No, My Alma Mater’s Initiation Rite Isn’t Hazing
It’s a shame that Insead, one of the top MBA programs outside the U.S., has been forced to suspend a constructive tradition.
This isn’t “Animal House.”
Photographer: Gilles Bassignac/Gamma-Rapho via Getty ImagesThis year, my alma mater, the Insead business school in Fontainebleau, France, has been forced to suspend one of its key traditions, Welcome Week, after students complained that it constituted hazing. To me and at least a few other alumni, this is a worrying sign that the school, one of the best outside the U.S., could be catching an American disease known as terminal political correctness.
Insead is a 51-year-old school whose MBA program was ranked first in the world by the Financial Times in 2016 and 2017. This year, the London paper ranks it second after Stanford’s. Bloomberg Businessweek ranked it the No. 1 international business school in December 2017. With an 80,000 euro ($93,944) price tag, the one-year MBA program is fast-paced and stringent, and it usually pays off career-wise, so the fact that I graduated from it in 2003 shouldn’t discourage anyone. The long list of prominent alumni includes business leaders such as Credit Suisse Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam and Royal Dutch Shell Chief Financial Officer Jessica Uhl.