In a vote late last week, the faculty of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania approved a new design for its MBA program, one that allows students greater flexibility and the ability to customize the curriculum according to their backgrounds and experience. The school also committed to tuition-free executive education training for new MBA graduates every seven years, part of its new vision of business education as a life-long “knowledge partnership” between Wharton and its graduates.
“The architecture of the curriculum addresses the needs of a new global generation through flexibility, rigor and innovation,” Wharton Dean Thomas Robertson said in a statement. The new design, the result of a multi-year program review, is scheduled for partial rollout in 2011 and full implementation in fall 2012.
“Our research shows that this generation of business leaders wants greater control over educational choices, continued exposure to peers with deep, global experience and more opportunity in their academic experience to self-analyze and self-reflect,” Robertson continued. In response, Wharton will introduce a series of global modular courses offered in eight countries this year and will appoint new vice deans in global initiatives, social impact and innovation, he added.
In a move toward providing students greater opportunities to customize their own courses of study, the design of the new program will enable them to select a pathway for fulfilling required courses in six content areas based on their educational and career backgrounds. These six distinct content areas are Finance and the Global Economy, Ethical and Legal Responsibility, Managing the Global Enterprise, Understanding and Serving Customers, Corporate Reporting and Control, and Management of Operations, Innovation, Information and Decisions under Uncertainty.
Other planned changes as part of the new curriculum design include significant expansion of course content in microeconomics and statistics, an integrated focus on ethical and legal responsibility in business, an increased focus on oral and written communication and the incorporation of new methods of leadership development emphasizing self-analysis.
The final component of Wharton’s new program design includes a promise to new MBA graduates to provide tuition-free executive education every seven years throughout their careers. “Changing careers and a changing world bring new problems and the need for new knowledge,” Professor G. Richard Shell, who chaired the MBA Review Committee that created the new design, said in a statement. “Our world-class executive education capabilities place Wharton in the unique position of being able to offer every one of our new graduates a tuition-free experience providing specialized up-to-date executive education once every seven years through their working lives,” he continued.
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Read the full article: University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School Revises MBA Curriculum, Offers Free On-Going Executive Education to New Graduates