One of the Osborne's classmates last spring, Larry J. Larkin, senior vice president of Equitable Life Assurance Society, says that before he came to AMP he approached business problems in a "global" way, but now breaks them down into smaller more workable parts. "I've changed my approach to situations. After using the case method I approach problems in a more systematic, analytic way," says Larkin.
But directors of two other top-rated executive education programs, Stanford's Executive Program and MIT's Program for Senior Executives, say they are skeptical of Harvard's exclusive use of the case study.
"Some courses don't lend themselves well to the case study method," says Fran Rinaldi, assistant director of Stanford's program. Rinaldi cites international economics and business-government relations as areas which need a more formal treatment.
The Stanford program cost companies $5000 less than Harvard's AMP, and it runs only once a year during the summer for only eight weeks. But Rinaldi says that some smaller corporations that can't afford to have their top workers away from the office for a long time prefer Stanford's shorter program.
MIT runs two nine-week program per year for the same price as Harvard's, and it also chooses an eclectic approach to teaching. "Our faculty are free to consider what teaching method works best to get their message across," explains Scott Duncan, administrative head of the MIT program.
Lorsch says one advantage the AMP has over the Stanford and MIT programs is that it isn't a "window" of its MBA program Stanford and MIT uses MBA professors for their exclusive programs while Harvard's professors as devoted exclusively for the AMP.
THIS YEAR'S AMP class boasts a 40 percent foreign enrollment. But it has only six women in a class of 160. Josephine A. Johnson, one of this year's female minority and vice president of Equitable Life Assurance's central services group, says she had a difficult first three weeks trying to adjust to living with seven male suitemates.
Johnson, who denies falling into the stereotype that depicts women as being less aggressive than their male counterparts in the business atmosphere, says she has more problems coping with AMP activities outside the classroom than inside, particularly socializing. "I've never had problems with classroom discussions. I participate in class even if I don't know all the answers," she says.
A graduate of last spring's AMP, Kathryn A. Paul of Kaiser Permanent Medical Care Program, was one of the four women executives in her program. Paul who says she didn't worry about making a quantitative input to AMP discussions. "It's not so much how much you say, but the quality of what you say." Paul says came to the AMP with a differentapproach to business problems from many of her classmates because Kaiser is a non-profit company. "I contributed to a different perspective in the classroom."