The Consortium seeks to increase diversity in business education and leadership by increasing representation of African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans in member schools and by extension in the ranks of business management. Through its Two-Year MBA Program with 17 partner institutions, the Consortium awards more than $19 million in full-tuition, merit-based MBA fellowships each year and has helped more than 6,000 underrepresented minority students earn their MBAs.

Goizueta has been a Consortium member school for more than a decade. “Through our relationship with the Consortium we continue a strong commitment to diversity,” Goizueta Dean Larry Benveniste said in a statement. “We look forward to taking part in this pilot initiative, which will enable Goizueta One-Year students to take advantage of Consortium recruiting and fellowship opportunities while completing their studies and returning to the work force in just one year.”

Goizueta’s One-Year MBA program begins in May of each year and continues for three semesters. The Class of 2012 includes 39 students (8 percent minority) with an average of five years’ work experience.

Beginning with the class enrolling in May 2012, the Consortium will begin recruiting prospective, One-Year MBA students for Goizueta immediately. Candidates interested in the Consortium Fellowship are encouraged to apply with the organization directly to be considered for full-tuition, merit-based benefits.

“Including Goizueta’s One-Year Program among our member schools and offerings enhances our goal of providing opportunities for deserving students to attend top-ranked institutions,” Consortium Executive Director and CEO Peter J. Aranda III said in a statement. “Having more Consortium students at Emory broadens our reach and strengthens our mission to promote diversity in American business schools and corporations,” he continued.

For more information about the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, click here.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, together with the Goizeuta School, announced the “First to 50: The Atlanta Electric Vehicle Race” competition on April 1st. The city hopes to develop a feasible economic plan to stimulate demand for 50,000 EVs in the metro Atlanta region, and the Mayor’s Office on Sustainability and Clean Cities Atlanta have been providing information for consumers considering purchasing EVs. The new case competition will draw students into the initiative, inviting them to present innovative plans to build demand for EVs over the next two years.

All college students in the state of Georgia are eligible to participate. In May, participants will have access to a three-part lecture series on Emory’s campus, during which executives from the U.S. Department of Energy, General Electric and Wheego Electric Car Company will highlight issues associated with EV deployment and their mass-market adoption. The lectures will be recorded and posted on Emory’s website at www.wisdomofcrowds.emory.edu.

The deadline to submit plans is August 31, 2011, and up to 30 teams may participate for a chance to present their strategy to a panel of judges made up of policy leaders and industry executives. The top six student teams will present their cases on September 8, 2011. Judges will announce the top plan within 24 hours, and they will award a cash prize of $5,000 to the winning team.

For complete details about the First to 50 case competition, click here. For more information on Atlanta’s EV readiness efforts, click here.

The event is open to first- and second-year students and Executive MBAs from each of the participating schools who are interesting in working on the West Coast. Participating schools include the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, Cornell’s Johnson School, the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, Emory’s Goizueta Business School, Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, the University of Michigan’s Ross School and the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.

The all-day event will take place today, April 9th, at the Embassy Suites Hotel near the San Francisco Airport. More than 30 companies have registered to participate, ranging from traditional banking and consulting firms to healthcare, information technology, media and marketing companies. For a list of all participating firms, click here.

To learn more about this inaugural collaborative interview forum, visit the “A Day in the Bay” website.

Kenan-Flagler’s bid to organize the conference showed “the most thoughtfulness in trying to move the conference forward in terms of content and networking opportunities for students,” said Elizabeth Davis, a member of the organizing committee for the 2008 conference and a second-year MBA student at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business.

UNC Kenan-Flagler will work jointly with three other business schools to develop and organize the Reaching Out 2009 Conference, which will take place in October 2009 in Atlanta, Georgia. Other organizing schools include Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, Duke University’s Fuqua Business School and the Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Management.

The conference has as secondary goals to build the LGBT community and heighten the visibility of this community and make it more a part of the general work experience. “Mentoring students is a big part of it as well – helping them to decide on future careers and learning more about each of the industries they might consider working for,” Davis added.

