Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/58915
Headlines AACSB Board Targets Thought Leadership Initiatives Acting on recommendations from its Com- mittee on Issues in Management Education (CIME), the AACSB International Board of Directors recently approved reports from two of its key thought leadership task forces: The Alliance for Manage- ment Education (AME) and Peace Through Commerce (Peace). They also advanced a third project, The Impact of Research Task Force. The reports of both AME and Peace include recommendations, which will be implemented in accordance with the board's vote. The AME task force, chaired by Amelia Maurizio of SAP America, was formed to explore strategies for bringing together corporations and business schools to achieve common goals. One of the task force strate- gies was to assemble a focus group of senior corporate leaders and management educators to discuss the challenges businesses face today, the skills needed by new corporate hires, and the relevance of manage- ment education. AME identified three key chal- lenges before business schools: preparing the next generation of leaders, maintaining the relevance of research, and keeping up with the pace of globalization. The task force recommended that the association establish a permanent structure to Challenges for Deans at Professional Colleges A kind of hybrid school has emerged on many college campuses in recent years—a school that combines pro- grams such as engineering, technol- ogy, computer science, and busi- ness. While these melded curricula create synergies that lead to inno- vative new programs, they also create challenges for deans that oversee these new "professional colleges." Identifying those chal- lenges and ways to deal with them became the focus for four deans who wrote a paper on the topic: Ron Bottin of Missouri State University, Linda Garceau of East Tennessee State University, Diane Hoadley of Eastern Illinois University, and Bob Rogow of Eastern Kentucky University. The authors drew many of their observations from a survey distrib- uted through AACSB International 8 BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2006 maintain the visibility of corporate concerns; increase opportunities to engage senior corporate leaders; increase engagement with associa- tions that have corporate connec- tions; and develop better and more frequent communications with nonmember corporations. A board champion will be named for AME to follow implementation efforts and monitor other developments. The Peace report was submitted by Carolyn Woo of the University of Notre Dame, who is both chair and champion of the task force. The report notes that while "bringing peace to the planet has never been the purpose of business or business schools," both have the potential to be positive forces in helping one has been in existence more than 50 years. Cost efficiency appears to be the prime motive behind the establishment of the newer profes- sional colleges. Deans at these schools face a host of challenges: n Solving personnel issues. Trouble can arise when these merged departments have wide gulfs in promotion, tenure, and workload expectations, as well as disparity in what constitutes research and creative activity. to 50 universities that include pro- fessional colleges. They found that most professional colleges are locat- ed at tier-two, public, regional uni- versities. Most have been formed in the last ten years, although at least Deans of combined programs often find it best to rely on the standards developed by the various academic departments when making decisions on promotion and tenure so that all faculty feel that traditional disciplin- ary differences are being respected. n Addressing the disparity in salaries. The merging of disciplines might create a situation in which one professor makes $40,000 less than another