Support for this project

We would like to thank the James S. Kemper Foundation. Without their support, we would not have been able to further this dialog or create this site. For more information on the Kemper Foundation, please visit http://www.jskemper.org./

Management of this site

This site is currently sponsored and monitored by the business faculty at Southwestern University. We consider ourselves participants in this conversation on Liberal Arts and Business, but we are not directing it. Instead, we are looking for an open ongoing discussion of these issues and we hope that this site will play a small role in assisting those of you who are seeking more information.

Why did Southwestern University join the Dialog on Liberal Arts and Business?

Given the ever-changing face of business in today’s global economy, the discourse on the form and function of business education has grown in both the academic community and popular press. Questions regarding how, what, and who should we be teaching in business programs continue to provoke much debate. These conversations, however, typically focus on MBA and executive-level programs, excluding the increasingly popular undergraduate programs in business. Yet, the same basic questions being raised of MBA programs are just as applicable, if not more so, to undergraduate business programs who face unique dynamics and serve a different population of students than do graduate programs in business.

Undergraduate business programs at liberal arts institutions pose particularly interesting challenges for educators, as they work to bridge two different educational approaches: 1) the management education field’s dominant paradigm which studies and advocates traditional forms of business education, meaning technical functional skills building, siloed (rather than integrated) course studies, and quantitatively measurable outcomes and, 2) the liberal arts paradigm, which promotes a more integrated and inquiry-based form of education that is less technical in nature and more broadly based.

At Southwestern University, we have explored the question of what business education in liberal arts institutions could and should look like, and we fully realize that our situation is far from unique. In 2006, Southwestern University hosted a summit to broaden this dialog to include teacher-scholars, administrators and business practitioners. The results of that summit have led to the creation of this site. We hope to keep the dialog going and provide resource to those who are asking, and answering, the key questions regarding how we integrate different educational approaches.