Virginia Tech Launches Innovative Program to Address Business-Ph.D. Faculty Shortage

My alma mater has a bridge program for economists looking to re-tool as finance profs:

Responding to critical doctoral faculty shortages and rising enrollments in management education, Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business has launched an innovative program to prepare individuals with non-business doctorates for faculty positions in business.

The college is one of five schools offering "post-doctoral bridge-to-business programs" endorsed by AACSB International, the accrediting organization for business schools worldwide. The programs, which are scheduled to begin next summer, vary in detail among the schools.

Pamplin Dean Richard E. Sorensen, who chaired AACSB’s working group on the doctoral faculty shortage, said the college is offering an eight-week, residential program with two tracks, finance and marketing, aimed at those with doctorates in related disciplines — economics, psychology, sociology, or statistics.

“Ph.D.s in economics, for example,” Sorensen said, “already have basic research and teaching skills and need only additional training focusing them in finance.”

Looks like my other alma mater is getting into the game too:

The other schools offering the bridge-to-business programs are the University of Florida, the University of Toledo, Tulane University, and Grenoble Ecole de Management (France).

If law and economics doesn't work out for me, this is another avenue I could pursue. The only problem is I'll have to scrounge up $40,000 for the two month session. If I already understood finance, would I go for that?

P.S. -- Wondering what the difference is between finance and economics? Click here to find out.