Graduate Study
Service Leadership and Innovation
Program Overview
This program fills an emerging need in the many service businesses and industries that focus on understanding various customer relationships. Such businesses will find this program in tune with their educational and training investments. Attention is focused on the management interface between the customer and the service provider, innovation of products and services, and building customer relationships. This program gives individual students access to the interdisciplinary expertise of a technological university.
The 12 course program is flexible: five core courses (20 credit hours) are required. The choise of professional electives from a wide array of disciplines (computer science-information technology, quality and applied statistics, business and others) responds to individual student needs.
The program accomodates full-and part-time options and may be achieved through on campus or online study. Courses are offered in the evening and on weekends. Full-time students may complete the master of science program within one calendar year (four academic quarters). The program is also offered in the executive leader format (eight one-week sessions delivered over two summers).
Curriculum Review
The service innovation and leadership program includes a minimum of 48 quarter credit hours of graduate credit and can be completed in four full-time quarters or in seven to eight part-time quarters. The basic curriculum is a combination of required core, professional concentration, and elective courses that will satisfy the student's individual needs.
Students who already are qualified for one or more required courses may substitute other course work with the permission of the program chair. Students whose prior undergraduate work has not been in the service industries field may be required to complete additional courses and/or a cooperative educational experience. This will be determined after a review of their work by the program chair. A thesis or final project also is required for all students.
The student may choose elective courses with the approval of the program chair. Elective courses may be selected from the colleges of Business and Computing and Information Technology, or from the programs of hospitality and service management, project management, or human resource development. Of the possible 8 to 12 hours of electives, students are relatively free to select courses they feel best meet their needs. The only limitations are:
Note: Students matriculated in RIT’s MBA program may use service management courses offered through hospitality-tourism management and service management programs as a concentration within their degree program.
Required core courses (20 credits)
0625-750 Elements of Service Management: A Systems Approach
0624-770 Service Leadership: Examining and Implementing Change
0624-825 Strategic Process of Service Firms
0626-780 Human Resource Management I or
0626-891 Workforce Development
0625-849 Service Performance Metrics
Concentration Options
Hospitality and Service Management; Instruction Technology; Human Resources Management; Information Technology; College of Business; College of Engineering, Center for Quality and Applied Statistics - Graduate Certificate in Statistical Quality
Admission Requirements
The complete list of admission requirements includes:Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) score of at least 550 (paper-based), 213 (computer-based), 89 (Internet-based) for international students. All international students will take the Michigan Test at entry unless approved otherwise. Students should arrive on campus early enough to guarantee they have sufficient time to take the English test before starting their normal graduate course work.