What kind of new talent do we need in business today? How can we best prepare young citizens to participate in democracy? And how can undergraduate business education best equip students for their roles as both managers and citizens?

These questions are at the heart of the Aspen Undergraduate Business Education Consortium which is designed to strengthen undergraduate education in both the liberal arts and business, by focusing on curricular and co-curricular approaches that integrate the two. Our overarching objective is to explore how business education can do what the liberal arts and liberal learning arguably do best – helping students to make sense of the world and their place in it, and preparing them to engage responsibly with the life of their times.

The Consortium is structured around two highly interactive and participatory convenings. At each convening member schools gather for two days to share specific curricular and co-curricular ideas that tie the liberal arts and business training together in ways that resonate for today’s students – and for their employers.

We also engage with Consortium member schools in-between convenings via our website, CasePlace.org, by holding conference calls, hosting webinars on topics of interest, and conducting data collection for larger dissemination purposes.

The first round of convenings was convened in partnership with Anne Colby, Thomas Ehrlich and William M. Sullivan – the three lead authors on Rethinking Undergraduate Business Education: Liberal Learning for the Profession (Wiley, 2011).

Source: www.aspeninstitute.org