This year’s conference attracted 900 attendees and 80 companies, and hopes for the year ahead are to draw more than 1,000 attendees. The 2009 conference, open to all MBA students and alumni, will include the launch of a new workshop to support emerging LGBT student groups at business schools and to help expand an existing MBA admissions recruitment event targeting LGBT students.

Successful career panels from the 2008 conference will be repeated next year, including Media and Entertainment, Finance and Investment Banking, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Retail and Microfinance and International Development. Two new career panels, one focused on human capital consulting and the current direction in human resources and another focusing on nonprofit careers, also will be added.

Previous Reaching Out conferences have been organized by students at the business schools of University of Virginia, Stanford University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Purdue University, Northwestern University, Dartmouth College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University, Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania.

To learn more about the Reaching Out 2009 Conference or to register, click here.

Currently, women represent less than 20 percent of most EMBA classes, and at a number of top programs that percentage is closer to 5 percent, the Journal reports. This is compared to 30 percent of the class at top full-time MBA programs and more than 40 percent in part-time programs.

According to the Journal report, obstacles preventing more women from pursuing an EMBA include formats that interfere with raising a family (many EMBA programs require two years of two long weekends on campus each month), trouble securing company sponsorship for the degree and uncertainty around whether the EMBA will actually help them break through the glass ceiling and advance in their careers. Furthermore, until recently, most schools have aimed their female recruitment efforts toward candidates for their full-time programs.

Efforts to address these obstacles and boost female EMBA enrollment range from school to school, the Journal reports. At Columbia Business School, the school and its alumni have started to reach out directly to potential female applicants through personal phone calls and networking events. At the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, a faculty member devotes more than half of her time to increasing diversity and female enrollment at Wharton’s San Francisco–based EMBA program. And at London Business School and IESE in Madrid, the administrations have increased scholarship aid to women who meet greater resistance within their companies to fund the executive programs.

Still other schools have begun to offer program formats that are more appealing to women, the Journal reports. Emory University in 2002 introduced a new modular EMBA program that meets for nine residency periods over 21 months, as opposed to every other weekend. The program has 33 percent women in its current class, compared with 20 percent in its traditional EMBA program, according to the Journal. “For women with young children, weekends tend to be time they spend at home,” Joan Coonrod, director of admissions, told the Journal.

The increased focus on attracting women to EMBA programs has met with praise from organizations that focus on promoting women in business, who argue that greater gender equality will not only benefit women but will make the programs better overall. “The optimal balance for teams to perform strongly is 50 percent women and we have that aspiration,” Linden Selby, a senior admissions manager at London Business School, told the Journal. Selby cited research conducted by London Business School’s Centre for Women to support her assertion that mixed teams are stronger.

To read the full Journal article, click here.

QS Quacquarelli Symonds, a leading career and education network, has canceled each of the four stops planned this month in India as part of its 2008 World MBA Tour, which brings admissions officers from top MBA programs around the globe face to face with prospective applicants in their native countries. This year’s QS India Tour, which was slated to include fairs in New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, will be rescheduled for sometime in January 2009, according to the QS website.

Top schools whose admissions officers were scheduled to visit India as part of the QS MBA World Tour included London Business School, Emory University’s Gozieta Business School and UC Berkeley’s Haas Business School, among others.

QS will provide additional information about events as they are rescheduled on its website later this month. Candidates for these events are encouraged to register online now in order to receive email notification of the new dates. “We hope that peace and order will be restored quickly,” read the QS website. “Our thoughts are with those affected by the terrorist attacks.”

According to blog posts by hopeful MBA applicants, some schools also have canceled applicant interviews in New Delhi and Mumbai as a result of the terrorist attacks.

“As I had expected last night, Emory mailed to inform that their trip stands canceled, although this information has gone out only to applicants interviewing in Delhi and Mumbai so far,” wrote blogger ahembeea on his blog, B School Bound, on November 27th. “My one chance to interview in person with the adcom now stands squashed,” he continued.

INSEAD, too, has postponed an EMBA Information Session scheduled for New Dehli until sometime in January.

