More B-Schools Choose Women as Deans

Story first reported from WSJ.com

Business school may still be a man's world, but institutions are looking to shake things up by placing female talent at the helm.

Eager to achieve—or at least approach—gender parity in their administrative ranks, many schools are "acting affirmatively" by picking women over similarly qualified men to fill deanship slots, says Lucy Apthorp Leske, a partner at search firm Witt/Kieffer. By doing so, schools hope to introduce more diverse opinions into their high-level decision-making. But whether these changes will make a difference long-term remains to be seen.

The dearth of women in deanships isn't unlike the current picture of women in chief executive roles—though, to be sure, it isn't quite as bleak.

Women constituted 18% of U.S. business-school deans in the 2011-2012 academic year, according to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, an industry group. Meanwhile, women hold just 20 CEO spots at Fortune 500 companies, according to Catalyst, a nonprofit organization that supports women in business.

Lower down the ladder, women held nearly one-third of associate dean positions in the 2011-2012 academic year, compared with 20% a decade earlier. About one-fourth of deans used that position, overseeing curriculum or academic programs, as a launch pad to the top spot, according to a recent AACSB survey.

Schools are courting those up-and-comers aggressively. Alison Davis-Blake, dean of University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, began receiving inquiries from search firms while a senior associate dean at University of Texas, Austin's McCombs School of Business. She says she was contacted "to excess."

Some suggest that schools' eagerness to even out the ranks among deans is little more than a numbers play, since many women deans say that their gender has little impact on the way they actually lead their business schools on a day-to-day basis.

"In terms of strategic positioning and core tactical actions, I don't think those are really any different because of gender," says Ms. Davis-Blake. While some women faculty and administrators may be drawn to a particular school because there are other women at the top, she says it is likely just "on the margins."

Nevertheless, any top-tier dean—man or woman—holds sway in powerful business and policy circles. They often serve as directors of major companies, set the agenda for what tomorrow's corporate titans might learn and, in the wake of the financial crisis, are called upon to defend the very existence and value of their institutions.

Plus, having women in leadership positions can make a mark on a school's student body, a crucial asset as institutions look to close the gender gap among that population as well. (About one-third of M.B.A. students are women, according to estimates from Forté Foundation, a group that seeks to create gender parity in corporate leadership.)

The presence of women deans, just like the presence of women executives in the corporate world, "helps [students] to see the kind of things they can do and where they can go," says Linda Livingstone, dean of Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business and Management.

The intense demand for female deans has allowed prospects to be picky, wary of being added to shortlists just to serve as token representatives, says Kenneth Kring, co-managing director of the global education practice at Korn/Ferry International. (Korn/Ferry in recent years has helped place women deans at Ross, Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and University of Missouri's Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business.)

Some women turn down the position, fearing a blow to their work-life balance, since academic deanships can be just as demanding as a chief-executive role. Ms. Livingstone, who has a 16-year-old daughter, says the deanship put a "burden on [her] family as a whole" but she and her husband were "willing to align [their] lives to work that way."

Meanwhile, a handful of business schools, including those at Boston University and Wake Forest University, have turned to the corporate world—where women are even more of a rarity—to fill recent deanship openings. Both schools picked men.

Though Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business opted for a woman when it nabbed Johnson & Johnson executive Christine A. Poon for its dean in 2009, a broader shift toward tapping business executives in general could quash advancement opportunities for academic women already waiting in the wings. It may even hurt gender parity in academic leadership, since the pool of corporate candidates skews more heavily male.

For more national and worldwide Business News, visit the Peak News Room blog.

For more local and state of Michigan Business News, visit the Michigan Business News  blog.

For more Health News, visit the Healthcare and Medical News blog.

For more Electronics News, visit the Electronics America blog.

For more Real Estate News, visit the Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.

For more Law News, visit the Nation of Law blog.

For more Advertising News, visit the Advertising, Marketing and Media blog.

For more Environmental News, visit the Environmental Responsibility News blog.

For information on website optimization or for the latest SEO News, visit the SEO Done Right blog.

Hard Times For Business Schools

Business Week

The economic crisis has hit executive MBA and non-degree programs hard, but the savviest are adapting to the new market

When Megan Lum enrolled in the MBA program for executives at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business last fall, her plan was to use the degree as a stepping-stone to the C-suite. Based on her career trajectory, that goal wasn't so farfetched. In 20 years she had worked her way up the corporate ladder to the role of senior environmental manager at Weyerhaeuser (WY). The company thought so highly of her that it agreed to foot 80% of the bill for her EMBA, a nice perk considering the degree's $75,000 price tag. But just as Lum was starting classes the global economy went into a tailspin. Seven months later she was laid off. "Suddenly, I was without work, enrolled in an expensive EMBA program with no corporate support," says Lum, who has since found a job. Still, this wasn't part of the plan.

