To the Editor:
Steven Conn’s recent critique, “Business Schools Have No Business in the University” (The Chronicle Review, February 20) reveals an outdated understanding of business and management education that is far from contemporary practice. Rather than “[promoting] profit-making as a goal unto itself,” management education prepares students to lead non-profits, government agencies, NGOs and businesses — the organizations solving our future’s greatest challenges.
Those skeptical about whether business schools create purpose-driven leaders should look to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education initiative (PRME), founded on the principle that business programs “contribute to a more sustainable and inclusive global economy, and help build more prosperous societies.” As a signatory with PRME, Bucknell University’s Freeman College of Management infuses the U.N.’s sustainable development goals across its curriculum, from the first course in our core through senior capstone projects. By prioritizing experiential learning such as our partnership with local coal-mining communities, our students tackle real-world issues through collaboration, critical inquiry and intellectual rigor.
There is no shortage of challenges demanding the ethical leadership skills fostered in business and management classrooms. Our students clearly recognize the need, as a growing and increasingly diverse enrollment indicates (women comprise nearly half of this year’s Freeman College cohort). Conn and others who share his misconceptions would benefit from spending time with management students and faculty before questioning our institutional worth. And he’s welcome to use our chairs; we’ll be in our classrooms and out in our communities trying to make a difference.
Raquel Alexander
Dean and professor of management
Freeman College of Management
Bucknell University