From the Deans

Business school graduates and the programs that produce them — especially MBAs – have been coming in for some heavy criticism in recent months.

The shortsighted, greedy behavior of a number of members of Wall Street have had an effect on public perception, and some questioning of what is being turned out by business schools.  It seems inappropriate to blame an entire group for the inappropriate behavior of a few, but recent events have given all business schools reason to analyze what they are doing and what the resultant effects on the culture are.  

With this background in mind, I picked up a copy of Fareed Zakaria’s latest book, The Post American World.  Zakaria is an editor for Newsweek, a columnist for the Washington Post, and host of a weekly program focused on international relations.  I nearly always find him provocative, interesting, and thoughtful in his comments on world affairs.

In The Post American World,  Zakaria states that the US is undergoing a sea change, entering a new world which it can no longer dominate or overwhelm as it has in the past.  His message is not that the US is failing, but that other nations are rising – rapidly.  As a consequence, America will find it necessary to change its view of the world and its place in it. 

 He makes a number of suggestions about what the US cannot do and what it must do to continue to maintain its place among the leading nations of the world.  This is not the place to cover the myriad analyses and suggestions that Zakaria makes.  Rather, we can cut to the chase and say that Zakaria identifies one area where America can still dominate and where it can continue to have a huge impact.  That area is in the world of ideas.

If this is true, then William & Mary’s Mason School of Business is uniquely positioned to support American business in meeting the challenge of our times.  William & Mary requires all undergraduates to complete a liberal arts degree, even the Bachelor of Business Administration students.  Our individualized plan of study results in nearly half of our students completing a double major.

At both the undergraduate and graduate levels, there is virtually none of the ultra-large classes dominated by lectures where students are tested in ways that lend themselves to machine scoring of a mid-term and a final.  At William and Mary classes tend to be small, teaching tends to be interactive requiring students to work with the material they have read, and tests tend to be written and requiring analysis and defense of positions taken.

Furthermore, students are exposed to live business experiences, to the actual conduct of business research, and  to experienced business people who provide a useful and practical perspective on the use of what is learned in the classroom.

In short, our personalized, experience based model of education is not only revolutionary, but it is also uniquely appropriate for teaching students to think.  Our programs provide  an excellent preparation for entering a work world in which the US needs to lead with ideas and ways to implement them.

Reading Zakaria’s book not only confirms for me that we are on the right path, but makes me want to push even harder to fully exploit the potential of our personalized experience based model.