Tom Tresser

Time for New Thinking & Being in Our Business Schools

Posted by Tom Tresser, Nov 15, 2011 28 comments


Tom Tresser

Have American business schools failed America? I think they have.

Have these very expensive and prestigious institutions taught our best and brightest the wrong things? Have they placed too much emphasis and focused our appreciation of value in the wrong place? I think they have.

But it’s not just me. Harvard Business School scholars Srikat Datar, David Garvin, and Patrick Cullen have written a book, Rethinking the M.B.A.: Business Education At A Crossroads. And the conclusions are grim.

Here’s how Paul Barrett, an an assistant managing editor at Bloomberg BusinessWeek interpreted their findings:

“After studying the nation’s most prestigious business schools, the authors conclude that an excessive emphasis on quantitative and theoretical analysis has contributed to the making of too many wonky wizards."

M.B.A. recipients, according to this book, haven’t learned the importance of social responsibility, common-sense skepticism and respect for the dangers of taking risks with other people’s money.

"Put even more bluntly: Business schools played a contributing role in creating the geniuses who brought us the economic meltdown of 2008.

‘Postcrisis, executives and deans identified a number of gaps in M.B.A. teaching, largely in applied areas,’ the authors note. These include risk management, internal governance, behavior of complex systems, regulation and business/government relations and socially responsible leadership.

The authors lend credence to critics who ‘question whether business schools do a good job of alerting students to the imperfections and incompleteness of the models and frameworks they teach.’”

Ouch.

Michael Jacobs, a professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flager Business School, was director of corporate finance policy at the U.S. Treasury from 1989 to 1991. He published the following in The Wall Street Journal on April 24, 2009, under the headline of “How Business Schools Have Failed Business”:

“As we try to understand why our economy is so troubled, fingers are increasingly being pointed at the academic institutions that educated those who got us into this mess. What have business schools failed to teach our business leaders and policy makers?"

He speculates on ethics and governance education and regulation and concludes, “America's business schools need to rethink what we are teaching -- and not teaching -- the next generation of leaders.”

To me, it’s a very fundamental problem around the question of “what is valuable.” What do we, as a society, value?

What systems have we set up to propagate and reinforce this definition?

What do we teach around this, what do we preach around this, and what do we reward around this?

I’d have to say that our business schools are servicing and perpetuating a system that has created a mirage of value and rewarded people obscenely for laboring in that system.

We have trained and rewarded naked greed and bleached all human compassion out of our economic calculations. The result is that business leaders literally burned their own houses down, committed crimes that defrauded millions, and evaporated hundreds of billions of dollars -- money that the America taxpayer (that would be people like you and me) had to bail these companies out.

This system and the architecture which supports and perpetuates it is no longer viable.

I believe that the domains of art and creativity have something to offer American business schools and the larger economy which they serve.

We can teach you about another way to assign value -- looking at intrinsic worth past ascribed extrinsic worth.

We can teach you about the gift and about generosity and about the unreasonableness of cooperation without monetary reward.

We can teach you about empathy and the joy of seeing through another’s eyes and appreciating variety, diversity, and unorthodoxy.

We can teach you about the illogical act of defying precedent and accepted doctrine in order to create something new, shocking, and world-changing.

We can teach you how to see differently and be differently.

For these reasons, I call on America’s business (and law) schools to reach out to America’s artists to create new classes that challenge the old paradigms of what is valuable and to reimagine the skills we need to succeed to create that value and share it.

28 responses for Time for New Thinking & Being in Our Business Schools

Comments

November 17, 2011 at 11:22 am

Lisa knows what she is talking about. She has built a highly creative educational program in Chicago that trains artists to be entrepreneurs. She is a very successful entrepreneur, herself, and their motto is "No More Starving Artists"!

  • Please login to post comments.
November 29, 2011 at 5:42 pm

Bob – I admire your perspective and your passion. We do, absolutely, need to get organized. In America, it’s a numbers game. Saul Alinksy, the founder of the Industrial Areas Foundation (http://www.industrialareasfoundation.org) and one of most consummate organizers, used to say that there are two kinds of power – organized money and organized people. The Occupy Movement is following in the footsteps of the Arab Spring protesters and are taking to the streets and they have grabbed our attention. Now we need to work together to harness this civic energy for political action, reform and local demonstration projects. We can keep track of the Occupy Movement at http://www.occupytogether.org.

