The WSJ Career Journal came out with an article today about the Yale SOM’s new curriculum, focusing on the way the planned changes are being received by the students who will undertake it and the faculty who are working to design it. The shift, which involves adopting an integrated approach to understanding broad business issues rather than a compartmentalized discipline-by-discipline introductory method, seems to be going over very well – even among those who will need to go to great lengths this summer to ensure that all runs smoothly in the fall:
“Dean Podolny believes the curriculum change has advanced so quickly because Yale’s M.B.A. program is relatively small and nimble (425 students) and its faculty already tended to work well across disciplines. Indeed, after overcoming some initial reservations, the faculty unanimously approved the new curriculum.
Professors aren’t getting much rest this summer as they race to finish the curriculum by August. Senior faculty meet at least weekly to hash out course details and craft new case studies and other teaching materials. ‘This change is requiring the faculty to stretch, but it’s incredibly exciting working around the clock on it,’ says Jonathan Feinstein, an economics professor. ‘In my 20 years in business schools, I’ve never experienced a curriculum development like this.’”
In addition to commenting on the planned changed to the Yale curriculum, the article mentions the measures that several other business schools are taking to revitalize their course offerings and tailor the content of their classes to the realities of the business world. With two of the top programs undertaking major overhauls of their approaches to business education this year – the other being Stanford’s new focus on personal development during the first year of study – one can’t help but wonder whether this is just the beginning of a trend of reevaluation and adjustment that will manifest itself across MBA programs in the next few years.
The full text of the article is available at:
http://www.careerjournal.com/myc/school/20060711-alsop.html