In fact, nothing about this year was part of the plan for a host of MBA programs that cater to working professionals and students like Lum. It has been a year of transition for executive MBA programs, which serve senior managers attending on weekends; part-time MBA programs, which allow mid-level managers to take courses on nights and weekends; and non-degree executive-education classes of a few days or weeks.

Once designed to give promising managers some high-level training and then return them to the corporate fold, part-time and executive MBA programs have been transformed entirely by the economic downturn. The generous corporate sponsorship Lum received is now more the exception than the rule, and far more students use the programs as transitions to new jobs or even new careers. As a result, students are expecting the kind of job-placement services usually reserved for full-time students to help them on their way. With virtually no programs offering such support, student satisfaction has plummeted across the board. Worse, applications are down dramatically for both types of programs, in large part because of reduced corporate support. Nearly half of all EMBA programs and part-time programs reported a decrease in 2009, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council.

Non-degree executive-education programs have also taken a hit. Many corporate travel budgets have been slashed to the bone, and companies are sending fewer employees to expensive on-campus open-enrollment programs. Others have suspended the use of customized training courses— for many years a B-school cash cow—until the economy turns around.

In BusinessWeek's 2009 ranking of the best executive MBA, part-time MBA, and executive-education programs, those that fared best are the ones that quickly adapted to these changing economic conditions. Each of the rankings is based solely or in part on surveys of the programs' main constituents: EMBA graduates and program directors, part-time MBA students, and companies that enroll employees in executive-education courses. The best part-time and executive MBA programs were able to help students navigate the downturn with career support tailored to their particular circumstances, while the top executive-education programs were able to convince corporate clients that their courses are critical, even in today's tough financial climate.

In the EMBA ranks, the top three schools—Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, and University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School—each tapped their faculty's corporate connections and extensive alumni networks to help students through a difficult job market. All three, which have held the top three spots since the ranking started in 1991, also benefited from spotless reputations for academic rigor, star-studded faculty, and high-caliber students.

Even so, all three business administration degree programs dropped in student satisfaction compared with 2007, the last time BusinessWeek ranked EMBA programs. They weren't alone: Of the 83 EMBA programs in the 2009 ranking, only the University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business boosted student satisfaction.

With more students paying their own way, expectations are higher, and disappointments—over career services, faculty, accommodations, even food—are felt more sharply.

It's a change that was a long time coming but that picked up steam during the downturn as corporate support eroded further. "It's been a complete reversal," says David Springate, founder of the EMBA program at the University of Texas at Dallas.

These days fewer EMBA students feel the kind of loyalty to their companies they may have felt in the past, and many more expect their programs to help them find a job. This poses a problem for business schools, since most career offices are not accustomed to finding jobs for senior-level managers such as those enrolled in executive MBA programs. So administrators are seeking reinforcements.

At some schools, including Duke University's Fuqua School of Business (No. 10), INSEAD (No. 19), and University of Texas at Dallas (No. 22), this means partnerships with Web-based executive search firms—including Doostang, RiseSmart, and Ivy Exec—that specialize in helping ultra-experienced individuals find jobs. At University of Michigan's Ross School of Business (No. 7), an executive career coach helps EMBA students and alumni with job searches. And at the University of Alabama's Manderson Graduate School of Business, EMBA students create a personal career plan during orientation, before they set foot in a classroom. Career-services offices are also encouraging EMBA students to reach out to professional contacts, alumni, and even current students to assist in the search. "We tell our students that there is a tremendous group of people sitting in the room with you," says Susan West, assistant dean at Alabama. "Get to know them. You never know who might be aware of a job opportunity."

Economic forces reshaping the executive MBA world are taking their toll on part-time MBA programs as well. When the economy began to falter, interest in part-time MBA programs went up. B-school-hosted information sessions attracted standing-room-only crowds, and all signs pointed to a banner year for applications. But at Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business (No. 15), Marci Armstrong, associate dean of graduate programs, was worried. "The mood at the sessions was very, very different," Armstrong says. "People had serious concerns about whether or not it was the right time to get an MBA. There were a lot of questions about costs and about the time commitment the program required." In the end, few prospective applicants wanted to put their jobs at risk by taking time off for classes. The result: Applications were flat. And not just at Cox. At the top-10 part-time programs, applications dropped an average of 9% compared with 2008.

