F Forward-thinking approaches to pedagogical methods, curriculum enhancements and technology integration came under the spotlight during the first panel debate at this year’s Latin America Deans & Directors conference. Chaired by Virginia Lasio, former director of ESPAE Graduate School of Management in Ecuador, The MBA revolution session examined ideas and initiatives to help foster agile and industry-relevant MBA programmes that prepare future leaders to excel in an increasingly interconnected world. Veneta Andonova, dean of the Universidad de Los Andes School of Management located in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, began by referencing her school’s attitude towards technology, noting that it incorporates virtual reality into teaching sessions and aims to create novel environments in which to train its MBA cohort. In this digital age, she also singled out a refreshingly analogue approach: “We take our students out of the classroom and get them working [in the real world] on the factory floor in underprivileged communities.” Ann Olazábal, interim dean at Miami Herbert Business School, talked about the institution’s “complex portfolio of MBAs”, comprised of eight different ones in total, five of which are aimed at the early stage of an individual’s career, when students tend to be around 27 years old. Once they pivot to the next level and are managing a small team, they are most likely to enrol in a full-time, 21-month programme. Olazábal also shared that law students at the Coral Gables, Florida-based school join the MBA programme for a year to cross-utilise the content; the same holds true for medical students. Then there is an accelerated MBA course that can be completed in 10 months if the participant has been awarded a business degree at any point over the last five years, plus a 10-month programme split by embedded internship. How best to manage technology after the pandemic was the conundrum posed by Horacio Arredondo, dean of Egade Business School at the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico. He recalled that the school “really reflected on where to go next” and was willing to “push the boundaries” in terms of those initiatives related to the UN’s sustainable development goals and entrepreneurship.
Egade – where the average age of students is 28 – uses gamification to leverage engagement and the school is in the process of implementing an app to measure the impact. The Minecraft game in particular is used to develop projects that solve challenges; Arredondo explained how Egade is using gamification to work with convenience store chain Oxxo. With more than 20,000 outlets across Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru, the chain needs to work out how to dispose of the amount of rubbish that it generates and students are aiming to solve this issue via Minecraft. Andonova then touched on the concept of “leadership for life”; this covers a portfolio of programmes at Universidad de Los Andes that include sustainable development, as well as a master’s in regeneration. She urged the business school community to “connect with our students’ deep belief that sustainable development is something they should be focusing on”. We must, she added, “think in an inclusive way and respect the world as is before attempting to change it.” Miami Herbert’s Olazábal noted that “pedagogies are similar across programmes, although we do specialise in healthcare and real estate as we recognise the need to match what students
Virginia Lasio chaired as Horacio Arredondo, Ann Olazábal and Veneta Andonova debated how best to keep MBA programmes agile and industry-relevant
24 | Ambition | DECEMBER 2023/JANUARY 2024
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