Haas Launches New MBA Curriculum

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There are seven experiential learning courses, from which students must choose one. Each will have students working with a real client. Their options include "Clean Tech to Market," which pairs business students with those working in the Berkeley clean energy lab to help them commercialize new technologies, and "Haas at Work," which has students helping real corporate clients on big strategy issues. A performance module that offers reviews and coaching from professional facilitators, a series of relevant electives, and optional leadership development workshops round out the new curriculum offerings.

Overhaul Trend

Many of the students and alumni have expressed excitement about the changes, while at the same time feeling as though the new curriculum was a long time coming. One alumnus from the undergraduate Class of 1950 wrote to Lyons, he says, about the defining principles: "These were here when I was here." Others, who were part of the overhaul, wish they could stay in school a bit longer. "I can't believe I'm missing this," says Liz Rockett, a second-year MBA student pursuing a dual degree with the School of Public Health. "What's most exciting to me is seeing how much they're trying to integrate things that already happen [at Haas] to strengthen students' foundation."

While the curriculum is new for Haas, other top business schools arrived at the party first. At Yale, a curriculum overhaul in 2006 introduced an integrated curriculum that replaced standalone courses in disciplines such as marketing and finance with multidisciplinary classes organized around specific organizational constituencies such as customers or investors. In 2007, Stanford launched a new curriculum built entirely around the ideas of customization and flexibility, which allowed students to tailor their coursework to their past education, work experience, and future aspirations.

For the past five years or so, many businesspeople and even professors have questioned the relevance and usefulness of an MBA. The recent economic crisis has pushed questions about MBA programs even closer to the forefront. And curriculum change is one way business schools are reacting. David A. Garvin and Srikant M. Datar, authors of Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads, say curriculum overhauls like Haas' that highlight the role and responsibilities of leaders are urgently needed. The two are professors at Harvard Business School (Harvard Full-Time MBA Profile), and Lyons consulted Datar about the changes at Haas. "We talked to many deans and executives and they all say there's a need for greater self-awareness [on the part of MBAs]," says Garvin.

Indeed, Lyons agrees that some internal reflection might help the economy now. "The best answer a CEO can give you [when asked about ethics at his company] is, 'This is part of our culture and fits into everything we do,' " says Lyons. That's what he says Haas is trying to do with this new curriculum—make leaders who are more self-aware and responsible.

Di Meglio is a reporter for Businessweek.com in Fort Lee, N.J.

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