Get Smart Part Three: Curriculum Report

Part One: Admissions Report
Part Two: Recruiting Report

It used to be simple. Top business schools fed the next generation of leaders a strict diet of proven strategies and reliable business models, and then turned graduates loose to run America's corporations. Then came the Internet, and all the rules changed, seemingly rendering MBAs irrelevant -- or at least a misuse of time. As hordes of young entrepreneurs calculated the opportunity costs of two years spent earning a degree rather than building an e-business, the number of B-school applicants plummeted.

In the wake of the great dotcom meltdown, however, ideas like workable business models, sensible marketing strategies, and sane growth projections are back in vogue. And B-schools are happy to welcome e-refugees who now see the competitive advantage of an accounting course or two. The enormous changes wrought by the new economy have forced B-schools to overhaul course offerings and demand more from professors to remain relevant.

What can students expect to consume in today's MBA programs? Michael Porter for breakfast and failed B2C case studies for lunch? Many educators are struggling to strike a delicate balance between solid business fundamentals and sexy new-economy electives.

The New School

Harvard School of Business (HBS) has transformed its curriculum considerably under the guidance of dean Kim B. Clark, who joined the school in 1995. In addition to building a California Research Center (CRC) in Menlo Park, California, Harvard replaced its first-year requisite "General Management" course with "The Entrepreneurial Manager" last year. Harvard's entrepreneurial courses have mushroomed from 2 to more than 18 over the past decade.

The Harvard case-study method is a sacred institution in B-school circles. Still, professors have been forced to vivify the signature teaching strategy to keep up with today's pace of change. HBS students typically study 20 to 30 cases per course. Those cases -- one-third of which are new each year -- aim to teach interactive, global, and relevant practices, says Steve Nelson, executive director of Harvard's MBA program.

To maintain dominance in a market clamoring for change, Harvard, like other top universities, has invested millions of dollars in research centers that transform current business issues into educational content. Harvard and the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania have opened research centers in the heart of Silicon Valley, just a traffic jam away from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and its Center for Electronic Business and Commerce (CEBC). From there, students and professors can keep tabs on the pulse of the new economy and extend their networks among alumni in the Valley.

Riding the crest of such rapid change has become an exhausting exercise for professors. Faculty travel to Harvard's CRC to research and write cases that are updated throughout the semester as industry and company conditions change. The 24-hour news phenomenon has also forced professors to update the HBS intranet with frequent breaking developments about fledgling companies.

Brick-and-click companies like RCA and Staples made this year's case-study list alongside Internet pure plays like drugstore.com, priceline.com, and Boston.com. One professor referred to Harvard's MBA program as "business school on Internet time." Executive director Nelson says, "Our course development is so close to practice that faculty research can anticipate many of the changes taking place in management."

Other schools, like the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia, cast doubt on dramatic curriculum overhauls. Dean Ted Snyder calls e-business and entrepreneurial studies "faddish" and steers Darden's curriculum in a more traditional direction. Snyder attributes a remarkable increase in 2001 applications to the school's deliberate evolution of the MBA program and to recent initiatives such as the Batten Institute, the UVA research center that produces issues-based initiatives that shape Darden's teaching efforts, case writing, research, and projects.