The University of Virginia's Darden School of Business welcomed the
largest MBA class in its history this fall. 338 first-year MBA students
reported to orientation and classes this August, making the Class of 2008
almost 10 per cent larger than Darden's usual MBA cohort of 300 to 310
students.
Darden officials cited a growing economy, a more active outreach
program, and a rebound in international students' interest in U.S. study as
likely reasons for this growth in enrollment. They would be justified in
adding Darden's ever-rising national profile to that list.
Darden has always enjoyed a a fearsome reputation for putting MBA
students through a tough, two-year curriculum that produces some of the best
management talent in the nation. Now it seems that a growing number of
b-school applicants are catching on to the many other attractions Darden has
to offer: an idyllic small town setting, a strong sense of community,
excellent family support, and an invigorating intellectual and cultural
environment.
Here is our August 2006 interview with Everette Fortner, Interim
Director of Admissions and Director of Career Development at Darden.
How would you summarize
the Darden experience overall?
The Darden experience is
transformational. It is a comprehensive two years, with many building
blocks that make up a comprehensive two-year experience.
Our Dean
tells our incoming first year students to: "Trust the process," because the
case method, at Darden in particular, is somewhat like a mosaic. You have
over 500 different pictures of companies and experiences that managers have
faced, and you have different course titles and sometimes courses and cases
don't feel like they go together or that you are learning what you need to
learn, but as time unfolds, you start to see how everything fits together
and the repetition reinforces the lessons.
And at the
end of your first year, and then again at the end of your second year, you
can step back from the program and you can actually see the big picture. But
when you're in it day to day, it's a rigorous, high-speed, intense,
high-octane program. And it's hard to see the forest for the trees.
Can you talk about Darden's core values?
The Darden program is a "high-touch, high-tone,
high-octane" MBA program and environment.
The high
touch part speaks of the high level of engagement of the various
constituents at Darden. There are a lot of interactions between students,
faculty and staff, more than you'll see in most business school programs.
This high
level of interaction is seen in many places: the Learning Teams that you're
assigned to in your first year, the First Year section you're assigned to
that lasts most of the first year, the faculty/student interaction at
Darden's "First Coffee," these are just a few examples. At Darden we build
a collaborative team environment. Our faculty doesn't have office hours;
they are always available. Students interact with faculty here more than
just about any other school. Our faculty doesn't have teaching assistants or
graders, so your exams will be graded, and you'll get feedback, directly
from your faculty member. So that's all under the umbrella of high touch.
This
notion of high tone refers to the "pitch" at which Darden operates, in a
number of dimensions. Darden is "high tone" in its approach to ethics. The
honor code at Darden is a critical part of how we operate, and has a long
tradition here at the University of Virginia. For example, all student
exams are take home exams, which allows all students to work in the
environment in which they do their best work, and not have to worry about
how others are taking their exams. Also, there is a strong sense of ethics
that Darden has had since its founding. Darden houses the "Business
Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethic," which is comprised of leading
CEOs in America. It's run by one of our professors, Professor Ed Freeman, a
renowned ethicist. Further, Darden was one of the first programs to have a
required, graded ethics program in the first year, and while many schools
have added an ethics curriculum in their first year, most of them are not
rated. Darden's is.
The other
part of high-tone is we're not just a "technocrat trainer." We do dive deep
into functions—great financial skills, great marketing, operations,
quantitative skills—but we're a leadership program bolted on top of that. In
every class, from the very beginning, we teach what's called the "leadership
point of view." We teach students to take a leader's point of view for this
situation, and that makes a difference in how we approach every business
situation. You're not just looking at, in a finance class, whether or not
you should make an acquisition, but what should a leader be looking at when
making this acquisition, not just the financials, but the people and all the
other ramifications involved.
The last
part of that is high octane. Darden is a rigorous program. We have over 500
cases in just two years, and we don't apologize for that. The people we are
seeking are really seeking to stretch themselves. We believe students learn
best when they stretch themselves. So we do that in this high-octane
environment.
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