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Headlines B-Schools Adopt "The Apprentice" Since its debut, the NBC TV show "The Apprentice" has intrigued business schools. Some are offering "Apprentice"-style classes; others are actually hoping to get some of their students on the show. In February, more than 50 stu- dents, alumni, and staff of Temple University's Fox School of Business in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, got a chance to audition for the next two versions of "The Apprentice." Con- testants were vying for a chance to land a job as a highly paid apprentice to either Donald Trump orMartha Stewart. Casting crews for the shows interviewed about 200,000 hopefuls in 29 cities in 28 days. Each of the two new shows will ultimately feature only 16 to 18 contestants. At Fox—as at other business schools nationwide where auditions were held—applicants got about five minutes to showcase their personali- ties and business savvy; at press time, the show personnel were still deter- mining who would be finalists. Fox School vice dean Raj Chan- dran believes many of the lessons taught by "The Apprentice" match the values offered in business school: teamwork, negotiation, communica- tion, leadership, entrepreneurial spirit, and a desire to provide the best quality product on time, on budget, and in an ethical manner. "'The Ap- prentice' seeks what all employers look for in the candidates they hire," Chandran says. "To that extent— minus the glitz, glamour and the hoopla—the show is very realistic." At the University of Buffalo School ofManagement in New York, "The Apprentice" served as the inspi- ration for a new three-credit course 8 BizEd MAY/JUNE 2005 Nikkia (Kia) Allen, an MBA student at the Fox School, auditions for the next incarnation of "The Apprentice." called "TheMarketers." Thirty-six students form three teams who com- pete against each other in marketing- related projects that test their busi- ness skills, initiative, problem-solving abilities, and teamwork. No one is fired—or hired—at the end, but stu- dents get a chance to complete three projects for real-life clients. Clients consult with students during each project and help instructorMarc A. Adler select a winning team. For their first project, students were given complimentary tickets to a UB women's basketball game and asked to boost game attendance. In all, the teams recruited more than 400 spectators, with the winning team attracting 233 fans. For their second project, the students designed supermarket promotional displays to support a new Diet Pepsi sales cam- paign, working with the regional Pepsi distributor and Tops Friendly Markets. They also raised campus awareness of the product by taking photos of students, faculty, and ad- ministrators holding up a bottle of the product. "The idea is to give students hands-on, practical experience in marketing that they wouldn't get from classroom lectures," explains Adler, who also serves as vice presi- dent of client services at Flynn and Friends, a Buffalo-based advertising firm. "I want the students to get a real appreciation for how difficult it is to market products, and learn how it's really done." Marketing Makeover Is the discipline of marketing on the verge of being redefined? A new book and an award-winning article on the topic indicate the answer is yes. Two business professors—Robert F. Lusch of the University of Arizona and Stephen Vargo of the University ofMaryland—authored "Evolving to a New Dominant Logic forMarket- ing" in the January 2004 Journal of Marketing. The piece has won the AmericanMarketing Association's Harold H.Maynard Award forMost Significant Theoretical Contribution inMarketing during 2004. In it, JOE LABOLITO