Goizueta Business School Interview

Emory University's Goizueta Business School has been preparing men and women for business leadership since 1919. Despite its small size – total full-time enrollment is usually a little over 200 students – Goizueta offers students a wide variety of programs and specializations. These choices include the School's One-Year Full-Time MBA program, an intensive and challenging format which puts selected students through a two-year MBA curriculum in a single calendar year. Whether enrolled in the One-Year or Two-Year programs, Goizueta MBA students are pushed to stretch their limits and discover their leadership potential. That's just one of the qualities that keeps Goizueta in the upper tiers of business school rankings.

Here is our fall 2006 interview with Julie Barefoot, Goizueta's Associate Dean of MBA Admissions.

How would you summarize Goizueta's "Leadership in Action" framework?

"Leadership in Action" has become an integral part of our school's mission. We view our Leadership program as a unique asset and a benefit of coming to our MBA program.

Our approach to leadership development is holistic. It starts on day one at Orientation, when students participate in an Outward Bound-type experience which tests their team and leadership skills. This exercise also helps them get to know their fellow classmates and begin to learn more about themselves.

Because of our small class size, our program offers over 300 different leadership opportunities. Through self-assessment, coupled with lectures and hands-on experiential leadership experiences, our students further develop their own leadership skills. They do a lot of introspective study, and then they apply that in student organization or project-based leadership roles. Our program also incorporates a servant-leadership component.

Can you talk about Goizueta's core values?

Several years ago – before Enron and before all of the unfortunate business scandals that have occurred – our staff, students, and Program Dean came together on a Saturday to define a set of core values that define Goizueta Business School. It was a brainstorming session. Literally hundreds of different values were discussed.

Through this process, Goizueta Business School established seven core values. These values are the ones that have the most meaning to our community and represent our aspirations for Goizueta students, faculty and staff.

The order of the values is important.

At the base is Community. We are small and we have a very close-knit environment, so that's the foundation for what we're all about. Community, Team, and Diversity are the foundation of our values.

Rigor is next. A rigorous academic experience is an essential element of MBA studies.

We aspire to fully emulate the next three values. Accountability – meaning that we expect students to be accountable for their actions, and that we are accountable to them – and Integrity. Exemplifying integrity means you are honest in your dealings with others.

And then, the value that is at the top of our list is Courage. We can always aspire to be more courageous in the business world.

Goizueta Business School students, faculty and staff are charged with living our values every day. For example, our international students exhibit courage when they leave their homeland to pursue their MBA dreams.

Can you talk about Goizueta's flexible, individualized curriculum? How can students best use that to their advantage?

Our students are leaving a good job to pursue an MBA because they want to change their career path or trajectory. Sometimes this career change is dramatic. In order for the students to make this change, they need to tailor their course electives accordingly. So, our flexible curriculum helps students prepare for the job search from the get-go.

For example, if a candidate wants to change from engineering into the investment banking field, they need to prepare themselves academically and experientially through class project work or internships. Our flexible curriculum facilitates this transition.

For example, a student could defer a marketing class so that they could complete an upper level finance elective during their first semester. This flexible course sequencing enables the first-year to interview with confidence for a summer internship in investment banking.

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