Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/59979
Our business programs aren't perfect, but we must strive to make improvements that work for our real-world situations, not a theoretical ideal. research or rankings. It is our duty to corporations and socie- ty overall to recognize true talent, potential, and character in the students we admit. It is our duty to recruit them from every rung on the socioeconomic ladder. If students do not exhibit potential and integrity, we should not admit them in the first place. Recruiters want a diverse pool of talented grad- uates with character and integrity—it's our job to deliver. Student satisfaction. Teaching quality, relevant coursework, and career development, of course, are crucial to student sat- isfaction. Even so, students base their satisfactionmuchmore on their overall experience during their time in business school than they do on how well its research is received or how a certain practitioner taught a particular course. Customer service staff, facilities, food, and other com- fort-related commodities are just as fundamental to the educational experience as our great ideas, creative curricula, and business knowledge. To us, student services may seem far less important than high-level research—but they are very important to our cus- tomers. All business programs should have a centralized office dedicated to student services, one that enables students to have a "one-stop shopping" resource to meet their needs. In addition, deans should conduct annual surveys and longitudinal analyses to help to ensure the continued improvement and quality of their stu- dents' experiences. Alumni, fund raising, development—and the rankings. Alumni rep- resent the cornerstone of a business school. Their loyalty and support make or break its success. Yes, many of them want to see their school do well in the rankings; at the same time, they don't want a school to "sell out" on the quali- ties thatmake it unique. Striking that balance is a challenge. The bottom line: If a school's stakeholders believe that rankings performance is out of reach or unimportant to the school's mission, let it go. If stakeholders want the school to realize an improvement in its reputation, drive the school's rankings performance as aggressively as possible while maintaining the school's core character. Once they know what their stakeholders want, schools can choose whether or not to make changes that will influence 28 BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005 their rankings. Then, they can decide whether these changes are ultimately beneficial or detrimental to stakeholders and their programs. If stakeholders want to pursue an improved rankings status, then business school deans and faculty need to learn to play ball. Moving Forward So, what's wrong with the MBA? Not nearly so much as many in the industry would have us think. Our business pro- grams aren't perfect, but we must strive to make improve- ments that work for our real-world situations, not a theo- retical ideal. We're in the business of academia, but we also must realistically consider the range of business schools in the world. Most of them are contribut- ing to the practice ofmanagement by providing the best quality education they can to the mar- kets they serve. We must value faculty members who have devoted their lives to research in a given area, those who have devoted their lives to classroom teaching, and those who have done both. We must value stu- dents who, for the most part, don't live in academe, but who care about their education from a consumer-driv- en, return-on-investment perspective. We must value corporate recruiters, who want to hire a diverse group of people with integrity and talent. And wemust value alumni, who want to strengthen their school's programs and improve its reputation. As we tackle the challenges that face our industry, we must remember that getting on any bandwagon—pro- or anti- research, or pro- or anti-rankings—is dangerous. We must be careful of how we react to the pressures generated by the media or the spate of recent articles lamenting the state of business education. As business school leaders, we have a responsibility to determine what changes are needed at each of our schools based on the needs of our stakeholders.Only then can we implement constructive changes that make sense. s z James Danko is the dean of the College of Commerce and Finance at Villanova University in Villanova, Pennsylvania. Bethanie Anderson is the college's director of strategic initiatives.