  • Please login to post comments.
November 30, 2011 at 12:33 am

Absolutely! Democracy is a numbers game. And the number of wealthy elites who win elections have smaller population numbers than the rest of us who are subject to the influence they have amassed in Congress. Therein lies the heart of the message of #ows. We are the 99%, period, end of sentence.

  • Please login to post comments.
November 30, 2011 at 6:50 pm

“The Creative Group specializes in placing a range of highly skilled interactive, design, marketing, advertising and public relations professionals with a variety of firms on a project and full-time basis.”

Alison – Thanks for replying. I really do wonder, though, at the end of the day – DESPITE all the lip service paid to creative talent by leaders polled by your survey and by IBM in 2010 (see http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/ceo/ceostudy2010/index.html) – I wonder if artists and creative professionals are truly valued for their contributions. DO you have salary and longevity data that points to how creatives are being rewarded across the economy?

On another, but related front, would The Creative Group consider funding a series of leadership development experiences for artists across the country that encouraged them to run for local office as Creativity Champions? These sessions would nonpartisan and be about laying out the case for creativity as a national value and a necessary part of the economy and a healthy democracy. The sessions would show why artists and creative professionals would make great public servants and include stories of artists who have run and are governing creatively and productively. The sessions combine lecture with performance elements and small group work – they rock.

  • Please login to post comments.
Edward says
November 23, 2011 at 7:40 pm

I agree with Tom's argument that business schools are broken, and are causing a heck of a lot of problems for the rest of us. I also agree with Tom's assertion that business and law schools need to engage with artists more. However, at the core of these arguments, I seek more substance.

Though the initial half of Tom's posting was reasonably cited and well problematized, the latter half that made a case for the arts was lacking in substance and concrete evidence. And this is a core problem for those of us in the arts. We throw our hearts out there and wave our "the arts are important" flag without evidence or research to support our pleas. What the arts sector needs is more concrete evidence to support its cause, more research to back its claims. Advocacy in any sector is shaky, at best, without a solid foundation to support it." We can teach you this…" "We can show you that…" means very little without research backing the idea that the arts have the power to do such things (or anything) at all. Remember your audience. If you are preaching to the choir, that's one thing, but if you want to revolutionize MBA programs, that's a whole other phrasebook the arts needs to master...

Back to the idea that business schools are broken; take a careful look: are schools of the arts any less broken? I would argue no, they are not. Both areas of higher education are equally broken. We just know business schools are broken more because they have greater impact in our world... I think that says a lot all on its own.

It's time we in the arts sector stop looking at ourselves as some sort of 21st Century panacea, and instead realize we have some work to do in our own camp, before we can take on other sectors.

  • Please login to post comments.
November 23, 2011 at 11:33 pm

Edward – Art schools may be broken. But if they are, the harm is far less to America and the planet that the harm done by our business and law schools. My criticism of art schools my belong in another blog but it has to do with my own focus on grassroots economic development and pushing the artistic experience out to the community and to as many people as possible – democratizing the creative experience and creative capacity. But, be that as it may, I do very strongly believe that the arts experience has MUCH to offer not only the business student and business manager, but our public leaders – as in improving our democratic practice. There have been TONS of studies from a wide variety of sources, that look at the benefits of studio thinking, of art making, of doing creative work on individual and group performance. My bookshelf is literally lined with them. Here are a few: “Studio Thinking – The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education” - http://www.amazon.com/Studio-Thinking-Benefits-Visual-Education/dp/08077... and a short report, “From Creative Economy to Creative Society” - http://www.otis.edu/creative_economy/download/Economy.pdf that summarizes the impacts of creativity on the economy and on community development. The 2010 IBM report, “Capitalizing on Complexity” summarizes interviews with 1,500 CEOs from 60 countries. The Number One quality they want in their managers over the next five years is CREATIVITY. (see http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/ceo/ceostudy2010/index.html ). No, I don’t think we need any more research to prove the transformative impact of the arts on the economy, on democracy, on the community and on personal development. What we DO need is the POWER to translate that knowledge in substantive programs that will transform America,

  • Please login to post comments.
November 22, 2011 at 3:47 pm

Nik knows what he is talking about. He's the Director of the IIT Knapp
Entrepreneurship Center, whose mission "is to support IIT-related entrepreneurs by providing effective, affordable, and expert resources to help create and grow successful commercial ventures. The KEC is a collaborative community of supporters of entrepreneurial ventures." http://www.stuart.iit.edu/entrepreneurship_academy/index.shtml

  • Please login to post comments.
November 23, 2011 at 11:38 am

Hi Tom,
As suggested I posted my comments. But it is not showing on the website.
Kamran

  • Please login to post comments.
November 23, 2011 at 11:44 am

Since that comment worked, Kamran, I would suggest trying again, making sure to include the captcha code below when you submit. I haven't had anyone else recently contact me about issues related to comments.

