You knew it had to come to this eventually. Just when you thought the b-school curriculum at some programs couldn’t possibly get any more knowledge-lite (you can get an MBA in 8 months now) along comes this: At least one school is trading in a textbook for a comic book.
At Texas Tech’s Rawls College of Business (Rawls Full-Time MBA Profile), the graphic novel Atlas Black: Managing to Succeed (published by Flat World Knowledge) is now required reading in both undergraduate and graduate business courses taught by its co-author, Jeremy Short. The book’s other co-authors are Talya Bauer at Portland State (Portland State Full-Time MBA Profile) and Dave Ketchen at Auburn (Auburn Full-Time MBA Profile). The illustrator is Len Simon.
Short, in a news release, says the book was conceived as a way to help college students better understand and retain the information they receive:
Think of all the textbooks college students have to wade through during their college careers. I’ve found that the traditional textbooks have a disconnect with the students. So the students have a hard time retaining the information–but Atlas Black uses a fixed set of characters that apply the material to their story.
There’s some precedent for using fiction in business school classrooms–in ethics classes, for example, professors frequently use detailed hypothetical examples to get students to think about ethical dilemmas they may face in the business world. So what’s Atlas Black about? Well, according to the publisher, quite a lot:
Read the full article: Comics in the Classroom: Business Schools Get Graphic