Northeastern MBA Program, in Harvard's Shadow, Courts GE, Grace 2006-08-25 00:12 (New York) By Brian K. Sullivan Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Boston's Northeastern University is overhauling its MBA program to meet specs set by big employers such as General Electric Co. and W.R. Grace & Co. -- and give graduates a better chance of being hired by them. The goal is to carve out a niche for a master's of business administration program that is just a 10-minute drive from Harvard Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, said Dean Thomas Moore, who took the Northeastern post two years ago. Instead of competing for the top students who attend those prestigious neighbors, Moore is helping Northeastern turn out graduates who are custom-made to fit the jobs that companies need to fill. Help in designing the new curriculum came from employers including EMC Corp., based in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, State Street Corp. and FMR Corp., both in Boston, and Thermo Electron Corp., in Waltham, Massachusetts. ``We drilled down and said: `What is it that W.R. Grace really wants from our graduates? What is it that State Street Bank wants?''' Moore said. ``We went out and interviewed about 20 companies that hire our graduates.'' Starting with the new semester in September, students pursuing an MBA have a choice of three academic tracks. They may focus on supply-chain management, marketing or finance, instead of the more general curriculum Northeastern taught in the past. Trying to Move Up The revamping is winning praise for bringing employer perspective into the classroom, said Robert Franek, who edits Princeton Review's ``Best Business Schools'' books. Moore wants Northeastern to break into the top 50 MBA schools in the U.S., rather than being listed among the top 237. ``The Northeastern strategy is great,'' said Robert Howell, a professor at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business in Hanover, New Hampshire. Business schools must figure out what customers require and prepare students to meet those needs, Howell said. Bob Connors, president of GE Supply's logistics unit, has worked with Northeastern for years. The supply business, acquired two weeks ago by Paris-based Ray Acquisition SCA, sells electrical equipment from GE and other manufacturers. Connors said Moore's choice of supply-chain management as a study track is a good move. The new curriculum will give students the skills to run a company rather than go to Wall Street, Connors, 41, wrote in an e-mail. ``Wall Street buys and sells companies,'' he said. ``We build and improve companies. That's the differentiator.'' Seeking Middle Managers Ralph Miller, director of corporate information management for Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, agreed that he doesn't need candidates groomed to work at investment banks. He's looking for middle managers who can study problems, find a way to use technology to solve them, and present compelling reports to top officials. Miller joined alumni, hiring managers and executives in advisory board meetings to give Moore advice. Wellesley, Massachusetts-based Harvard Pilgrim, a health maintenance organization, decided to work with Northeastern because current MBA graduates often don't meet its needs. Clive Pinto, a human-resources adviser for W.R. Grace, also participated in the brainstorming. He said the Columbia, Maryland-based chemical maker benefits by gaining better access to job candidates and to academic research that could help solve problems it faces. On-the-Job Training Companies agreed to give students six-month internships after their first nine months in the classroom, Moore said. The opportunity to obtain a job with a leading company will help the school attract higher-caliber students, he said. ``The companies that hire graduates are our customers,'' Moore said. ``The students are our partners, and at the end of the day they are products.'' Princeton Review's Franek said he isn't aware of any other business schools that have entered into such close relationships with companies. Colleges need to offer MBA students tangible benefits because the students are older and have specific goals, he said. ``Their mean age is 28, as opposed to 22 or 23 years old for law school,'' said Franek, who's based in New York. ``They're not just getting an MBA to earn a professional credit.'' Top MBA programs such as Harvard and Dartmouth release annual data showing how much their newest graduates received in salaries and bonuses. Harvard headed last year's list with a compensation package of $174,580. Northeastern's MBA grads started at an average of $70,000. Dissenting Voice Moore's blueprint has critics, including Devi Vallabhaneni, president and chief executive officer of the Association of Professionals in Business Management in Chicago. ``Everyone is so quick to analyze what their customers need and customers can only say they need specialists,'' Vallabhaneni said. ``If you go to a company that is a manufacturer, they are going to say, `we need people who are better manufacturers.''' Vallabhaneni, a Harvard Business School graduate, said the danger is that the program could turn into a kind of trade school. Moore plans to guard against that by tracking students' progress for years after graduation. If alumni found that the MBA program only helped them land a first job and left them unprepared for promotions, it would indicate problems. ``If we had one customer, or two, or three, I would worry about being too insular,'' Moore said. ``But when you have 20 or 30 companies, they're giving you a view of the world that is very practical and applied but is not singular to a particular industry.'' --With reporting in Boston by Rachel Layne. Editor: Antonelli (bab/dfr) Story illustration: For the Northeastern University business program's Web site, see http://www.cba.neu.edu/grad/portal.cfm?nav=47 . To calculate the cost of a college education, see {EF }. To contact the reporter on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at (1) (617) 210-2631 or bsullivan10@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Josh Mills at (1)(212) 617-6899 or Jmills16@bloomberg.net