The faculty at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School today announced that it has approved major changes to the school’s full-time MBA curriculum. The changes – which include a greater emphasis on practical problem solving and decision analysis, more freedom to choose electives in the first year, and better integration of course material, career planning and leadership development – will be implemented beginning with next fall’s entering class.
Goizueta’s planned changes to its curriculum, like those of Yale, Columbia and other schools that also have restructured their cores recently, are designed to respond to the changing landscape of business, in which globalization, an accelerated pace of change and an increased focus on data-driven decision-making are causing corporations to demand more from their MBAs earlier in their careers.
Like Yale’s School of Management, Goizueta has placed significant emphasis on better integration of course material as part of its curriculum reform. The core class structure has been reengineered so that the sequences of courses and their content are more effective, duplication of material across courses is eliminated and the development of sharp analytical skills – a must-have for all MBAs – begins in earnest right from the start of the first semester.
As its centerpiece, the reformed core will feature a new course entitled “Management Practice,” designed to firmly link management theory to practical applications by giving students the tools they need to consider issues from a range of career perspectives and act quickly to frame problems, analyze data and make timely decisions.
Also similar to Yale’s reformed core, the development of leadership skills at Goizueta will be a primary focus. “In addition to the ‘Management Practice’ innovation, the new curriculum will continue to reinforce the school’s mission of educating principled leaders for global enterprise throughout the year,” said Steve Walton, interim associate dean of the full-time MBA program and associate professor in the practice of information systems and operations management. Theme weeks, one devoted to “Principled Leadership” and one to “The Global Enterprise,” will help ensure that these two areas get full attention.
Finally, like Columbia’s revamped core, the new Goizeuta curriculum will free students up to select from a greater range of electives earlier in their course of study. The first semester will allow more opportunity for career preparation, and in the second semester, students will be permitted to select electives that promise to help prepare them for their summer internships.
To make all of the above reforms possible, the following logistical changes will be implemented:
• The fall semester will begin two weeks earlier;
• Students will complete all but one of their core courses by the end of the first semester, and
• Students will complete twice as many elective courses before.
“With the new curriculum, Goizueta students will continue to have the benefits of our small, close-knit community, combined with increased flexibility to pursue a tailored plan-of-study,” said Doug Bowman, professor of marketing and chair of the MBA Curriculum Committee, whose charge was to design the new curriculum.
The committee conducted extensive research before embarking on the curriculum redesign, including surveying school alumni, current students and deans of other top business schools and comparing Goizueta’s existing curriculum with those of other top management programs.
Bowman is confident in the committee’s research and the resulting new core. “This places Goizueta Business School at the forefront of the next generation of MBA curriculums,” he said.
Comments closed
