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Rethinking Undergraduate Business Education: Liberal Learning for the Profession
Business is the largest undergraduate major in the United States and still growing. This reality, along with the immense power of the business sector and its significance for national and global well-being, makes quality education critical not only for the students themselves but also for the public good.The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching's national study of undergraduate business education found that most undergraduate programs are too narrow, failing to challenge students to question assumptions, think creatively, or understand the place of business in larger institutional contexts. Rethinking Undergraduate Business Education examines these limitations and describes the efforts of a diverse set of institutions to address them by integrating the best elements of liberal arts learning with business curriculum to help students develop wise, ethically grounded professional judgment.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
About the author
Anne Colby
23 books2 followersAnne Colby is a scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 25, 2019
This is a summary document in book form of the work of a prestigious set of scholars, under the auspices of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The mandate of the group was to examine that current state (circa 2010) of undergraduate business education and suggest some approaches for change, focusing on curricular issues. The immediate impetus for this appears to have been the aftermath of the 2008 economic crash, although the pressure for revision of undergraduate business studies has been more or less continuous since the 1960s. The thrust of change efforts has alternated between making new changes, undoing old changes, and shuffling curricula around in the interest of new product development. The more things change ...
Some points to note:
1) The focus on undergraduate business education. Is noteworthy. Business studies have long suffered from the discrepancy between the visibility and status of MBA degrees at large programs and the fact that most of the students (and tuition dollars) come from undergraduate programs - which are different from their graduate analogs. This book realizes that graduate business education is largely a mature product area and interest has swung back to undergraduates - a welcome development by most accounts.
2) The book adopts a focus of integrating “liberal arts” with business education as one of the keys to improvement. Long discussions of what “liberal arts education” means aside, this is an ok focus for me. To the authors’ credit, they recognition that the direction of improvement between business and arts and sciences programs is two way and should remain so.. The authors are also savvy enough to know that the “general education” category requirements of most schools at present to not really meet liberal arts objectives as one might expect. The focus is overdone, however, and the book comes across in parts as pushing a particular pitch as opposed to providing solutions.
3) The basic arguments are presented cogently enough but are not news to most of the potential audience for the book. The authors attempt to their mixed success at case making but the examples they provide. The problem on this aspect of the book is that entirely too few examples are provided and those come across as a bit idiosyncratic - Wharton and NYU?? Ok, but most schools lack the resources to even consider what they are able to do. I do like where the book ends up, but I already knew about these issues. Were a new to the area, the book would be much less helpful.
4) In terms of style, the book reads like an academic summary report - repetitive, reiterative, and saying the same points over and over, while lengthening the text with far too many syllables.
5) I appreciate the focus of the book in institutional integration and thorough implementation of change efforts. This is well done and helpful.
Overall, it was ok.
Some points to note:
1) The focus on undergraduate business education. Is noteworthy. Business studies have long suffered from the discrepancy between the visibility and status of MBA degrees at large programs and the fact that most of the students (and tuition dollars) come from undergraduate programs - which are different from their graduate analogs. This book realizes that graduate business education is largely a mature product area and interest has swung back to undergraduates - a welcome development by most accounts.
2) The book adopts a focus of integrating “liberal arts” with business education as one of the keys to improvement. Long discussions of what “liberal arts education” means aside, this is an ok focus for me. To the authors’ credit, they recognition that the direction of improvement between business and arts and sciences programs is two way and should remain so.. The authors are also savvy enough to know that the “general education” category requirements of most schools at present to not really meet liberal arts objectives as one might expect. The focus is overdone, however, and the book comes across in parts as pushing a particular pitch as opposed to providing solutions.
3) The basic arguments are presented cogently enough but are not news to most of the potential audience for the book. The authors attempt to their mixed success at case making but the examples they provide. The problem on this aspect of the book is that entirely too few examples are provided and those come across as a bit idiosyncratic - Wharton and NYU?? Ok, but most schools lack the resources to even consider what they are able to do. I do like where the book ends up, but I already knew about these issues. Were a new to the area, the book would be much less helpful.
4) In terms of style, the book reads like an academic summary report - repetitive, reiterative, and saying the same points over and over, while lengthening the text with far too many syllables.
5) I appreciate the focus of the book in institutional integration and thorough implementation of change efforts. This is well done and helpful.
Overall, it was ok.
December 25, 2022
I’m lucky I get to chat with some of the authors on a regular basis. Gave me a lot of tools for justifying more humanities excursions in my existing courses.
May 2, 2012
For the most part, I agree with the central premise of the book and most of the suggestions to incorporate the liberal arts into business education. The writing is a bit repetitive like most social science writing (outside of economics). The biggest problem with the book is that the authors don't seem to fully appreciate the gains from trade and how free markets create value for society. The price system and profit-maximization is how we can serve others and create value for total strangers.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews