Podcast Interview With Lehigh Dean Georgette Phillips

Georgette Phillips, dean of Lehigh University’s College of Business & Economics

Lehigh University’s College of Business & Economics

New Accelerated One-Year MBA Program

“We start our new one-year program in January because we want to offer students an internship,” says Georgette Phillips, dean of Lehigh University’s College of Business & Economics. “That is often what you will give up in a one-year program that begins in June and ends in May. But many students need that internship to be a career changer. It is absolutely critical. You’ve got to have it. We tore apart the semester. I don’t think it is a rule that life has to be lived in 14-week increments. We should actually be able to break it apart. We are sending our students out into a world that does not live in 14-week increments. So in our program we start with a two-week quantiative and communcation immersion right after New Year’s. The first seven weeks look much more like a traditional core curriculum. Then, there is a break where we do our one-week international immersion. This year students went to Peru. They come back and we really rip it apart again by looking at traditional core subjects from a stakeholder perspective. So we look at it from the perspectives of government and society, suppliers, customers, and financial claimaints. In each class, you have two or three professors coming in offering different perspectives. That is the next seven weeks. After that we have four weeks of big societal shifts—such as urban regeneration, big data, and the shared economy—that will affect students and business in the future. Then, they are off for their internships and classes begin in the fall when students have three electives and two required courses, including a captone strategic management course and a tech course that includes basic programming skills.”

Listen to our CentreCourt MBA Festival interview with Georgette Phillips, dean of Lehigh University’s College of Business & Economics