  • Please login to post comments.
November 17, 2011 at 8:14 am

It is essential that artists learn how to transmit their creativity and values not only into MBA education but across all sectors to be able to truly shift the paradigm and have others universally recognize our value. The Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship www.theIAE.com, is on a mission to accomplish this.

  • Please login to post comments.
December 02, 2011 at 1:49 am

I'd like to suggest that both the art and business worlds [plus others] have been hijacked by the seductive and slippery simulated promises of post modernism. In the last thirty years it somewhere lost its creative urge, to be compromised by a vaccuous fantasy, which insidiously infiltrated social, cultural, economic and educational infrastructures.

I'd also suggest that we are participating in and witnessing the death throes of an ailing post modernism which precariously clings to its simulated notions of 'value'. By this I mean the lead up to the GFC, with the collapse of the fantasy 'wealth/value' of sub prime loans, and the economic aftershocks currently reverberating around the globe. Ideas of value are being re-examined in reference to the investigations of what is real.

Perspective is needed. I think there's a great metaphor in what I call the 'artist's dance'. As an artist moves back and forth from their work, or places it where it will be seen with fresh eyes upon re-entering the studio, he/she makes all kind of judgements using a mixture of emotional and intellectual responses. This can be said for all the arts, in their own ways.

The ability to 'see' multi-perspectives is important as we live locally in an increasingly globalised world. If we can develop this ability, even seeing multi-perspectives simultaneously, places and spaces of compassion will be revealed, where differences seem less different and similarities herald a recognition of shared humanity. Surely in these places and spaces we would not need to 'teach' such things as social responsibility.

Tom's statement in the original article, 'We can teach you how to see differently and be differently', 'speaks' of perspective as he uses the word 'see'. Yet, it is not just the seeing of the physical eye, but also the mind's eye of imagination and wonder.

In 2008 I wrote a piece about the GFC, Post-Modernism and Art
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2008/11/after-implosion.html

  • Please login to post comments.
December 02, 2011 at 9:53 am

Kathryn is an artist based in Australia.

Thank you for your comment. I think we share a common perspective. At the heart of your comments I think you are saying that the making of art and the experiencing of art is more than a transaction or some kind of new age marketing process that business can some how adapt to its needs. When you say “Ideas of value are being re-examined in reference to the investigations of what is real” I think we are the heart of the matter – where our creative world can inform the so-called “real” world of finance and Wall Street. Artists create and the act of creation has “value” – that which is created has “value” and often when there is a gift or free exchange this value can’t be captured the way businesses are used to thinking and recording.

If there had been some artists on the Securities and Exchange Commission a few years ago I think the whole mortgage fraud scam would’ve been questioned and interrogated in a way that traditional business minds were incapable and loathe to do.

  • Please login to post comments.
November 16, 2011 at 12:51 pm

As a recent graduate of the Arts Management program at Claremont Graduate University's Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management, I'm happy to report that some business schools are not only teaching social responsibility, ethics and mindfulness meditation, they have embraced the Arts Management program as an integral part of the school. Now, in addition to Arts Managers and Artists receiving business training, future MBAs can take courses in Arts Policy and Nonprofit Management. Forward-thinking business schools are recognizing the shift toward creativity and social responsibility within all sectors.

  • Please login to post comments.
November 17, 2011 at 11:19 am

Camille - This is encouraging. Peter Drucker was one of the first business thinkers to write about intellectual capital and the role of ideas in management or knowledge management. But I'm pushing for something even more unusual. I would like our future business leaders to be immersed in creative work - to be more creative and to embrace the ethos of studio thinking. Did your program help you (a) BECOME more creative, and (b) appreciate intrinsic value or what has been called "the gift"?

  • Please login to post comments.
November 21, 2011 at 11:34 pm

Tom,

IIT's Institute of Design, in its Master of Design Methods, teaches what I only half-jokingly refer to as "a creative version of the MBA". Design thinking provides a very different perspective from the MBA, giving more importance to empathy, communication, and "fuzzy", non-quantitative analytical methods...a bit more "human" in my view.