Obviously, our thoughts here at Clear Admit go out first and foremost to the families of those directly affected by the terrorist attacks. But we also certainly understand the frustrations felt by prospective MBA applicants whose opportunities to meet in person with school representatives will be impacted as a result and will do our best to keep our readers informed of any additional canceled or postponed events as we become aware of them.

“We wanted the best, and we weren’t going to settle for anything less,” said Larry Benveniste, dean of Goizueta Business School, of the appointment. “The committee interviewed four finalists, and the person encompassing all of the qualities we wanted was our own J.B. Kurish,” he continued.

Goizueta engaged executive search firm Egon Zehnder to conduct a national search. Tom Key, a Goizueta alumnus, served as principal on the search committee, which was made up of current and former students, faculty and staff. Among the qualifications the committee looked for in candidates were visionary leadership, respected academic credentials, great communications skills and selfless commitment.

Kurish will replace Steve Walton, Goizueta associate professor of information systems and operations management, who has served as interim associate dean for more than a year. Walton will return to full-time teaching.

Kurish came to Goizueta in the fall of 2006. He is an expert in the field of municipal debt issuance and municipal debt market practices, having managed public debt offerings for more than 15 cities and states throughout the United States. Before joining Goizueta, he taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago, ran his own firm and worked as a public finance investment banker for Credit Suisse First Boston.

Kurish’s appointment was met by a standing ovation from an audience made up primarily students. Kurish acknowledged the warm reception with humor, saying, “I am aware that there are about 120 of you who are still awaiting your grades.”

“I have a lot of ideas,” Kurish continued on a more serious note. “I also know that everyone else has good ideas. My job is to take those good ideas and make them work.”

In just two short years at Goizueta, Kurish has taken and active role in developing the new curriculum for the full-time MBA program. In addition to teaching in the full-time program, he also has taught in the evening MBA and the W. Cliff Oxford Executive MBA programs.

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 . . . → Continue Reading]]> 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.

1. Northwestern (Kellogg) 2. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) 3. University of Chicago 4. University of Michigan 5. USC (Marshall) 6. Columbia Business School 7. Emory (Goizueta) 8. UCLA (Anderson) 9. Duke (Fuqua – global) 10. UNC (Kenan Flagler) 11. Southern Methodist University (Cox) 12. Georgetown (McDonough) 13. Cornell (Johnson) 14. Ohio State (Fisher) 15. Instituto de Empressa 16. IMD 17. IESE 18. INSEAD 19. NYU (Stern) 20. London Business School 21. ESADE 22. Thunderbird 23. Queen’s University 24. Washington (Olin) 25. Villanova University

1. Harvard University 2. Stanford University 3. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) 4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) 5. Northwestern University (Kellogg) 5. University of Chicago 7. Dartmouth College (Tuck) 8. University of California–Berkeley (Haas) 9. Columbia University 10. New York University (Stern) 11. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (Ross) 12. Duke University (Fuqua) 12. University of Virginia (Darden) 14. Cornell University (Johnson) 14. Yale University 16. University of California–Los Angeles (Anderson) 17. Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) 18. University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler) 18. University of Texas–Austin (McCombs) 20. Emory University (Goizueta)

The top nine remains virtually unchanged as compared to last year. The most noteworthy is that Tuck leap-frogged over both Haas and Columbia to land in the #7 spot, but it’s also interesting that Kellogg is tied with regional rival Chicago for the #5 spot (last year it had tied MIT for 4th). As is often the case, there was more movement among schools 10-20. UCLA / Anderson was the biggest mover, dropping from 10 to 16, with Stern rising three spaces to take its place. Ross, which shared the #11 spot with Duke last year, now holds that space alone while Fuqua ties Darden for #12.

While it can be interesting and fun to track these slight changes – especially for those associated with the schools in question – the facts that there is so little change from year to year and that these same programs are included so consistently in the top 20 speaks to the consistent quality of these programs. It also underscores the importance of deeper research to really understand a school and its offerings to put these rankings in perspective and identify the school that’s the best personal and professional fit.