Wharton to unveil “major” curric and, ahem, mba ‘architecture’ changes (BS alert, BS alert!!!!) on Monday

No, we are not publishing the attached embargoed press release, even tho it was sent to us by seven students and even leakers in the admin itself. We have read it, however, and well, in addition to using the word ‘stakeholder’ about 2-10 times, it is the usual academic hash. Anyone interested in what actual substance might be lurking here should tune in to Wharton Official announcements. Believe me. there is no hurry.

Date: Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 5:17 PM
Subject: A Message from Dean Tom Robertson
To: wharton students
Dear MBA Students,

I am delighted to announce that by an overwhelming majority, the Wharton faculty today voted to pass a new MBA program architecture emphasizing flexibility for students, academic rigor, and continuous innovation of content development.

Attached is a press release, which is embargoed until Monday, December 6, at 1 p.m. to allow BusinessWeek an exclusive feature on the new curriculum design.

We will be speaking to the media in the days and weeks ahead, but we wanted you, our students, to be among the first to hear about this exciting new program design, which we will begin to roll out in 2011, with full implementation scheduled for the fall of 2012. The implementation committee will include student representation.

As we expect that you will have some questions, we will be reaching out to the student leadership next week to hear and respond to your queries. Please feel free to share them with the WGA Leadership and the MBA Program Office as we want to do everything we can to ensure the success of this new curriculum design for all current and future students.

This is a great day for Wharton, the culmination of a multiyear program review, led most recently by an outstanding faculty committee and involving the feedback of thousands of key stakeholders, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, business leaders, recruiters, and Wharton board members.

I want to take a moment now to acknowledge and applaud the exemplary work of that committee:

Noah Gans

Ed George

Wes Hutchinson

Chris Ittner

Olivia Mitchell

Richard Shell, Chair

Nicolaj Siggelkow

Rob Stambaugh

For the past eighteen months, these eight faculty members have worked tirelessly on behalf of the School and its current and future generations of students. I hope you will join me in thanking them for their efforts.

Best regards,

Dean Robertson