Best,

Nik

  • Please login to post comments.
December 04, 2011 at 2:47 am

Yes, Thomas I do think the making of art and the experiencing of it are more than transactions or some kind of new-age process that business can somehow adapt to its needs. I described the 'artist's dance' in my original comment. I have seen viewers 'dance' similar steps when looking at art ie: they move close and then far examining work at various distances. If art, the creation and the experiencing of it, can somehow assist to develop an ability to 'see' multiple perspectives, even simultaneously, then maybe people will question and interrogate more. But, maybe the ability to really put oneself in another's shoes [individuals and nations] will mean that more compassionate responses will ensure questions are asked sooner than later. 3

  • Please login to post comments.
November 23, 2011 at 6:14 pm

Leonard is the Director of the Cultural Institutions Unit at the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs - http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcla - and has deep experience in the realm of cultural public policy.

Well, Leonard, I'm not necessarily hoping that all people will be saints and work for the common good. But I do think we need to teach it and model that sort of behavior and reward that behavior. The rules right now are rigged for a "winner take all" mentality on Wall Street and across the marketplace. If there are no penalties for raping the environment, fleecing your customers and literally burning down your financial house and rewarding yourself handsomely while doing so - then our better angels will have little chance of asserting themselves. We need to BE better and we need to construct a system that teaches us, encourages us and rewards us for doing so.

  • Please login to post comments.
Leonard Jacobs says
November 24, 2011 at 9:46 am

I wouldn't dispute, and I hope it doesn't appear I'm disputing, the fact that it behooves us all to inculcate the importance of social responsibility in our MBA candidates. What I'm suggesting is there are equal, if not greater advantages to beginning that educational process earlier -- indeed, at each level of our educational system.

If someone asked, "What can arts and culture teach our young people about social responsibility?," do we, each of us, know precisely how we would answer? Frankly, I suspect not. I also suspect that if we, each of us, figured out an answer to that question, it would offer a pathway by which those of us working on cultural policy -- not to mention artists and creatives -- could outline more clearly for the rest of the nation why arts and culture is indispensable to our society.

  • Please login to post comments.
Leonard Jacobs says
November 23, 2011 at 3:40 pm

Do we all fully realize that this idea of needing to teach social responsibility to graduate students -- graduate students! -- is inherently sad? Weren't we all supposed to be taught as children what social responsibility, in the most fundamental sense, means? I am talking about the small stuff, the courtesies, the stuff of all-time cliches: helping the old to cross the street, being respectful of our betters and of our elders, waiting our turn, and so forth. This notion that we ought to be inculcating something so basic, so fundamental, so critical that what distinguishes us from animals, and especially this imperative that we must inculcate it into our graduate students no less, says so much more about us than we know.

I deeply appreciate the dialogue here and it's all very inspiring. Yet I fear we're assuming all Iagos can be transformed into Joans of Arc. Someone -- anyone -- persuade me this isn't so.

  • Please login to post comments.
November 27, 2011 at 1:19 pm

What's happening in business schools is a reflection of a much larger and pervasive problem in our culture. We have seen the results of government's failure to regulate Wall Street in the most graphic terms as our economy came to the brink of collapse in 2008. But even this regulatory failure is part of a larger problem.

When corporations were first created, each corporation chartered required an act of the state legislature chartering it. Each bill creating a corporation had to be sponsored by one or more legislators and had to be justified in the eyes of the people. If a legislator sponsored an unpopular corporation, he or she would not be returned to the legislature after the next election.

Over the years, even as corporate law was liberalized, most legislatures still required that corporate charters include an article requiring it to serve the public interest. This requirement could be used to defend directors who wanted to pay better pension plans or contribute to community interests. As that requirement was eliminated be state after state, it became easier for major shareholders to sue the board to require that ALL profits be preserved for the benefit of the shareholders regardless of the impact on the people of the state that chartered it.

Without belaboring corporate fiat further, it should be noted that corporations could not have co-opted our government without the tacit consent of a large number of people. Those who defend corporate interests and their never-ending chorus of "get government out of the way of business" honestly believe that corporations are the good guys and government is the bad guy. In a democracy, the only way a tiny, special interest can consistently win elections for their bought-and-paid-for politicians is by deceiving enough people who will walk in to a voting booth and pull the lever for these politicians who will say anything to get elected.

