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WCPad.qxd 1/28/08 4:14 PM Page 1 World Class Practices in Management Education Conference The Next Challenge: Bridging Global Landscape with Regional Reality June 1-3, 2008, Buenos Aires, Argentina Hosted by: IAE - Business School, Austral University Register by May 1, 2008, to save 200USD with the early registration discount. This conference's international focus bridges best practices used by the world's top business schools to region-specific issues and interests. By attending this timely event, you will broaden your global perspective and apply it to regional issues and experiences. Learn from speakers and industry experts who understand the unique challenges and needs of Latin American and Caribbean business schools while you focus on proven practices to improve curricula, enhance and expand your school's global strategy, and build international strategic partnerships. Hosted by: Visit www.aacsb.edu/conferences for the latest updates. to encourage prisoners by praising the parts of their plans that are strong. As they discuss the parts of the plan that still need improvement, they learn how to gently but effectively communicate their criticism of substandard work. Students learn how to lead, motivate, interact, and serve, which are all valuable lifelong skills. In addition, students receive hands-on experience in writ- ing and perfecting a business plan that requires complexity and rigor. If they come to the prison during the business plan competition, they are exposed to multiple ideas and multiple ways of thinking. Most of the prisoners write plans for small businesses that can scale over time. This approach helps students think about the various ways they could start and grow a business on very little capital. Most important, PEP exposes students to the idea that they should use their business skills to contribute to society instead of taking from it. When she participated in PEP, Baylor MBA student Catherine Gruetzner found the pro- gram's mission both exciting and gratifying. "I was amazed at the creativity of the inmates," she says. "I was inspired by their sincerity and their passion about their ideas." Business and Society The PEP program brings together a great blend of talent— senior executives, MBA students, business faculty, and aspiring entrepreneurs. The opportunity for us to interact with this diverse group has been wonderful, and we believe the inmates we have met will become productive citizens, fathers, sons, and leaders. We are excited every time we go to prison. We never know whom we will meet or what we will learn. We truly believe we have received more from this program than we have given. Not only does PEP offer inmates aid with business plan development, but it helps them with reintegration services such as work readiness and executive mentoring; PEP also helps them find financing. We expect that, in the future, the program will only expand on all counts: It will draw more prisoners who have a strong desire to change, it will attract more executives and professors who see the potential of the program, and it will raise even more financial support to ensure the success of PEP graduates. The state of California estimates that, within the next five years, it will spend more on the prison system than on edu- cation. Programs like PEP can alter that equation. When business executives, business faculty, and business students all work together, they can change the world. ■z Gary Carini is associate dean for graduate programs and professor of management at Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business in Waco, Texas. John Jackson is director of Exterran Holdings & Seitel Inc. in Houston, Texas. Additional details about PEP can be found online at prisonentrepreneurship.org. BizEd MARCH/APRIL 2008 55 AACSB International Conferences