By Kerry Miller

Get an MBA and a tan at the same time? Why not? Mixing business with pleasure is nothing new in the corporate world, where what happens on the golf course can be as crucial as what happens in the boardroom and executive retreats are as much an escape from the corporate world as they are an extension of it. With more and more firms stressing the importance of a good life-work balance, it was only a matter of time before the idea started trickling down to MBA programs as well.

Now, several schools are making part-time MBA programs more attractive for busy executives who are wary of sacrificing precious family and leisure time for class work. John Fernandes, president of accrediting board AACSB International, says it's all part of an overarching trend in the B-school world—flexible delivery—that began about 20 years ago with the first Executive MBA programs and exploded about seven years ago with the development of online learning. "It's no longer one-size-fits all," he says. "Now, just about anyone can find an MBA program that suits their lifestyle."

Executives can now get a Kellogg degree without setting foot in Evanston, thanks to the school's new Miami-based EMBA program. In February, 2007, the Graduate School at Bethel University will launch a 21-month, part-time MBA program with weekend classes to be held at a Minnesota resort. MBA students can bring their families along and spend their free time golfing, boating, and fishing. And the EMBA program at the University of Hawaii's College of Business, in Honolulu, begins with a three-day residential session at Turtle Bay Resort—an ocean-front luxury resort with five miles of white-sand beaches and 36 holes of golf.

THE LESSON IN A GRAIN OF SAND.  Part-time students aren't the only ones having fun in the sun. From MBA-only sports teams to classes on the beach, full-time MBA programs are leveraging their environmental assets to capture student's attention, enrich their learning, and facilitate student networking.

First-year MBA students in Assistant Professor Reynold Byers's operations management class at the University of California, Irvine, compete in an annual sand castle-building competition at Huntington State Beach. As part of a lesson on how to manage and manufacture a product on a strict budget and tight deadline, the students form teams with different members taking on roles as hydrologists (haul pails of water from the ocean), excavation engineers (diggers), raw materials specialists (scooping and packing sand), and structural finish experts (detailers). At IAE Aix-en-Provence, one of the core courses, Organizational Management, includes an outdoor "action learning" component with rock-climbing and raft-building, taught in the scenic Calanques of nearby Marseille. At the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business, Vancouver's Jericho Beach, less than a mile from campus, is home to the school's MBA Beach Volleyball team and MBA Sailing Team.

And for MBA students not lucky enough to have beachfront campuses, there's always study abroad. University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management offers a number of global enrichment electives with international study components, including an intensive seminar about sustainable development and environmental strategy in Costa Rica. Carlson students spend two weeks on the INCAE campus (with options for family housing for students traveling with extra guests). In addition to class field trips, including an overnight trip to a rainforest biological station, students can take optional weekend excursions to see Costa Rica's beaches, volcanoes, and mountains.

B-school may be hard, but the living can be easy. Click here to see a slide show.