The Pandemic Has Changed How Business Schools Operate for Good
Less travel, smaller class sizes, and blended recruiting will stick around.
Business schools tend to be steeped in tradition—focused on the long term and slow to respond to societal trends. The pandemic turned that on its head, forcing institutions to tear up the rule book to ensure classes could go ahead amid lockdowns and travel restrictions. “What the pandemic has done is free up space for innovation,” says Kathy Harvey, associate dean of the MBA and executive degrees at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School. Some of the adjustments are likely to stick:
The MBA program at Oxford Saïd has cut its class sizes in half, from 80 students to 40. It was initially a response to the need for social distancing in physical spaces. Now the school has recognized the smaller class size also encourages more interactive discussion. “That’s in line with how Oxford sees teaching, which is very much conversation- and discussion-based, and very interactive,” Harvey says. Groups will be redrawn throughout the year so MBAs meet everyone in their program, and elements of teaching that moved to asynchronous online presentation will be kept to allow students to come better prepared for conversations. “We found a better way, and we don’t anticipate that we’ll stop,” she says.