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Wharton and Graduate School of Education introduce
interdisciplinary program
Organizations that encourage
and facilitate a culture
of learning among employees
often outperform those
that do not.
Now Wharton has partnered
with Penn's Graduate
School of Education (GSE)
to launch an innovative degree
program to prepare
those leaders. The Executive
Program in Work-Based
Learning Leadership, the
first top-tier university program
of its kind, provides
a formalized education in
business, leadership, technology,
and strategy within
the context of work-related
learning. The goal is to
enable the learning leader,
often called the chief learning
officer (CLO) or head
of talent development, to
function at the same strategic
level as the rest of the
senior executives in their organizations.
The program
welcomes its first class in
January 2007.
The program allows students
to continue working
while they study. Doctoral
and master's students are expected
to ground their research,
their master's theses,
and their dissertations in
the workplace rather than in
academia. Individuals not
interested in a degree are
able to complete individual
course blocks relevant to
their needs and will receive
a certificate.
Both in the number of
students and in the amount
of money spent, workplace
learning now dwarfs higher
education.
"Most adults learn on the
job rather than in a formal
educational setting," said
Doug Lynch, vice dean
at GSE, which will grant
the degrees. "The average
Fortune 1000 company
spends 2.5 percent of its
operating budget on learning.
For many of these companies,
that amounts to tens of
millions of dollars." Because
many employees never
return to school, workplace
education often represents
the only opportunity for
employees to develop
new skills and gain new
knowledge that can have an
impact on their careers.
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