If one wants to change what is taught in business schools, in public schools, in churches, in the media and even in our own families, we have to step up to the plate and lead. If one wants a different kind of Congress that will take on these special interests we MUST organize ourselves as effectively as those special interests have organized themselves. We have to stop blaming the schools and the politicians. We have it within ourselves to communicate, to educate and to organize ourselves to manage our own civic affairs. But until we are willing to stand up and lead, we can expect more of the same from those special interests who ARE organized for their own self interest. Until we form grassroots groups to ensure the selection and election of state and federal representatives who reflect our interests and share our vision of the future, we will continue to suffer disappointment in every election cycle.

Some of us are talking about the problems. Others of us are working to solve them. The Progressive Leadership Action Network, PLAN, is working to advance a more progressive future for America. I encourage each of you to visit the PLAN website http://planamerica.org and to consider what YOU can do to contribute to our greater good.

*Bob Abston is a founder of the Progressive Leadership Action Network and is available to speak to your group or to help you organize your own grassroots effort in your community.

  • Please login to post comments.
November 26, 2011 at 12:40 pm

Edward – The heart of my argument is NOT to apply a creative mindset to business in order to help companies sell us more stuff or be better marketers. I believe that the arts mindset – Studio Thinking – can offer another set of VALUES to guide business education and business, itself. At the heart of this mindset is what can be called appreciation of intrinsic value or the value of “The Gift” – see http://www.lewishyde.com/publications/the-gift. Another way to get at this would be to ask “What is valuable?” Who gets to answer that question? Who gets to teach and preach to that question? What rules and rewards are established to enforce that definition? I would put it to you that the crowd that was SUPPOSED to know the answers DO NOT and the system we have allowed to enforce those insiders have failed us. They say in business “Measure what matters” and to that I would add “Teach what matters so we know WHAT to measure.” It is in this context that I believe the arts have so much to offer. Your point on innovation is another argument. I don’t want business to innovate us into another financial fire storm of greed and unchecked gambling only to be bailed out by the public once more.

  • Please login to post comments.
Edward says
November 26, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Great response Tom. I would love to dig into each piece of your argument, but I'll just focus on one aspect of it—the "creativity" piece, which you emphasized. First, creativity has lost its pull in our capitalist economy. More than creativity, STEM industries seek "innovation." Watch President Obama's last State of the Union address. Count how many times he calls for the education sector to foster innovation vs. creativity. You'll find it's a clean shut out—and that innovation wins. Second, it's important to understand that creativity is a hollow word. It doesn't actually mean anything. The arts would be better off to talk in more concrete terms rather than use language in their advocacy that even they can't define. Third, even if creativity did mean something, it has been well noted that industries ranging from the business sector to the military want creativity without the art. What they mean when the refer to the C word usually has something to do with divergent thinking skills, deviation amplification systems, increased ideation generation, and other psychological constructs. This the variety of stuff that entrepreneurial studies programs within MBA schools are already aiming to develop. Lastly, we need to remember that the arts don't own "creativity," however it is being defined.

Again, I agree with you that our society as a whole could benefit from engaging in more arts experiences. But before we start passing around the oil paints and the pointe shoes, we need a solid plan geared towards substantive outcomes.

Thanks for inspiring a rich dialogue!

  • Please login to post comments.
November 27, 2011 at 9:48 am

Martin is the Director of Marketing at the Chicago based Community Investment Corporation ( (http://www.cicchicago.com ) and teaches marketing for the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Nonprofit Management Program (http://www.uic.edu/cuppa/gci/programs/profed/online/index.html ).

Martin, here’s the irony of our current situation. We are ALL nonprofits now. I mean – what is one of the major universal distinctions of nonprofits? That is – because they provide a needed service and meet unmet needs that the private sector can’t or won’t deal with, that ALL nonprofits provide services that the people who consume those services do not fully pay for. And now, thanks to the U.S. taxpayer bailing out America’s auto industry, insurance companies, mortgage backers, banks and investment houses – you can say the same for those major businesses. You might say that corporate America received the biggest grant in the history of grant-making.

Unfortunately, the analogy breaks down – as the salespeople, managers and owners of THOSE firms made billions in profits and bonuses while their actual services to the public (small business loans, home ownership) have dried up. While, in a strange mirror universe, the REAL nonprofits in America have been STARVED for funds (Illinois being the worst offender in unpaid and back due bills, see http://tinyurl.com/IL-deadbeat) and have had to do MORE with LESS despite staff layoffs and the increased stress to serve more people in need as a direct result of the financial melt down caused by the criminal acts of the financial sector, Wow. America’s nonprofits – we’re always there to help.

