UVA Darden's School of Business, Dean Robert Bruner on What's Ahead for MBA's
Friday, May 22, 2009DARREN GERSH: The recession has been a painful time of market upheaval and economic crisis around the globe. For the MBA class of 2009, it brings fewer job offers and some unexpected wisdom. Yesterday, we heard from some of the students at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. While there, I asked their dean, Robert Bruner, whether the recession will ultimately be a valuable lesson for these grads.
ROBERT BRUNER, DEAN, UNIV OF VA, DARDEN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: It's difficult to say that pain is healthy and that dashed hopes and disappointment is healthy. But I think that in the long run this generation is going to emerge stronger and wiser because of this experience. I tell the students, you'd really rather have an experience like a crash early in your professional life than late. So this generation will probably emerge much more sane about risk taking, much more prudent about thrift and investing.
GERSH: So are they going to go out and make things as opposed to finance things? And is that what the economy needs right now?
BRUNER: That is the popular wisdom, but I will tell you that when I invite every class to Darden and welcome them, one of my standard questions is, how many of you want to run your own firm and really do things to serve society? Virtually the entire class raises its hand.
GERSH: And yet business schools train the people who brought us this financial crisis by and large. I'm wondering, is this a time for reflection at places like Darden among professors about whether or not you did the right thing?
BRUNER: No one can look at the events of the last two years dispassionately. No one can ignore the pain and dislocation that this has caused. I think we need to focus henceforth much more carefully on the way we think about risk, the way we assess it, the way we mitigate it. I think business schools need to embrace the consequences of the use of derivatives much more widely and help our students and the companies they serve use them more judiciously.
GERSH: But this gets to a very important issue which is whether or not there was something wrong with the mouse trap on Wall Street or whether the people who were running it were acting unethically. And so I'm wondering, does that mean that business schools need to pay more attention to ethics?
BRUNER: Ethics are a big concern. I think after this, the message for business school students and businesses will be a message about the importance of integrity in all business activities. I still think there's a lot more we need to do, mainly to help graduates -- not merely our own but graduates across board -- understand that their role must be to create value for society at large, rather than merely to extract value or shift value.
GERSH: Now, you can see more of our interview with Darden School Dean Robert Bruner on our web site, nbr@pbs.org.
