Graduate School of Business to adopt customized-curriculum model in 2007
Robert L. Joss
BY BARBARA BUELL
The Graduate School of Business is redesigning its MBA program to allow students to customize their educational experience.
The new model, to be introduced in the fall of 2007, will "challenge every student to his or her fullest capability," said Business School Dean Robert L. Joss, the Philip H. Knight Professor. Creation of the flexible program was based on four months of study and interviews with faculty, students and alumni by an 11-member task force. On May 24, the Business School faculty overwhelmingly approved what is regarded as the school's most far-reaching curriculum change in the past 30 years.
"These new ideas do not tweak at the margins; they aim to create a new, more global and more engaging experience for students," said task force leader Garth Saloner, the Jeffrey S. Skoll Professor of Electronic Commerce, Strategic Management and Economics. "To be sure, the fundamentals—finance, accounting, operations, marketing and strategy, organizational behavior and economics—are still there. But the plan capitalizes on the school's strategic choice to remain small, and it makes students think about what is necessary to good management from the first week they arrive here."
Jeffrey Pfeffer, the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior and a frequent critic of management education, said the changes are the most important thing that has happened in his 27 years at the university. "The concept is a complete restructuring of the educational process," he said. "Today, in a typical large, tiered classroom, students have too passive a role in their learning. This makes students more responsible for their education and potentially engages them more profoundly and more deeply."
The new program will require significant funding, a 5 to 10 percent increase in faculty and, ultimately, a new facility with flexible classrooms to accommodate more and smaller seminars, Joss said. The school has developed a building proposal, which will be presented to the Board of Trustees this month. If accepted, the school will pursue a plan for new buildings on campus.
Flexible MBA programThe new program includes four key ingredients.
First, the new curriculum will be customized to each student. After a common program in the first quarter, students will face no specific required courses but instead a set of distribution requirements to give them the breadth of knowledge that a general manager needs. Requirements will vary in order to challenge every student regardless of past experience. In some cases, "flavors" of a given topic will be offered so that students can tailor their curriculum to their career goals. To take advantage of this flexibility, during the first quarter students will take courses that raise fundamental questions of managerial relevance and point to where answers may be found. These will include Teams and Organizational Behavior, Strategic Leadership, Managerial Finance and The Global Context of Management. Students also will form an advising relationship with a faculty member and, aided by placement exams, the team will craft an individual study plan.
Deeper intellectual experienceSecond, the new curriculum will foster a deeper intellectual exploration of subjects through a fifth course, tentatively titled Critical Analytical Thinking, during the first quarter. In seminars smaller than 20 people, students will examine issues that transcend any single function or discipline of management, addressing questions such as: What responsibilities does a corporation have to society? When do markets perform well, and when do they perform poorly? When does it make sense to exercise discretion, and when should relatively rigid rules govern behavior? Students will be taught to think and argue about such issues clearly, concisely and analytically, setting the tone for the rest of the program. In satisfying distribution requirements and in general electives, students will be asked to think across disciplines and functions on their own. A second-year autumn schedule will feature intensive one-week seminars, during which students will study specific subjects. The school also plans to add to its complement of Bass Seminars, which are funded in part by a recent $30 million gift from alumnus Robert M. Bass. The seminars, with as few as 10 people, will move students beyond passive learning and into topics of their own choosing. Guided by supervising faculty members, students will be responsible for creating the content of the seminars.
Global curriculumThird, the plan calls for enhancing the school's global management curriculum. This begins with the first-quarter course on The Global Context of Management and proceeds in two ways: The school will continue to globalize its cases and course materials, and students will be required to obtain international experience. This can be fulfilled by a study trip, an internship, an overseas service-learning trip or a student exchange, such as the school's new program with Tsinghua University's School of Management and Economics in China.
Leadership and communicationFinally, the new curriculum includes expanded leadership and communication development. The Strategic Leadership course will integrate strategy with leadership development and implementation. Critical Analytical Thinking will help hone students' written and oral communication skills. In a new capstone seminar near the end of the program, students will synthesize what they have learned, examine strengths and weaknesses in their personal leadership style and reflect on how they hope to achieve their goals as they embark on their careers.
Barbara Buell is director of communications at the Graduate School of Business.