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Yale SOM课程改革
SOM overhauls academics
New curriculum will stress interdisciplinary educa
BY KATE AITKEN
Staff Reporter
The Yale School of Management will implement a new interdisciplinary
core curriculum next year as the first step toward a new style of
management education that the school hopes to pioneer, following a
unanimous faculty vote on Wednesday.
The new core curriculum -- which will be implemented this fall for the
incoming SOM Class of 2008 -- is based on an interdisciplinary model
that eliminates classes teaching discrete subjects. Instead of
traditional classes such as finance and accounting, next year's
students will take classes taught in three different modules, each
incorporating aspects of traditional management courses relevant to a
specific practical area of management.
"There's a lot of
anxiety over the state of management education because of a fundamental
disconnect between what management education today teaches and what
leaders of organizations are looking for, and that is people who are
able to independently identify problems, frame those problems in a
larger context and draw together the resources necessary to solve
them," SOM Dean Joel Podolny said.
The three modules --
"Orientation to Management", "Organizational Perspectives" and
"Integrated Leadership Perspective" -- all seek to bridge that gap.
The six-week "Orientation to Management" sequence provides the
foundational knowledge necessary to identify and frame problems,
including classes on basic economics and accounting, data and decision
analysis, and team effectiveness. The 12-week "Organizational
Perspectives" module explores problem-solving with a view to the
multiple constituencies a manager must address, such as the investor,
the competitor or the employee. Students will also participate in a
two-week "International Experience" in January, followed by the last
six-week "Integrative Leadership Perspective", which merges the skills
they have mastered in a series of interdisciplinary cases.
Faculty members said a number of challenges remain, such as the
development of new teaching materials required and the implementation
of the new curriculum. Fried said he foresees specific difficulties in
communicating the new interdisciplinary curriculum to prospective
students and employers, because the public is accustomed to thinking of
business schools in terms of certain areas where they are known to be
strong.
"People associate University of Chicago's business
school with finance, Harvard's with leadership, Kellogg with
marketing," Fried said. "It's going to be really hard for Yale to brand
itself in a way that encapsulates how dynamic and unique the new
curriculum is, because you don't want to end up known as the school
with the funky curriculum. We need to stress that we're trying to
revolutionize education."
While he acknowledged that the new
curriculum is a radical departure from what is taught at contemporary
schools of business and management, Podolny said he thinks this is the
right curriculum to be following.
"Everybody today's talking
interdisciplinary, but they've been talking interdisciplinary for
decades," Podolny said. "This will be difficult to execute, and the
faculty all know that this will take them out of their comfort zone,
but the logic of this is very compelling, and our small size will be a
tremendous advantage for us in executing and delivering this curriculum"
SOM professor Art Swersey, who helped formulate the new curriculum, said the faculty is highly supportive of the change.
"You can sense how faculty and students respond personally to the dean,
and to the innovative nature of this new curriculum," Swersey said. "I
got tremendously excited close to the end of the dean's presentation.
There's an excitement on all sides that I think will make this work."
SOM professor Jake Thomas, who also assisted in the curriculum's
development, said the faculty were introduced to the curriculum
gradually so as to ensure their receptiveness.
"We spent time
doing a series of one-on-one meetings with the faculty, and they knew
we'd been working on this since last September, so none of this was a
surprise in that sense," Thomas said. "The presentation the dean made
incorporated suggestions from the faculty as well, which helps them
feel comfortable supporting it."
The vast majority of students
who spoke during the question-and-answer session following Podolny's
presentation expressed support for the new curriculum. SOM Student
Government President Spencer Hutchins SOM '07 said that while the new
information might take a couple of days to sink in, student responses
are generally positive.
"This is something that could transform
not only the school but management education at large," Hutchins said.
"Almost every business school out there is trying to do something like
this."
Student Body Representative Josh Fried SOM '07 said that
despite the initial shock of the changes, many current students prefer
the new curriculum to the form of management education SOM currently
provides.
"As I was leaving I hung around for a couple seconds
to catch the buzz and heard a couple first-years say they wished they
could start over again next year," Fried said. "I think we all feel a
little sad that we're not in the Class of '08."
The core curriculum was presented to students at a meeting held Wednesday night at SOM. |
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发表于 2006-3-23 23:01:00
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