Graduates from an AACSB endorsed Post-Doctoral Bridge to Business Program may be classified as Academically Qualified (AQ) in their disciplines for a period of five years from the date of graduation.

The preamble to current AACSB standards states that “academic quality is created by the educational standards implemented by individual faculty members in interactions with students.” The central tenet of the standards remains that all faculty, AQ, PQ and other, are necessary to support high quality academic programs, continuous improvement, and high quality graduates.

These outcomes are delivered by faculty members that:

• are experts in the subject matter of their teaching and research fields;
• are experts in the educational process and the theory of learning; and
• are active scholars through their research and other development activities that support the maintenance of intellectual capital in their teaching field.

Academically Qualified status is extended to faculty who have appropriate academic preparation (degree completion) augmented by subsequent activities that maintains or establishes preparation for current teaching responsibilities. For accreditation purposes, AACSB standards recognize as Academically Qualified, among others, those graduates with a doctoral degree outside of business, whose primary teaching responsibilities do not incorporate the area of academic preparation, but who have additional preparation through course work and research (AACSB International eligibility and accreditation standards for business accreditation, standard 10, point 4).

Graduates from the AACSB-endorsed Post-Doctoral Bridge to Business Programs have gained sufficient additional preparation, through course work and research completed to meet the initial qualification for this requirement. Initial qualifications are valid for five years. Appropriate scholarly activities need to be undertaken in order to maintain this qualification beyond the initial five year period.

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