Functional specializations once guided business education. But the ever-increasing pace of today’s highly globalized economy demands a broader set of skills and deeper understanding of management disciplines.
Why a core?
A core curriculum, or set of required classes, establishes the foundation to understand the complex intersection of fundamental principles as they play out in practice. And a knowledge base rooted firmly in essentials allows mastery of more specialized expertise that can help build competitive advantage, create a new industry where one did not previously exist or change the way business is practiced. Moreover, a well-designed core curriculum ensures that all MBA graduates leave the School with the skills and understanding that every business practitioner should possess.
Why a new core?
Fundamentals aren’t static; the School periodically revises its core curriculum and often updates course content to ensure that each new generation of MBAs is supported with essentials relevant to the ever-changing business environment. The new core reflects the School’s commitment to providing today’s MBAs with the fundamentals they need to identify and seize opportunity.
How did the School create the new core?
Dean Hubbard convened the Foundations Curriculum Committee (FCC) in the fall of 2006. The FCC, made up of senior tenured members of the faculty, was charged with proposing an ideal core—one that would require broad exposure to key business disciplines while allowing students to tailor core requirements to better suit career trajectories.
The committee gave precedence to ensuring that its proposal would align with current business practices and trends while preserving the integrity of the highly successful cluster system. It drew on its academic expertise and connections to industry as it began the work of transforming the core. Survey results from students and curricula of peer schools informed the proposal.
To ensure the relevance of all course content while providing greater flexibility in the first year of the MBA Program, the committee considered proposed new courses and identified those existing core courses that could be condensed or even combined. As a proposal began to take shape, the FCC reached out to the broader faculty, as well as to students, incorporating feedback into the final proposal. New courses were piloted as electives.
In May of 2007, the full faculty voted to approve the proposed new core, detailed below.
How Is the New Core Structured?
The new core comprises about 40 percent of course requirements for the MBA degree. It consists of two full-term, 12-week courses; nine half-term, 6-week courses; and a module on corporate governance that starts pre-term of the first year and concludes in the fourth and final term.
The flexible core starts in the seventh week of the second term. Students take three 6-week modules, one from each of three areas (organizations, performance and markets), intended to give students deeper exposure to disciplines. The new design allows for an additional full-term elective course in the first year.