Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/63913
charges, and enhance the emphasis on alumni giving, corporate contract teaching, and distance education. Curriculum innova- tion will demand increasing portions of faculty time as alumni demand more responsive programs for their contributions." The Rankings Race An outlay of funds is also required to make schools more attractive to students who can choose among institutions located anywhere in the world. "The Internet allows full information on competing schools, so competition among schools will intensify," predicts Evan Douglas, head, Brisbane Graduate School of Business, job offers for working in all continents," says Xavier Mendoza, dean of the ESADE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. Mendoza identifies gearing up for globalization as "the biggest challenge business schools will face in the first decade of the 21st century. It's a challenge that has triggered an intense worldwide competition for the best students, the best faculty, the best corporate partners, and the best partner schools in other regions of the world." He identifies the increasing number of international alliances as one of the main drivers of the globalization of business schools, and supporting evidence is everywhere. Wharton recent- ly announced an alliance with INSEAD; Northwestern "IF TECHNOLOGY IS NOT CHANGING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE OF THE STUDENTS AND THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FOR THE FACULTY, IT 'S NOT WORTH IT." Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. "Accreditation and rankings will be more important than ever before. Shakeouts, mergers, and consolidations of many business schools may occur as global linkages, franchised campuses, and branch plant campuses become more common strategies for lever- aging the brand equity in higher-ranked accredited schools." That increased emphasis on school rankings sets off alarm Business at the American University, Washington, D.C., views the obsession with rankings as an "arms race." He says, "It seems that after a decade of wealth accumulation, business schools are trying to spend themselves into prominence," he says. "It is not clear to me how some of our expenditures on facilities and glossy brochures truly relate to quality education. An arms race is intended to spend one's competitors out of existence. You have little choice but to compete." bells for many, however. Steve Albrecht, associate dean at the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, believes that "tremendous harm" is being done to business schools by magazine rankings. "They rank us as though we are one program—an MBA program," he says, "when in real- ity we are multiproduct organizations. Focusing so much on the MBA is hurting our other programs, which are as important as the MBA. Yet, we need to focus our energy and money on the MBA program because of the rankings." Similarly, Myron Roomkin, dean of the Kogod School of Global Expansion Another force that is shaping management education is the uncompromising focus on globalization. "Today, business school is a completely international experience in terms of curriculum, student composition, faculty background, company projects, and 20 BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2001 University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Evanston, Illinois, has joined with Wharton and London Business School to found the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India; ESADE has opened a new campus in Madrid and participates in the European Consortium of Doctoral Programmes on Knowledge and Management. The São Paulo Business School for International Management, for instance, requires MBA students to enroll for the first year in Brazil and the second year at Saint Mary's in Halifax, Canada. The school's dean, Wolfgang Schoeps, insists that schools worldwide must focus on making basic improve- ments and extending their reach. "Alliances with top schools from abroad will be an answer," he says. For some schools, it's not just an international alliance that insures a global outlook, but a multicultural emphasis on the cam- pus itself. For instance, INSEAD supports totally integrated twin campuses in Fontainebleau, France, and Singapore. In addition, the school requires its students to have fluency in two languages as part of their preparation for a career in international business—as well as three to five years of real-world experience. "Multinational organizations today want people who can bring a true global perspective to their roles, not just because they've learned about it at business schools but because they've experienced multicultural perspectives to problem- solving first-hand," says INSEAD's dean Gabriel Hawawini. There is no better way to an international perspective, Hawawini and other deans believe, than by forming reciprocal learning relationships with schools in other parts of the world. Such reciprocity can offer something a student's home-grown alma mater cannot—immersion in a different country's lan- guage, culture, and practices.