One exception was Massachusetts' Worcester Polytechnic Institute, which snagged the No. 1 ranking this year. Because the program is small—fewer that 200 students—and focused on innovation and technology, grads say they get more attention from career staff and experience greater success on the job front than peers at other top part-time programs. Through visits to local companies, alumni networking events, and workshops with industry leaders, students make contacts that can advance their careers.

Like EMBA programs, part-time MBA programs saw a marked decrease in student satisfaction this year. In all, 80% of those participating in the ranking experienced a decline in 2009 compared with 2007. The overarching complaint: lack of exposure to on-campus recruiting. The criticism is valid. Unlike full-time MBAs, who are courted by employers during on-campus recruiting events, part-timers are often excluded, either because of work conflicts or by the companies.

To deal with increased demand for career services, some schools have started offering career-management courses, as well as extended office hours for part-time students unable to meet with career advisers during the day. At SMU, first-year part-time students are able to take a not-for-credit career-management course. After completing it, students have full access to career services' offerings.

In 2007, 25% of part-time students at Cox enrolled in the course. This year it was nearly everyone. "It's a dramatic change," Armstrong says.

Elsewhere, administrators at New York University's Stern School of Business (No. 23) were prepared to deal with increased demand for career support, thanks to an initiative begun during the last economic downturn. In 2003, in the aftermath of the dot-com bust and September 11, Pamela Mittman, assistant dean of career services, and her team opened the Career Center for Working Professionals (CCWP) after observing the challenges faced by part-time MBA and EMBA students looking to make 180-degree career changes. "We hadn't seen success in part-time students throwing their hat in the ring for typical [MBA-level] roles," Mittman says. "The delivery of career development needed to be different, more customized." Today the CCWP functions much like a full-time MBA career office, offering students with full- time jobs personalized career-management support. Mittman estimates that the office has conducted 1,500 one-on-one meetings in the past year, covering about half the student population.

Change was afoot in the executive-education world as well. When the economy is booming, executive education is a lucrative business. But all that changed last year. With travel budgets slashed, fewer companies sent managers to "open-enrollment" non-degree programs, which typically last a few days or weeks on campus. Of the 188 companies that responded to the BusinessWeek survey, 25% reported sending fewer employees to open-enrollment programs this year vs. last. For custom programs, designed for specific corporate clients, the total is down 12%.

A SPOOKED NEW WORLD

Few top programs were spared. At INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, revenues are down 15% for custom programs and 20% for open-enrollment. At Michigan's Ross School, participation dropped 30% compared with two years ago. And at the Center for Creative Leadership, open-enrollment revenue fell from $34 million in 2008 to $30 million this year. Even Duke Corporate Education, ranked No. 1 among custom programs, saw revenues drop 19%, to $56 million. "Several clients in the mining and materials industries were forced to cancel when commodity prices dropped," says Gordon Armstrong, Duke CE's director of marketing communication and competitive intelligence. "We had several financial institutions cancel because of their distress."

Like many open-enrollment programs this year, Harvard Business School held on to its No. 1 ranking by focusing on strengths such as general management. In the custom category, Duke CE retained the top spot by doing what it does best: teaching complex business concepts such as leadership by combining classroom sessions with innovative activities requiring student participation. In the past year, 10,000 people from 65 companies participated in Duke CE's custom offerings, with price tags ranging from $200,000 to $1 million per program.

Even with its decline in revenues, Duke CE and outfits like it that focus solely on custom programs may be better positioned for the recovery than many business schools that offer both open-enrollment and custom programs. For many companies, low-cost custom programs that can be conducted at the workplace represent a far better value than expensive on-campus open-enrollment options.

Boston Scientific (BSX) has shifted most of its training budget to custom business degree programs developed by Wharton. Albert Siu, vice-president for learning and development at the medical-device maker, estimates that the total cost is a tenth that of open-enrollment programs. "When you have to manage costs, custom programs become the preferred mode of operation," he says. The credit-reporting agency Experian, for example, has halted all spending on open-enrollment programs. Custom programs are under the microscope, too, but for now the company is proceeding with one being developed by the Center for Creative Leadership. "I was faced with a lot of questions from our CEO and COO about whether we should go ahead with the plans we had been working on because of the economic environment," says Steve Hellman, vice-president for leadership and organizational development. "It's something that's of critical importance to our future growth, so we went ahead with it."

Business Schools Remain Surprisingly Resilient

From the Economist

The market for MBAs is defying the economic gloom

BUSINESS schools have been widely accused of fashioning the wrecking balls and training many of the demolition crews that have wreaked such havoc in the economy over the past two years. And the crisis, whether it was forged in business schools or not, is undoubtedly making it harder for students to afford their fees, or to get jobs when they graduate: in America only half the class of 2009 had been offered a job three months before graduating. Yet business schools are thriving. More than two-thirds of full-time MBA programmes received more applications this year than last, their best performance for five years, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council, a business-school association.