  • Please login to post comments.
Martin Berg says
November 26, 2011 at 3:04 pm

"Teach what matters." I think this certainly gets to the heart of what is the issue here, because the definition of "what matters" obviously guides the direction of the curriculum. If money and making more of it is what matters, you already have our current system. If "doing well by doing good" is what matters, then you need to have a leavening of the greed impulse through introducing (or reviewing, in a business context) the values learned from ethics, social justice principles, and the arts.

  • Please login to post comments.
November 24, 2011 at 5:34 am

Thomas & Contributors, I am encouraged by this discussion on ARTSblog - a debate that should also be taking place inside business schools but sadly doesn't receive enough attention! The creative arts can certainly contribute to the development of a next generation of responsible business leaders.

At 50+20 we propose that one of the "enablers" of management education that is best FOR the world (versus best IN the world) is a renewed focus on transformational learning.

The ability to consider previously ignored perspectives through the development of heightened consciousness results in new ways of relating to oneself and to the world around us. Hands-on studio experiences should certainly be considered as a way of bringing REAL art into the "art & science" of management and leadership. It connects the hearts, hands and minds of participants or students and helps open up new perspectives on issues or problems. Art can certainly transform us and I would argue that we find practical ways of bringing this into the MBA.

An upcoming report by the 50+20 initiative(see http://www.50plus20.org) aims to describe this enabler (amongst several others) in more detail. In this report we aim to develop and present a radical new vision for business schools and I would certainly encourage readers of ARTSblog to get in touch with 50+20.

Thank you for the opportunity to take part in this discussion and to share.

John North

  • Please login to post comments.
November 24, 2011 at 10:47 am

John is at the Albert Luthuli Center for Responsible Leadership at University of Pretoria where he is the Project Leader: Curriculum Design & GRLI Schools of Business for the 21st Century.

John – Thanks for weighing in here. The more I learn of the 50plus20 project, the more excited and hopeful I get. Here’s how they describe the rationale for this project, “To this day business and management education efforts at large function in line with an agenda that was set during the 1950s when the world was a very different place from the one we know today. It has therefore been 50+ years since the agenda for management education has been reset. The upcoming RIO+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (June 2012) will mark the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Rio Earth summit. It has therefore been 20 years since Governments have been collectively urged to rethink economic development and find ways to halt the destruction of irreplaceable natural resources. It is at this juncture in history where the 50+20 project takes action to reset the management education agenda.”

I believe an arts and creativity-infused perspective will add a number of essential values and mind-sets to the business education mix. I’ll just touch on two here. (1) Appreciation of “The Gift” or intrinsic value. What is at the heart of the creative act but an act of generous sharing? What can so called “Gift” economies teach us? The Big Question here is “What is valuable?” and who gets to set that definition. (2) Cultivation of empathy or the ability to see and experience the world through the eyes of the Other and to appreciate that experience. Where is the place for this value in the economic web? We say we “measure what matters.” What REALLY matters in 2011?

  • Please login to post comments.
November 28, 2011 at 2:10 pm

Harvard published a report of the Task Force on the Arts in 2008 and this is the statement on the front cover:

To allow innovation and imagination to thrive on our campus, to
educate and empower creative minds across all disciplines, to help
shape the twenty-first century, Harvard must make the arts an
integral part of the cognitive life of the university: for along with
the sciences and the humanities, the arts—as they are both experienced
and practiced—are irreplaceable instruments of knowledge.

http://www.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/content/arts_report.pdf

There is great stuff in the report, however it was published in 2008. and I wonder if Harvard acted on the recommendations to make the arts an integral part of its curricula.

  • Please login to post comments.
Alison says
November 30, 2011 at 2:03 pm

Interesting points. The Creative Group recently launched a research project, The Creative Team of the Future (www.creativegroup.com/creativeteamfuture), which explores key trends shaping the marketing and design fields, and how industry professionals can prepare for and capitalize on upcoming changes.

The research offered some good news for creative professionals: Nearly two-thirds of American Advertising Federation Ad Club and corporate members said creative professionals will have more influence on their companies' business decisions in the future.

This trend ties in well with the comments you made about artists teaching others outside of the profession skills for success. As artists gain more clout within their organizations, hopefully we'll see positive changes both within and outside the creative community.

  • Please login to post comments.