Wharton Faculty A-Z

Research at Wharton

Innovations in Education

Academic Departments

Centers and Initiatives

Publications

Conferences and Seminars

Research Resources

Industry Partnerships

Wharton has always been at the forefront of business education, from its founding as the first U.S. business school in 1881 to the launch of a new doctoral program in Ethics and Legal Studies in 2003. Wharton faculty and administrators continue to innovate by creating new courses that respond to changing needs in a complex world. Wharton graduates possess up-to-date knowledge, hands-on skills, and well-developed strategic abilities through a rigorous interdisciplinary business education and integrated leadership development.

Management Education with Breadth and Depth
Innovation takes place in the spaces between disciplines. That's why Wharton undergraduates integrate a full liberal arts foundation with the best business curriculum, why Wharton MBAs gain a solid general management background along with the opportunity to specialize, why doctoral students share research among departments and schools, and why Wharton faculty collaborate through more than 20 research centers and dozens of conferences. Wharton's commitment to interdisciplinary exchange and exploration is evident in its more than 20 joint- and dual-degree programs, and it filters through the broad range of coursework at every level. Wharton offers the largest MBA portfolio of electives (more than 200 in 11 departments) of any business school, then it expands those options through access to the full resources of the University of Pennsylvania and its 12 world-respected schools.

Curricular Innovation
As home to the oldest entrepreneurial center in a business school, Wharton continues a tradition of taking bold initiatives. The current MBA curriculum (which has become the blueprint for many other programs) was only one of many mold-breaking curricular innovations at Wharton. Wharton MBA and undergraduate programs have had ethical topics at their core since 1992, and over the years they have introduced ground-breaking majors, courses, and joint-degree programs in technological management, international business, entrepreneurship, health care management, and legal studies.

Research Insight in the Classroom
At Wharton, students learn from knowledge leaders — the faculty whose work shapes the global business community. Entrepreneurial and innovative, faculty members take risks and investigate new approaches in their research. They bring this wide-ranging experience to bear on their teaching by utilizing a dynamic mix of lecture, case study, and hands-on learning to choose the methods that work best for each topic. For students, this translates into full engagement with both the theoretical frameworks of effective management and the tools to put it into practice. They gain the skills needed for pragmatic implementation — understanding both the context and the impact of strategies and decisions across all functions of the organization.

Experiential Learning
Wharton believes that learning is an active process undertaken by each student in partnership with faculty. This focus on students has led to Wharton faculty's commitment to experiential learning — students learning through the process of doing. Students put hands-on coursework into practice through access to internships, international exchanges, hundreds of student-run activities, and participation in opportunities that include Field Application Projects, Global Consulting Practicum, Leadership Ventures, the Wharton Small Business Development Center, and the Wharton Business Plan Competition. Students have many opportunities to collaborate with professors and alumni outside the classroom, taking risks and trying out new ideas with the support of experienced mentors who provide ongoing coaching. Experiential learning means the knowledge is not only intellectually stimulating; it also produces business results.

New Learning Tools
Faculty continually develop new learning tools with Wharton's Alfred West Jr. Learning Lab to create technology-enhanced learning materials — simulations, web-based exercises, and interactive programs — to explore new paradigms for learning and instruction. The products developed by the Learning Lab engage students in real-world exercises that challenge them to apply principles they've learned across disciplines and business environments.

Now also being marketed by Addison-Wesley, recent projects developed by the West Lab and currently being used at Wharton include:

• CyberExchange, a distance-learning program that provides students with the opportunity to participate in a real interactive case discussion in two separate classrooms on two continents.
• Fare Game is a simulation of the air fare competition that emerged from Midway Airline's aggressive entry into the Milwaukee market in 1989. In Fare Game, students participate in a mock "fare war" to demonstrate how airlines compete and/or cooperate using fare cuts and hikes.
• The Online Trading and Investment Simulator (OTIS) takes financial instruction to a new level, allowing student "fund managers" to buy and sell equities using real data from today's markets.
• Futureview is a marketing simulation that tackles the challenges of marketing a product that's entirely new and unlike anything currently on the market.

Design for Learning
The design of Jon M. Huntsman Hall classrooms is an example of how Wharton faculty are involved in pushing the learning experience forward. Classrooms are carefully detailed to facilitate the learning experience with integrated technology, including the Wharton Lectern, video archiving, video conferencing, and sophisticated presentation systems. Wharton also offer electronic interaction such as the online research database Knowledge@Wharton, WRDS, Spike, WebCafe, and other interactive tools for learning, research, analysis, exchange, and communication.

Global Relevance
Wharton faculty engage in teaching and consulting on every continent. While nearly one-third are from outside the United States, every faculty member brings a global view of business into the classroom. In 2001, Wharton opened Wharton West to increase global presence and access and forged the Alliance with INSEAD in France and Singapore for global development and delivery of management education. Faculty have helped shape international joint and dual degrees for undergraduates and MBAs, as well as provided access to learning opportunities and exchanges with dozens of business schools and universities around the world.