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JUNE 22, 2000 B-SCHOOL NEWS Can Tuck Break the E-Learning Logjam? Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business will try, with a quickie business program for new college grads
The school first offered Business Bridge in 1997, when it determined that "poets," or liberal arts grads who work in business, could benefit from quick lessons in business basics. Dartmouth has held three such sessions since that first one, including one in Brazil, teaching a total of 525 students such skills as customer acquisition, marketing strategy, and consumer behavior. Companies such as General Mills and Fidelity Investments ship new hires, many just out of college, to Hanover (N.H.) for the four-week classes in place of in-house training. Even consulting powerhouse McKinsey & Co. sends students. In 2000, it'll rely on Business Bridge to train all of its new analysts in the U.K. and 35% of its 200 U.S. hires, the company says. Since 1996, when Duke University's Fuqua School of Business launched an online executive MBA program, B-schools have found it impossible to reap profits from e-learning. Blair H. Sheppard, Fuqua's senior associate dean for academic programs, says that failure "has to do with (executives' shaky) facility with electronics." Twenty-somethings, by contrast, are more attuned to the Web, and that could give Business Bridge a shot at becoming the first successful Web program from a major business school. BREAK-EVEN? Indeed, the electronic version of Business Bridge could attract students from as many as 25 blue chip companies by the end of 2001, predicts Richard Mosenthal, director of Tuck's corporate relations. The online program will cost less than the $6,750 tuition for students who attend Dartmouth's on-campus program -- and companies that enroll several students will get a discount. Royalties from University Access, the school's Los Angeles-based Web hosting partner, could amount to "many thousands of dollars a year" for Tuck," says the B-School's dean, Paul Danos. But he adds that "even if we (only) break even, we still have to be in this space." University Access is aiming higher than that. Alec Hudnut, CEO and co-founder, predicts that the online course will be a "multi-million dollar program right out of the gate." Maybe, maybe not. Virginia Brown, an on-campus Business Bridge graduate from 1999 who now works in the marketing department at General Mills, thinks that an online version of the program could be less effective than the real thing. "It would be too easy to get distracted or to not pay attention," she says. Still, some companies have already expressed interest in the Web program. McKinsey will pilot-test E-Bridge this winter, says Joseph Berchtold, a principle in its Los Angeles office. "At times of the year when you have an influx of students, it makes sense to do some prepackaged interactive learning," he adds. "The Web can be an effective way to train those people." One-third of the employees McKinsey hires straight out of college arrive during winter months, as opposed to the fall, because they graduate at different times of the year. Already, McKinsey's London office relies on the original Bridge program to train business analysts in a four-week program held at Oxford University. The U.K. office also offers an in-house "mini-MBA" for experienced employees, but offers no program of its own for the less experienced because "it's very difficult to create an in-house program, not to mention the overhead [costs]," says Timothy Roberts, a partner in charge of the firm's business analyst program. Tuck says its new offering is one of several changes the school will make by year's end to help it cash in on the New Economy. Tuck will also bring 15 non-degree executive education programs to the Web. And it has already added new courses in entrepreneurship to its MBA curriculum. For a B-school with no part-time program or executive MBA curriculum, the E-Bridge program offers a chance gather new revenues. E-learning has been slow to take off. But perhaps Tuck's focus on a younger audience will give it flight.  By Mica Schneider in New York  | | Learn about your online education options |
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