U-M Ross School of Business – Action-Based Learning
Article written for 
www.annarborbusinessmagazine.com
Action-Based Learning: that’s the unique approach to business education offered by the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business. And it is precisely this applied learning approach that enables Ross to lead in business education and help U-M better engage the business community.
Ross is an outstanding school. According to Business Week, Ross is ranked among the top ten business schools in the country for BBA, MBA, executive MBA, and part-time MBA. And in 2010, a Wall Street Journal poll of executive recruiters ranked Ross’s undergraduate program #1 in the country.
The Ross (www.bus.umich.edu) message is that the action-based learning approach as a key differentiator in the business education market. “The Ross difference is action-based learning. It’s an approach to business education that requires us to continuously create relevant, challenging ways to connect our students with the world of practice. No other method of learning can better prepare you to thrive in business and management today. After all, you can’t tackle the important challenges if you don’t know what the important challenges are.”
One of the reasons Ross has been successful with action-based learning is its ability to draw on the breadth of multidisciplinary resources available at the University as a whole through its institutes and centers organized to provide special program opportunities.
- The Frederick A. and Barbara M. Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise
- The Samuel Zell and Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies
- The Tauber Institute for Global Operations
- The William Davidson Institute (WDI)
- The Nonprofit and Public Management Center
Add to this a slew of other centers or initiatives: C.K. Prahalad Initiative, Center for Global Resource Leverage: India, Center for International Business Education (CIBE), Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS), Center for Venture Capital and Private Equity Finance, Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work (CREW), East Asia Management Development Center, Institute of Labor & Industrial Relations (Joint with Social Work), Mitsui Life Financial Research Center ,Paton Center for Research in Accounting, Office of Tax Policy Research, John R. and Georgene M. Tozzi Electronic Business and Finance Center , The Yaffe Center for Persuasive Communication.
Alison Davis-Blake is the new Dean at Ross (next month we interview Dean Davis-Blake for her thoughts on changes in business education). Davis-Blake acknowledges that the business school benefits from the wide range of resources available at U-M to equip its students to rise to the world challenges.
As she notes on her blog, “The great challenges of our day – whether they are related to financial systems, the environment, poverty, healthcare, or energy – can best be resolved through collaboration across multiple sectors. . . Multidisciplinary thinking, the ability to learn quickly from experience, and cross-cultural teamwork are essential skills for today’s global business leader. And no school is better equipped than Ross to help individuals and teams hone those skills.”
Davis-Blake takes over as Dean after Robert J. Dolan’s 10-year service as Dean (2001-2011). Starting with Dean Joseph White’s (1990 to 2001) development of the applied learning approach, Dean Dolan coined the “action-based learning” concept and united the Ross school brand under the well-known U-M block “M.”
In a welcome video for new Ross students, Dean Dolan articulates the Ross difference of enabling students to customize their business education by pulling from the plethora of U-M resources. “One differentiating factor of the Ross School of Business is we’re really not a very standardized place. We’re very much a customized curriculum. We often talk about the necessity of [students] co-creating the curriculum here at the school with us because we don’t have one little cookie cutter notion in mind.”
Ross is a leader and one of the best in business education action-based learning and a rich resource available to Ann Arbor area businesses. Davis-Blake reminds us that business schools continue to play a valuable role in our economy and the community. “The role of business schools in society is more important than ever, as we find ourselves at a critical inflection point in history. Leadership, creativity, and innovation are at a premium as business plays an increasingly significant role in addressing the globe’s most pressing social and economic issues.”
by David Baker and Margaret Baker
www.bakerstrategy.com
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