Deciding whether to go to business school or not is difficult. The long-term benefits sound substantial: an improved chance of getting a corner office and a six-figure salary. But the short-term costs are also weighty: two years at a leading American business school can cost $100,000 even before you take living expenses and forgone income into account. Many of the world’s most famous business people, from Bill Gates down, did not bother with an MBA, whereas some of the most illustrious products of business schools have covered themselves with ignominy of late. Consultancies, which were forced to recruit more people without MBAs in the late 1990s because of competition from high-tech companies, found that they performed no worse and sometimes better.

Still, on balance, the benefits probably outweigh the costs, particularly in straitened times. People with MBAs are more likely to get jobs than people without them, and earn higher salaries. Employers pay MBAs on average twice as much as people with only undergraduate degrees and 30-35% more than people with lower-level management degrees, such as Master of Finance. Some 98% of corporate employers report that they are satisfied with the MBAs they hire, a sign that they will continue to fish from the same pond.

Deciding which school to go to can be as difficult as deciding whether to go in the first place. They all seem to offer roughly the same thing, if the advertisements that appear in publications such as this one are to be believed: a chance to hone your skills as a “global leader” and “strategic thinker” while gazing at beautiful buildings. Happily, prospective students now have a plethora of “Which MBA?” guides to help them choose, from The Economist and such rivals as the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, US News & World Report and BusinessWeek, which started the trend in 1988. Less happily, perhaps, the guides yield some strikingly different rankings.

The Economist’s guide, published this week, ranks two European outfits, Spain’s IESE Business School and Switzerland’s International Institute for Management Development (IMD), at numbers one and two respectively. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School only just makes it into the top ten at number nine (up from number 17 a year ago). The Financial Times (the parent company of which owns part of The Economist) puts Wharton and London Business School at the top of its list, and IESE at number 12. BusinessWeek, which ranks American and non-American schools separately, awards the top American spot to the University of Chicago’s Booth School and international gold to the School of Business at Queen’s University in Canada. The China Europe International Business School is ranked eighth in the FT’s list but only 95th in The Economist’s.

These differences reflect different methodologies. The Economist’s rankings rely heavily on students’ own assessment of their time at business school in general, and of whether their earning power rose and their “networks” expanded in particular. One reason why IESE did so well is that 98% of graduates found jobs within three months of graduation with an average basic salary of $125,000—a remarkable feat in the current economic climate. The FT’s list emphasises academic research as well as salaries. But the clash of rankings also has a bright side: it underlines the fact that there are different ways in which business schools can excel.

One of the most striking developments is that, contrary to the impression given by their advertisements, business schools are offering ever more diverse courses, giving prospective students a better chance of finding one that matches their aptitudes and interests. It normally takes two years to earn an MBA at an American school. At many European schools, including IMD and Insead, it only takes a year.

The Sloan School of Management is renowned for no-nonsense quantitative methods. Half of Insead’s alumni go on to start a business or purchase one. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, with its spectacular location overlooking Clear Water Bay, has the best facilities in the world, according to many. The Indian Institute of Management is arguably the world’s most exclusive school, with more than 600 applicants for every place. HEC Paris has 63 overseas alumni associations in 49 countries. At Southern Methodist University’s Cox School some 250 executives act as mentors to the students. At Britain’s Henley Business School the average age of students is an experienced 37, compared with an upstart 29 at the Ross School at the University of Michigan.

Online MBAs, which not only reduce costs but also allow students to continue working, are proliferating. Warwick University’s “distance learning” MBA is a snip at £5,200 ($9,630) a year. There is also a boom in specialised qualifications. London Business School has introduced a master’s in finance. Nottingham Business School offers six different degree courses, including one in corporate social responsibility. Bordeaux Business School offers an Executive Wine MBA.

The growing diversity of the business-school market is surely welcome. There is also lots to be said in favour of multiple rankings, the better to illuminate potential students’ options. After all, different rankings, like different schools, suit different tastes and purposes.

Jack Welch's Online MBA Program Ready To Launch
Story from Business Week

A corporate icon is diving into the MBA world, and he's bringing his well-documented management and leadership principles with him. Jack Welch, former CEO at General Electric (GE) (and BusinessWeek columnist), has announced plans to start an MBA program based on the business principles he made famous teaching managers and executives in GE's Crotonville classroom.

