking for a solution to a real problem. In the process, you will find yourself synthesizing the competencies you have acquired in the classroom and internships during your time at Sloan. The product of the course will be an oral presentation and research paper. Following are examples of recent culminating capstone projects:

• Helping a hospital’s pediatric practice grow patient volume
• Redesigning physician schedules at a GI clinic to improve patient access and throughput
• Examining the feasibility of a hospice house
• Exploring how to allow physician practices to accept cash payments from patients without violating payer contracts