Harvard adds a hybrid MBA degree

Graduate School Business School - MBA
1

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Reaching across the business-government divide, Harvard Business School will offer a new joint-degree program with Harvard's Kennedy School of Government to prepare students for leadership roles in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.</p>

<p>The three-year program, approved by the Harvard Corp. yesterday and to be disclosed today, will launch in the fall of 2008. Its aim is to give students a broader view of the issues and challenges they'll face in their working lives and tamp down the mutual antagonism between business and government leaders.</p>

<p>It's also a recognition that pressing problems facing nations and economies in the future, like poverty and climate change, will require cooperation.</p>

<p>"Every interesting public problem in the world today crosses the boundary between business and government," said David T. Ellwood , the Kennedy School dean. "Frankly, I think that for too long there have not been enough connections."</p>

<p>The business and Kennedy schools have had a concurrent program for more than 15 years, enabling students to attend classes and earn degrees from either school. Fifty-four Harvard students are currently enrolled .</p>

<p>Their new program is more structured. It will offer two joint degrees: master in business administration/master in public policy or master in business administration/master in public administration-international development . To pursue either degree, students must be accepted by both schools...</p>

<p>While other universities like Stanford, Duke, and Northwestern also offer some form of combined business-government education, "this was really a niche where we felt we could provide something that no one else was providing," Stavins said.</p>

<p>Joint-degree programs have become popular at business schools in recent years, but joint business-public policy programs are still relatively rare, said Tim Westerbeck , managing director at Chicago consulting firm Lipman Hearne Inc...

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<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/04/03/harvard_adds_a_hybrid_mba_degree/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+News+%2F+Education%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/04/03/harvard_adds_a_hybrid_mba_degree/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+News+%2F+Education&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>That's very bad news for HBS' competitors...</p>

3

<p>I'm salivating here. that sounds awesome.</p>

4

<p>Here is a little bit more to drool over - does sound fantastic:</p>

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[quote]
HARVARD'S graduate schools of business and of government have decided that a marriage is in order. The two schools have just announced that they will offer two joint master's degrees, one in public policy and business administration and the other in business administration and public administration/international development...</p>

<p>Implicit in the program is a fascinating critique: Self-interest is no longer enough, ethically or logistically. Private and public interests have to learn from standing in each others' shoes and then act on that new, mutual knowledge. It's making "empathy an intellectual skill," says Herman "Dutch" Leonard, a professor in both the government and business schools.</p>

<p>It's also creating students with dual academic citizenships, who can think with passion about business and government.</p>

<p>Although the program doesn't begin until September 2008, plenty of issues cry out for such an approach. One example is global warming, which calls for solutions that go beyond the familiar ground of government regulation to a place where private and public interests can collaborate. Joint degree graduates could also tackle urban development both domestically and abroad, figuring out new ways that public/private partnerships can purify water for poor households in Africa or help small businesses grow in Boston. And, using the art of informed compromise, graduates could also help settle fights between companies and residents concerned about how industrial expansion might affect their neighborhoods.</p>

<p>Students will take ethics courses that will prepare them to work in government or business. These courses will have to be rigorous, pointing out the dangers of public-sector leaders being co-opted by business interests as well as the sheer hard work it takes to give fair and equal consideration to competing interests. And government's mission of nurturing the common good, including helping those most in need, should not be eclipsed.</p>

<p>The joint degree program is exciting. It arrives at a fortuitous time, when college students are more likely to have traveled abroad and to think outside the old disciplines. If it does its work well, Harvard will be catching up to this generation and then stepping aside, letting its students invent as-yet uninvented solutions, shedding old boundaries and separations in order to make the world better.

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<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/04/05/learning_to_be_of_two_minds/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/04/05/learning_to_be_of_two_minds/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

5

<p>Still not as good as the SAIS - Wharton degree.</p>

6

<p>Kellogg and Harvard's KSG have had a joint MBA/MPP program for awhile now.</p>

7

<p>yeah, this is nothing "new".</p>