TIME Magazine recently explored the increasing prominence of social, ethical, and environmental responsibility in business education, with Boston University Questrom School of Business featured prominently as a trend leader. The article notes the surge in demand among business students to work for companies that share and promote their values, with Questrom’s enrollment statistics bearing out the movement:
“That demand is reflected in the young people seeking business graduate degrees. At Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, the number of students in the Social Impact MBA program has nearly doubled in the last decade, growing from 79 in 2011 to 155 in 2021.”
The piece is informed by testimonials from current business students, including second-year Questrom MBA Alyssa Gutner-Davis.
“Alyssa Gutner-Davis, a second-year student at Questrom, says if you had told her in college that she’d one day go to business school, she would have laughed. ‘My impression was if you go to business school, you’re only focused on the economics and do the economics pencil out, and there’s no room for thinking through any other considerations,’ says Gutner-Davis, 31. But she enrolled in Questrom’s Social Impact MBA program—which includes courses on impact investing, discrimination in the workplace and environmentally sustainable supply chains— because she wanted to understand business basics in order to pursue her interests in environmental justice and clean energy.”
Also included are faculty perspectives on this evolution in the idea of what an MBA can be as well as how MBA students can impact the wider world. Insight from Caroline Flammer, Dean’s Research Scholar and Associate Professor, Strategy and Innovation, is heavily cited:
“’Student demand is increasing. You can see employers are seeking graduates with these skills and knowledge. There’s demand from society for business schools to positively contribute to tackling some of these grand societal challenges,’ says Caroline Flammer, co-faculty director of Questrom’s social impact program. She teaches a course called Social Impact: Business, Society, and the Natural Environment, which she thinks should be required for any MBA student. ‘In my view, the Social Impact MBA program should be the MBA program.’”
Read the full article to learn how business education is continuing to evolve in the direction of more socially and environmentally conscious endeavors, with students and faculty at Questrom playing a key role in this important trend.