The Jack Welch Management Institute will officially launch this week, with the first classes starting in the fall. The MBA will be offered almost entirely online. Compared to the $100,000-plus price tag for most brick-and-mortar MBA programs, the $600 per credit hour tuition means students can get an MBA for just over $20,000. "We think it will make the MBA more accessible to those who are hungry to play," Welch says. "And they can keep their job while doing it."

To make the Jack Welch Management Institute a reality, a group led by educational entrepreneur Michael Clifford purchased financially troubled Myers University in Cleveland in 2008, Welch says. Welch got involved with Clifford and his group of investors and made the agreement to launch the Welch Management Institute.

Popularized Six Sigma

For Welch, the new educational endeavor is the latest chapter in a long and storied career. As GE's longtime chief, he developed a management philosophy based on relentless efficiency, productivity, and talent development. He popularized Six Sigma, wasn't shy about firing his worst-performing managers, and advocated exiting any business where GE wasn't the No. 1 or No. 2 player. Under Welch, GE became a factory for producing managerial talent, spawning CEOs that included James McNerney at Boeing (BA), Robert Nardelli at Chrysler, and Jeff Immelt, his successor at GE.

Welch's decision to jump into online education shows impeccable timing. Business schools in general are experiencing a rise in applications as mid-level managers look to expand their business acumen while waiting out the current job slump. The new program's flexible schedule—paired with the low tuition cost—could be doubly attractive to those looking to move up the corporate ladder as the market begins to rebound.

Ted Snyder, dean of the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, agrees. "I think it's a good time for someone to launch a high-profile online degree," Snyder says. "If you make the investment in contentthat allows for a lot of interaction between faculty and students and also among students, you can get good quality at a much more reasonable tuition level."

Welch's Secret Weapon

That being said, there are challenges that an online MBA program like Welch's will have a difficult time overcoming, even if the technology and faculty are there. "The integrity and quality of engagement between faculty and students is the most precious thing we have," Snyder says. "Assuming it's there, it dominates. These things are hard to replicate online."

But Welch does have one thing that differentiates his MBA from others: himself. "We'll have all of the things the other schools have, only we'll have what Jack Welch believes are things that work in business, in a real-time way," he says. "Every week I will have an online streaming video of business today. For example, if I was teaching this week, I would be putting up the health-care plan. I'd be putting up the financial restructuring plan, talking about it, laying out the literature, what others are saying, and I'd be talking about it. I'll be doing that every week."

Welch and his wife Suzy are also heavily involved in curriculum design, leaning heavily on the principles he used training managers at GE.

"In every course there will be pieces of what I taught at Crotonville," he says. "In the budgeting part there will be a view of conventional budgeting and a view of budgeting my way, and students can debate the two. Same thing in strategy. I have a method of strategy, Michael Porter has a method. We'll use Porter's book and then I'll throw my stuff in."

Lots of Competition

Welch isn't a stranger to the MBA world. For the past three years, Welch has taught an extremely popular leadership course at MIT's Sloan School of Management, based on the leadership principles covered in his best-selling book Winning. Welch also lent his name to the business school at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn.

The Management Institute marks a more active leap into the business degree landscape, but Welch is far from alone in offering an inexpensive online MBA. Many business schools known for their full-time graduate programs offer online components to their MBAs, including Maryland, Massachusetts, Carnegie Mellon, and Ferris State University MBA. Also, for-profit institutions like the University of Phoenix (APOL) and Cappella University (CPLA)have made names for themselves offering graduate business degrees primarily online at bargain prices.

In the short term, Gary Bisbee, director at Barclay's Capital, doesn't see the Jack Welch Management Institute as much of a threat to the more recognized online education brands. But with the right mix of marketing money and curriculum innovation, it's feasible that in the longer term the Welch Institute could become a serious competitor. "It would make sense that the school could become one of the successful players in the industry, given his reputation for management skill and maybe even more so developing leaders," Bisbee says. "I would clearly think they could become a player over time."

Upside in Online Education

To help him get there, Welch has chosen a dean and is working closely with a select group of prospective faculty members whom he hopes will soon be in place to turn the lights on in September. Ideally, he would have a few hundred students enrolled at that time, gradually increasing the number over time. "We intend to start slow," he says. "Our interest is in developing a quality program and we're not interested in a big ramp-up."

While launching a new MBA program might seem risky, especially with so many seasoned players in the market, Welch isn't concerned. "There's no risk," he says. "So people lose a little money. The reward is that a winning management formula spreads further than it already has. It's already spread widely. Now, we want to add more people to it. Online education is going nowhere but up. It's for real. It took me a long time to get there, being a bit of a traditionalist, but you see the way that kids learn, the way that they are more attentive. I think it had opportunities to be more rigorous. I'm very excited about where we're going."