After more than two and a half years of review and planning, a faculty-wide decision last month brought to conclusion the Harvard Business School's Leadership and Learning initiative, a comprehensive process begun in 1992 to restructure the school's flagship MBA program.

The third in a series of votes to endorse the effort to revamp the MBA program, the faculty voted to proceed to implement a more integrated curriculum. In the 1992-93 school year, there were 13 required courses in the first-year curriculum.

The decision was reached after thorough consideration by faculty members, says Loretto Crane, the school's spokesperson.

"I believe that the vote would not have taken place if the concerns had not been addressed," Crane says. "Reflection about the changes was long enough and thorough enough."

The new structure "will yield a more decentralized program, where there is more accountability for performance, more customization for both faculty and students and a higher degree of choice," according to a written statement.

Two earlier votes adopted a vision statement, guidelines detailing characteristics and capabilities desired of program graduates and a year-round calender.

The vote will lead to the implementation of a Foundations module, consisting of short classes used to establish a set of terminology, skills and perspectives common to all course of the curriculum.

The program will also consist of required courses focusing on managing business operating activities and coordinating the enterprise with its external environment.

Other elements of the proposal include efforts to integrate "Career Development and Continuous Personal Improvement" into the curriculum, an increased emphasis in internationalization of the MBA Program with more global materials and an enhanced relationship between students and faculty, reported the Harbus News, the Business School's student newspaper.

Applications on the Rise

Although the Business School ranked fifth in the last U.S. News and World Report's annual list of top business schools, a drop from its previous third spot, it does not seem to be losing popularity among applicants.

Leadership and Learning's efforts to realign the MBA curriculum to meet new needs may be a force attracting more applicants.

Despite delays resulting from course changes and the decision to introduce a pilot MBA program next January to kick off the year-round calendar, applications in the first two admission rounds for the class of '97 increased 10 percent over last year, the Business School Admissions Office told the Harbus.

Applicants for the first round were left with only six weeks to submit applications after a two-week delay in the publication of application forms in October, the Harbus reported.

"Many people moved mountains to get their applications in on time," Director of MBA Admissions Jill H. Fadule told the Harbus.