Top News of 2010: The Year in Review

The Business School world is never boring, but in 2010 it really felt like an earthquake hit!  Lots of new initiatives, changes and big, juicy news to report (OK maybe not exactly juicy – after all, we are talking business school, not the tabloids)…

Here is our list of the top 10 news tidbits of the year that has almost wrapped:

1)      Despite ever present questions around the value of an MBA degree, and the integrity of graduates, there were several prominent philanthropists who made it clear that they still believe in business school.  Columbia received a whopping $100 million gift from Henry R. Kravis, co-founder of private equity firm KKR. 

2)      Harvard also received several generous gifts including a $12.3 million gift to fund a cross-disciplinary research lab to study ethics.

3)      Many programs demonstrated a willingness to accommodate busy students by launching new types of online and part time programs.  Notably, UNC launched a structured online program that will differ from existing offerings that are self paced.

4)      Columbia, UVA’s Darden School and UCLA’s Anderson School all launched new Executive MBA offerings.

5)      There was a lot of movement amongst top positions at top business schools.  Sally Blount started as the new Dean at Kellogg, while Kellogg’s former dean, Dipak Jain, was named Dean of INSEAD.  Nitin Nihria began as the new Dean at HBS and Sunil Kumar was named the new Dean at Chicago Booth.

6)      LBS and Wharton made their mark on leadership learning.  LBS hosted their Global Leadership Summit in July, drawing business and government leaders from all over the world.  Wharton launched a new experiential leadership program, now required for all first year students.

7)      Just as everyone was getting comfortable, GMAC announced that change is to come to the GMAT, with a new integrated reasoning section appearing in 2012.

8)      Signaling their belief in the growing importance of Asia, Chicago Booth opened a new center in Beijing, which will serve as a platform for generating dialog between University of Chicago and Chinese policy makers, scholars and business leaders.

9)      The Indiana University Kelley School of Business launched Me Inc, a novel approach to MBA job hunting, aiming to break down over confident MBA candidates and reshape them into more thoughtful and dynamic job seekers.

10)   Wharton broke new ground on the admissions front by merging admissions and career placement under the leadership of JJ Cutler.  This acknowledgement of the link between the two departments will have interesting ramifications for recruiting and admissions.

That’s all for now…

Wishing all of you success, health, joy and continued growth and learning on 2011.

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