Entrepreneurs on the Rise
A snapshot of the class of 2009 at the Indian School of Business (ISB) includes rocket and aerospace scientists, top-performing civil servants, a 50-year-old obstetrician/gynecologist, a collector of 30,000 rare postage stamps, a student who earned a PhD at Cornell University, international patent holders, the captain of an Indian hockey team, and an accomplished vocalist in the classic Indian style of Carnatic music. But what’s even more notable, the school says, is the rise in the number of entrepreneurs who have enrolled. This year, seven percent of ISB’s student body is made up of self-employed professionals.

In the United Kingdom, Peter Cullum, founder of European insurance giant Towergate Partnership, has pledged £10 million to create a new center for entrepreneurship at his alma mater, the Cass Business School in London. The Peter Cullum Centre for Entrepreneurship will support and fund budding entrepreneurs, provide consultants, and conduct research.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison, has announced the launch of a new living and learning community for students interested in entrepreneurship. According to its website, the Entrepreneurial Residential Learning Community is “committed to the celebration of entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation in society,” and is designed to bring together students “with intellectual curiosity and a passion for entrepreneurial undertakings.” Anne Miner, Ford Motor Company Distinguished Professor of Management and Human Resources in the Wisconsin School of Business, leads the new community, which is funded in part by a $5 million grant from the Kauffman Foundation that seeks to spread entrepreneurship beyond the borders of the business school.

Women and the MBA: Rochester Blog Links Women Entrepreneurs
The Simon Graduate School of Business at the University of Rochester is launching a new blog for women interested in starting a business or expanding an existing entrepreneurial venture. The Women Entrepreneurs Blog @ Simon (www.webatsimon.com/) will host discussions by successful women entrepreneurs from across western New York. The blog was the brainchild of successful entrepreneur Dennis Kessler. He serves as the school’s Edward and Agnes Ackley Professor of Entrepreneurship and will host the blog.

Student Investors Beat the Street
As reported in the Washington Post on May 11, student stock-funds managers at several business schools have managed to outpace professional money managers. At the end of their fiscal year, student managers of a $1.2 million Mayer Fund at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business had eked out a 0.57 percent return—no small feat in a year when many professional funds lost ground—as did the Mayer Fund’s benchmark, the Standard and Poor's 500 stock index. The Post also reported that while the student-managed $6 million Darden Capital Management fund in the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia showed a loss of .39 percent, the fund still performed appreciably better than the S&P 500. Similarly, while a fund at the Mason School of Business at the College of William and Mary also lost money, it still bested its benchmark, the Russell 2500 index, by nearly five percentage points.

Research Report: Explosive Growth Predicted in Computer-Based Learning
By the year 2019, about 50 percent of courses in schools will be delivered online. So predicts Clayton M. Christensen, the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, with colleague Michael B. Horn, executive director of education at Innosight Institute.

Analyzing enrollment data, Christensen and Horn found that in 2007, roughly 1 million students were enrolled in online courses, an increase 22 times greater than in 2000―but  online courses still only represent about one percent of all education courses nationally.

By using a substitution curve to mathematically predict the pace of adoption, Christensen and Horn suggest that 10 percent of all courses will be computer-based in about six years, and that about half of all courses will be delivered online by 2019.

“In other words,” the authors write, “after a long period of incubation, the world will be poised to begin adopting computer-based learning at a much more rapid pace.” They suggest that technological and economic advantages of computer-based learning will, in effect, eclipse the traditional public education model.

Christensen and Horn say that the way to implement an innovation so that it can transform an organization is to let it compete against “non-consumption”—in the case of schools, they suggest, computer-based learning can effectively serve students who are not currently receiving courses that they need or desire. Online courses, they say, may also both serve high school drop-outs who wish to continue their education but not in their local high school, and provide a remedial option for students who fail a class.

Christensen and Horn are the coauthors of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (McGraw-Hill, 2008). Their article about computer-based learning, “How Do We Transform Our Schools?” is online at www.EducationNext.org.

From the fundraising desk…

• At the University of California, Los Angeles, the Anderson School of Management has received $10 million from Laurence D. Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock, and his wife, Lori W. Fink, as core support for the school’s center for finance and investments, which will now be named for the donors.
• Prudential has made a $5 million contribution to Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey to help establish a new home for Rutgers Business School–Newark and New Brunswick. The gift will support an endowed chair and a center dedicated to business ethics and leadership in the business, non-profit, and philanthropic arenas. The school has also received $2 million from Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G), New Jersey’s largest regulated gas and electric delivery utility.
• At Wake Forest University, the Calloway School of Business and Accountancy has created the BB&T Center for the Study of Capitalism, funded by a $2 million grant from the BB&T Foundation.
• Citi India has pledged $1.5 million to the Indian School of Business in support of work in the university’s Centre for Analytical Finance that focuses on emerging financial markets and participants, including small investors and micro-entrepreneurs.

New Programs
The Kelley School of Business at Indiana University has established a new center for the business of life sciences and a new executive certificate program designed to help life science professionals develop their business skills. Meanwhile, through affiliate Kelley Executive Partners, the school is partnering with San Diego State University and Gallup University to develop a new MBA for executives in the life sciences—the LSMBA—expected to launch this summer. With an eye on the considerable investment of time and money required to bring a life sciences product to market, a key focus for the program will be on best practices in clinical design, regulatory approval, and reimbursement… The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and INSEAD have renewed their partnership for another four years. The schools’ collaboration includes an MBA student exchange, a faculty exchange, joint research and teaching projects, co-branded executive education courses, and ongoing joint alumni initiatives… The Anderson School of Management at UCLA has started a new master’s degree program in financial engineering, designed to provide advanced business education with a focus on quantitative finance… The McColl School of Business at Queens University of Charlotte is shortening its EMBA program from 24 months to a more concentrated 20-month program… Saint Leo University has received approval from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to offer its MBA program in Hong Kong in partnership with the Open Institute of International Education… The College of Business Administration at San Diego State University has announced new undergraduate management specializations in entrepreneurship and human resources… Fordham University is partnering with Heythrop College, part of the University of London, to create a London home for Fordham programs, including programs in its College of Business Administration… At the University of Arizona, the Eller College of Management and the College of Medicine have teamed to offer a collaborative dual-degree program to help prepare physicians with strong business skills. Graduates will earn a medical degree and an MBA… Faculty in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago are expected to play an active role in the university’s new Milton Friedman Institute, named in honor of the leading economist and designed, according to a statement, as “a primary intellectual destination for economics”...