Some Metro-area business schools are adjusting their curricula to meet the demands of students and job recruiters for courses on corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability.
“I think this is more than just a trend that will fade away … eventually it will be asolid part of business school curriculum,” said Peter von Loesecke, managing director of the MBA Tour, an organization that hosts fairs and travels with representatives from business schools from around the world.
In a study by the Aspen Institute, George Washington University’s business school ranked 13th overall worldwide and sixth for exposing students to the topics. The institute looked at how well business schools incorporated these issues into their class schedules, student experience and faculty work. Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business was listed 73rd overall, and 33rd for course content. The University of Virginia’s Darden School placed 24th overall, and was ranked fifth for faculty research.
Stanford, the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business, York University’s Schulich School of Business in Canada, University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business rounded out the top five.
Von Loesecke said he’s gotten more questions from both domestic and international applicants regarding schools’ inclusion of these two topics in their curricula over the last five years.
According to a separate study conducted by the MBA Tour of prospective, current and former MBA students, 87 percent said they were interested in programs that “integrate business with the needs of the environment and look at achieving a sustainable economy.”
In total, 941 respondents were polled in the study, which was released in August 2007.
Students have a “heightened awareness” of issues such as global warming and pollution and their country’s contributions.
In the last one to three years, the interest has become much more “mainstream,” and more of an “expectation,” said Sarah Neher, admissions director at Darden.
Many classes study cases on sustainability and social responsibility, and students can also take electives in these areas.
Social responsibility is an “increasingly important area for [job] recruiters,” said Ray Cooper, associate dean at Georgetown University’s McDonough
