When Kenneth W. Freeman became the Dean of the Boston University School of Management, a colleague told him that business school students are the university’s products. However, Dean Freeman believes that students are actually the university’s customers, as he recently explained in an article in Businessweek.
Business schools are facing decreases in the number of applications they receive and challenges from other models of business education. Potential students are questioning the return on investment from a business school education, since the economy is weak and the cost of tuition is increasing. Some employers are beginning to question the utility of a business school degree compared to other backgrounds. Dean Freeman believes that business schools will have to fundamentally alter the “customer experience” of management education to convince potential students and employers that an MBA is worth the investment.
Dean Freeman hopes that Boston University can transform itself to become more appealing to students using the core principle of transformation: “engage the entire organization in creating a memorable mission and translate it into an active strategy.” Freeman says that faculty members often perform outstanding individual work within business schools, but that they are not often mobilized to work to reshape the entire business school.
This is the 100th anniversary of the founding of Boston University’s School of Management, and the faculty have launched a transformation of the school’s undergraduate and graduate business curricula. Dean Freeman believes that transformation can be achieved through a focus on faculty members’ and students’ desires to make a difference in the world. Freeman envisions a curricula for Boston University that emphasizes the influence business can have on society and the development of innovative and ethical leadership. The faculty intends to make BU’s School of Management preeminant in sustainability, social enterprise, health and life sciences, and digital technology. Faculty have also worked to develop an ethical focus throughout the curriculum, and have implemented innovations in teaching and learning. Freeman believes that these factors appeal to the student as a customer: “We can best serve our student-customers by putting them at the center of an experience that moves outward from the classroom to the community and the world while taking value—in all its senses—into account.”