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Business education is not about research. So All of the innovation has come from to various businesses and nonprofits and help them organize off- campus educational programs. They also ask us to help develop nontraditional curricula that are focused and adapted to their needs. A city police department, for example, which is a large and complex organization, has needs that are very different from those of a for-profit business. We have to convince the depart- ment not to be too narrow in its programs; but on the other hand we have to adapt the courses to the needs and backgrounds of its people, which are totally different from those of the typical management graduate student. What other significant changes do you foresee? I suspect the next 30 years will be marked by great change in higher education. The past 50 years have been a period of tremendous growth. The school of commerce, which used to be the stepchild of the university, has blossomed into the largest single area of American academia. But the curriculum is basically the same as it was 65 years ago when I first came to this country and saw the first graduate business school at New York University. After 50 years, maybe one has to rethink the curriculum. In clients know; and yet it is a core discipline, a vital area of knowl- edge. Economics, law, some history, some structure of society and world economy, psychology—these are core disciplines that we may teach a little. For whatever reason, though, the students aren't able to connect to them. Another missing element is something that we do not teach—what I call social skills. Unlike the physician or the lawyer, the executive works either in or with an organization. And they need social skills. Otherwise, they are simply not effective in an organization. There is a great deal of emphasis on leadership today. I am all I'm always appalled at how little statistics my students or my for it. In fact, I taught what I believe was the first course on lead- ership in an American university way back in 1952 or so. But what about "followership"? Most people—even the so-called leaders—spend some time being followers and equal partners. What about learning that in an organization one doesn't begin by asking, "What do I want?" but by asking, "What is needed?" Above all, you cannot manage other people unless you have the '50s and '60s at NYU, our student enrollment increased 40 percent each year. In such a situation, you don't have much time to think; but with the period of most explosive growth behind us, I think we will have a little time for reflection. It's time to develop a new curriculum that reflects the fact that management or business education is now core instead of a minor appendix, and that most people will make their living either working in or with organizations. What should the new curriculum include? One area of focus should be on basic literacy, which I mentioned earlier. It is essential that individuals be able to relate their spe- cific skills and areas of expertise to the larger organization—and world—that surrounds them. I see this need very clearly in my advanced graduate students. A large number of them come to us sponsored by their compa- nies because they are high achievers and successful people, but the emphasis of their careers has been on specialization. As a result, they are overspecialized and don't know anything about the rest of the universe. Here they are, 36 years old, and after ten years as accountants they are suddenly placed in a management position and realize that they don't know a blessed thing about anything but tax accounting. What is lacking is the relation of themselves to the universe of knowledge. You have to make your career as a specialist; there is no other way. And yet you need to be able to relate yourself to the universe of knowledge and have basic literacy. 16 BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2001 learned to manage yourself. And we do a very poor job of teach- ing writing, speaking, and listening, the communication tools on which all effectiveness in an organization depends. How important is the research university? As far as management education goes, it is totally unimportant. First, the management school is a professional school, not a Ph.D. mill, and in a professional school the emphasis is on teach- ing. You look at a law school, and you don't ask how many The Drucker School of Management Peter Drucker is Clarke Professor of Social Science & Management at the Claremont Graduate University (CGU) in Claremont, California. Founded in 1925, CGU is an independent institution devoted entirely to graduate study. Drucker joined the faculty in 1971, and in 1987 the university renamed its graduate school of business The Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management. The Drucker School offers programs in three general categories: a full- and part-time MBA program; an Executive Management Program, which was created by Drucker and is the first executive management degree program in the U.S. designed for experienced, on-the-job managers pursuing an education part time; and a Financial Engineering Program, a new program dedicated to the use of analytical tools in assessing and managing business risk.