Knowledge@Wharton

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For Wharton, using technology in the educational process is a given. What’s not so clear is how to use technology to create economies of scope, not scale. Many schools are essentially saying we can create educational nuggets and shove them down distribution channels either in a classroom or over the Internet with the goal of selling to a lot of people. This is not the educational business we want to be in.

Students who come to Wharton should expect instruction on any relevant issue, and if we don’t teach it, we will use technology to deliver the world’s expert to your classroom. Doing more than we currently do rather than taking what we have and offering it to more people. It’s a very different view. We are evaluating the best way to teach particular course concepts, be it via lecture, case study, project, software or by linking with other schools and learning communities via the Internet.

In our executive education programs, we’re seeing more and more interest in not just teaching a standard course but working closely with companies to create custom programs with custom content to not only teach their senior executives but also to drive those perspectives down into the whole organization. We can’t do that by bringing all those people to West Philadelphia. We have to take West Philadelphia to them.

We’ve learned a lot from the Wharton Direct experiment. We learned that it’s not distance education or on-campus education, it’s the mix that works. It’s not about the technology. It’s about the appropriate technology for the content. There are some things you can only learn via case discussion. There are some things you can learn better using the computer. We have to break out of this mindset that says one size fits all.

Are you surprised to find yourself in this role?

Harker: Yes. When I assumed the deputy dean’s position last year I had no real thought of becoming dean. But the challenge of the position appealed to me. We are at a very exciting time in our history, and it’s fun being on the cutting edge.

Are business schools as relevant as ever in this dot-com era in which some suggest that education is less important than executing a good idea quickly?

Harker: Business schools are incredibly relevant in the dot-com era. The kind of knowledge that we are providing will not go away. Yes, you can start up a dot-com, but at some point you have to run it. And it’s easier to run when it’s in your garage. When it involves a thousand people, then you may have a problem. Lots of dot-coms start up, and then the venture capitalists parachute in an MBA to run the company.

When I meet with our alums, particularly our young alums in Silicon Valley, they tell me that the one advantage they have over many of their peers is the broad understanding of business they have. People without the MBA or the undergraduate degree really only understand a narrow slice of business. You can’t just be a cowboy. You can do that for a little while in the dot-com world, but sooner or later you have to turn a profit. The world is moving so fast that people think they don’t need to know those basics, but they do. Gravity still works and there are still some fundamentals of business, which we have to reinterpret and challenge with the dot-com revolution all around us, but that are no less vital.

What would you like to be remembered for as dean?

Harker: I would like for us to take the school to the next level and create a true community of learners where the boundaries between teacher and student start to be broken apart. In the end, the university should be a hub, or in dot-com parlance, a portal, where we bring the best of knowledge to the university and take the university’s knowledge out to the world.

How would those who know you well describe you?

Harker: In my blood, I am a teacher. It sometimes drives my kids crazy because I’m always instructing them. I’ve thought about a lot of things I could do with my life, but this is what I was genetically wired to do. But you can’t be a good teacher without doing research. People come here for perspective. And if a faculty member isn’t thinking new things and challenging the orthodoxy of a field or discipline, then the teaching is vacuous.

What special strengths do you bring to this post?

Harker: I have a lot of energy and I have a pragmatic vision. I have very clear view of where this place needs to go and I know that there’s a set of practical steps we have to take to get there. And we will be very aggressive in taking those steps. Our goal is to break out of time and space and create a community of learning any time and any place and really rethinking the very notion of education.

Whom do you most admire?

Harker: Two people: the first is my mother. My father died when we were young, and so my mother raised us on her own, and with real grace. She took care of her mother as well so there was a real sense of service. The other person is my father-in-law, Thomas Saaty, who was a Wharton faculty member years ago. He doesn’t settle for the status quo. He always pounded into my mind the sense that you have to keep striving for excellence.