New Approaches to Exec-Ed

Today's climate demands fresh thinking, say three top schools. Plus: New scholarships at Carnegie Mellon; Poker 2005; And more

Three of the world's top-ranked business schools -- Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, Cornell University's S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management, and Queen's School of Business -- are launching new executive-education programs to respond to the corporate world's demand for more effective leaders. Among the most desirable traits for today's execs: a command of hard and soft skills and the ability to negotiate just as easily in foreign countries as they can in their own backyard.

In February, the McDonough School of Business in Washington, D.C., will welcome its first class to the Executive Master's in Leadership program, which combines advanced management training with spirituality. About 40 people will enroll, including applicants from the military, law enforcement, and government. Students will attend classes on the B-school's main campus every other weekend for one year. A series of overnight residencies off-site, including a session about "discerning your passion" run by a Jesuit priest, will round out the coursework.

The unique part of this curriculum is the internal reflection that it demands of participants, says the program's creator, Academic Director Robert Bies. Students will create a leadership action plan to spell out their goals, and a personal coach will check in with them periodically to offer guidance. A residency at Gettysburg led by an army expert will give students the chance to learn business strategy through the eyes of the military.

The program's capstone is a spiritually based residency, also run by a priest, meant to encourage students to contemplate how they can contribute to society as moral leaders. "I'd like to change the world one student at a time," says Bies.

NORTHERN EXPOSURE. Another new exec-ed program takes a cross-border approach to developing business leaders. The Johnson School in Ithaca, N.Y., is teaming up with the Queen's School of Business in Kingston, Ontario to offer something they call the Boardroom Executive MBA. It's a 17-month long program in which six to eight individuals are placed on different "boards of directors" that are all linked by videoconferencing. About half of the 100 or so students will be Americans and the other half Canadian.

"On the surface Canada and the U.S. are very similar, but this will give students the chance to see the different ways managers operate across borders," says John Moore, co-director of the program. He adds that this program is unique because it will be using technology to link students from different countries, and each student will earn two EMBAs, one from each school.

The program's purpose is to teach promising leaders the fundamentals of decisionmaking and strategy. Highlights include three residential sessions, including one 10-day stay at the IBM facility in Palisades, N.Y. Participants will also have the chance to write a new business plan and go abroad for a fully funded international project of some sort. Tuition costs $89,000.