A US business school is introducing modules taught overseas and offering alumni the chance to return to study for free as part of an overhaul of its curri-culum in the wake of the worldwide financial crisis. Wharton Business School, part of the University of Pennsylvania, now flies students around the globe to take part in week-long modules introducing them to global business issues.
Its MBA curriculum offers students the chance to study healthcare in India and European finance in London, while closer to home, issues relating to technology and entrepreneurship are taught in San Francisco. Modules are delivered by Wharton’s own staff, academics from partner institutions around the world and experienced Wharton alumni now working in business.
According to Thomas Robertson, dean of Wharton Business School, reform has become a necessity. “As the financial crisis came along, lecturers couldn’t walk into the classroom and pull out lecture notes from the year before. A lot of change took place all by itself,” he says. “We hadn’t revised the curriculum in more than a decade, so it was time to look at it and think about it more fundamentally.”
Robertson says the new curriculum is focused on providing students with skills that the B-school believes will be necessary to thrive in the new economic environment, as well as encourage students to think about the social impact of their work. Eight foreign modules, each up to a week in length, are being taught this year. These include a session in Brazil on energy and another on technology delivered in Israel. “The course has to be germane to the market that you’re operating in, so in London it’s about European finance,” explains Robertson.
Above all, he argues, students must learn to be flexible. “At least half (of our students) will work in industries that don’t exist currently. Twenty or 30 years ago the internet didn’t exist, neither did social media, bioinformatics, sustainability or green products. We have to teach a culture of innovation and the mentality that nothing’s going to be the same.”
Moreover in future, the school will open its doors to alumni, allowing them to return to study short courses free of charge. “When you talk to alumni ten to 15 years out, they say they wish they’d had more in the way of (lessons on) leadership and communication, and how to deal with people,” says Robertson, adding that debates about the death of the MBA are “mere rhetoric” and that he is confident about the future of both the US economy and business education.
“Any kind of disruption or downturn creates wonderful opportunities. There’s a lot of hype right now about India and China, and the notion that China is the second most powerful economy in the world which will overtake the US within 20 years. Maybe it will, maybe not — probably not,” he says.
(Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)