Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/42073
ing the China market, local schools are improving their programs. We want a program that lives up to our positioning statement of "China depth, global breadth"— and that helps us keep our place as a top international business school based in China. Pursuing accreditation. We dealt with both these market realities while we underwent the exhaustive self-examination that is part of the accreditation process. This helped us realize that we needed to become more explicit about what our students should know about China and how we would assess their learning. Our redesigned curriculum incorporates a focus on China with other key components, such we have a weeklong seminar series each year on current China top- ics, and we require all courses to include materials relevant to China. Finally, Mandarin language training is required for all students who are not already fluent. • Soft skills. Not only do stu- dents take courses on cross-cultural communication and interpersonal styles, they must work in teams designed for maximum diversity. As part of a graded teamwork course, students complete a 360-degree feedback exercise, diag- nose their team dysfunctions, and develop plans for improvement. • Experiential learning. We've strengthened our required corpo- rate consulting project to deepen the focus on strategy, problem rec- Forces like globalization, climate change, and Asia's rise to prominence are causing all business schools to accelerate the pace of change. as sustainability and responsible leadership, entrepreneurial man- agement, soft skills, hard skills, and experiential learning. We've also added some flexibility to the program and integrated key ele- ments to provide a curriculum that's specific to our school and our location. The New Program at CEIBS The critical components of our revamped curriculum include these six elements: • A deeper focus on China. CEIBS now requires students to research a social or environmental problem of relevance to the country, then develop a business plan for a solution. Other mandatory courses examine China's economic reforms, HR challenges, global trade, and political relationships. In addition, ognition, diagnosis, and solutions. We've also increased the amount of supervision to assure that stu- dents get useful, constructive, and timely feedback. • Ethics. Ethics and responsible leadership are crucial subjects in the China market, where rapid eco- nomic development has imposed heavy environmental costs and caused massive social problems related to urbanization, migrant labor, uneven wealth distribution, and other ills. We hope that, by raising the ability of our graduates to address China's developmental challenges, we are preparing them to address problems outside of China as well. • Increased flexibility. We've introduced an optional summer internship, and we schedule elec- tive courses at the same time. Stu- dents can choose to work, study, or take intensive Mandarin lan- guage training during that inter- val. We also added an optional final period of electives, which allow students either to deepen their functional specializations or begin work at an earlier date. Flexibility in the elective compo- nent allows us to meet the needs of diverse students and employers without sacrificing fundamentals. • Overall integration. Topics such as globalization, ethics, and sustainability have been part of our curriculum from the begin- ning, but now we've linked all these general competencies to our China-specific positioning. Therefore, when students work on sustainability projects, they work on problems that are relevant to China. When they study global- ization, they look explicitly at China's relations with other coun- tries. Not only has this improved our program differentiation, but it also has allowed recruiters and our corporate partners to know what to expect from our students, leading to better job placement and other cooperative activities. At CEIBS, we do a major adjust- ment of the curriculum every four or five years, and we introduce minor adjustments annually. But I believe that forces like globaliza- tion, climate change, and Asia's rise to prominence are causing all busi- ness schools to accelerate the pace of change. I see the trend already at global conferences for deans and senior administrators. Sessions on sustainability and globalization are packed, and attendees who once were skeptical are now searching for input on best practices. I think it will be at least a decade before we can expect a slowdown in the pace of change. Lydia J. Price is associate dean, MBA director, and professor at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai. BizEd September/October 2011 47