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In partnership with The Princeton Review, Entrepreneur magazine has compiled a list of 16 top schools for green MBAs based on a survey of students and administrators at 325 graduate schools of business.
The Princeton Review, the creator of a popular series of annual college guides, conducted the research during the 2009-2010 school year.
The findings led to the roster of schools that are considered "top-notch institutions for MBA students to get an education in green business," The Review and the magazine said in a joint statement.
Entrepreneur published the list in its April issue, which became available on newsstands yesterday.
The Princeton Review's website details each of the schools and provides data on academics, admissions, the student body, careers pursued by graduates, their average starting salary, tuition, and campus life and facilities. Entrepreneur provides summaries of the schools that include their green bragging rights and the "star tree huggers" among their alums.
The majority of the schools highlighted by The Review and Entrepreneur are frequently included in other "top green" lists.
Babson College, home to the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business, led the Bloomberg BusinessWeek rankings last spring for sustainability coursework for undergraduate business students.
Ten of the graduate schools -- Columbia Business School, Darden at the University of Virginia, Desautels at McGill, Kenan-Flagler at UNC Chapel Hill, Mendoza at Norte Dame, Portland State's School of Business Administration, Ross at the University of Michigan, Stern at NYU, Stanford's Graduate School of Business and the Wisconsin School of Business -- also appear in the various Top 10 rankings issued by The Aspen Institute in conjunction with the organization's most recent "Beyond Grey Pinstripes" survey. Conducted for more than a decade, the biennial survey gauges how well MBA programs are preparing students to tackle the environmental, social and ethical challenges of business.
Next page: The full list of Green MBA programs making the cut
It is true that most programs
It is true that most programs listed on this "Top 16 List of Green MBA's," are in fact representative of groups designated by Everett Rogers' theory of Diffusion of Innovation, as late majority-laggards. The programs reviewed by this article askews early adopters and early majority programs dedicated to holistically integrated sustainability, such as Presidio Graduate School and Bainbridge.
Most disturbing is how the very INNOVATOR of Green MBA programs, now residing at Dominican University of California; itself an example of long standing progressive education, in the leading state of California, continues to fall prey to social cognitive dissonance.
In the USA there is but one sustainability focused graduate MBA program that trains all candidates in advanced systemic science and critical thinking systems, the Green MBA. Most people do not know that advanced American study in this area can only be achieved at a doctoral level at MIT; so that the most highly trained systemic thinkers in sustainability today are the graduates of the most innovative, radically transparent and active community of leaders of sustainable enterprise, graduates of the Green MBA program at Dominican University of California.
It is a shame to the GreenBiz group, that they continue to actively publish assessments of excellent green business programs that favor celebrating laggards "jumping on the band-wagon" with token elective courses; while actively dismissing those programs that most embody the heart and spirit of true sustainability.
There are 3 problems with
There are 3 problems with this list.
1) They are all johnny-come-lately jump on the green bandwagon undergrad and grad programs that aren't actual "Green MBA" programs, and therefore have very little actual "Green" experience to speak of when it comes to building a GREEN Faculty, GREEN curricula, a GREEN ethos from TOP TO BOTTOM, and a GREEN vision and mission statement that actually is followed up on, and built on sustainability principles with a history of documentation with regards to "walking their talk".
2) Building on "for the sake of prospective"'s anonymous comment, these are not true "Green MBA" programs, they are actually just institutions who have "greened" their MBA programs up from before. They are not "Green MBA" programs in and of themselves. A real Green MBA program SHOULD be founded ENTIRELY upon Sustainability principles, so in other words this list is more of a "Green Your MBA" program, as opposed to a more legit "Green MBA" program. And that includes Stanford and Columbia, the only 2 "top" names widely recognized above.
3) In the criteria listed as factors that were taken into account to evaluate the schools, aside from what was already mentioned in the prior comments, 2 crucial tenets were either not present or at the very least not mentioned. One, NO mention was made of Sustainable Enterprise, i.e. a sustainable Entrepreneurial approach to curriculum and pedagogy, not just sustainable management mind you, but SUSTAINABLE ENTERPRISE, no mention at all; the 2nd crucial tenet missing was that there was NO mention of Systemic Thinking (which should be combined with the use of Systemic Tools for problem solving). As far as I know, there are only 3 legit "Green MBA" programs in the USA - (in alphabetical order) Bainbridge, the "Green MBA" at Dominican University, and Presidio. There may be others but I'm not aware of them (and they certainly aren't on the list mentioned in this article). If your "Green MBA" program that you're looking at doesn't mention things like Transformation, ending Business As Usual, going beyond the Triple Bottom Line, and looking beyond Sustainability principles to Regenerative principles, you're getting a half-baked program. Another test: Find out if the program you're looking at has an exclusively "Green" Business Accelerator, aka Incubator, not just an incubator that they're recently trying to "green", but one DEDICATED to Green Entrepreneurialism... To be blunt - real Green MBA's aren't greenwashed, a real Green MBA's core is Green, their underwear is Green, they bleed Green, and they bleed Green.
I am curious as to why
I am curious as to why Princeton Review does not include the true Green MBA at Dominican University of California? Perhaps this question should be posed to them, rather that you.
As an alumna of Bainbridge
As an alumna of Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI.edu), I appreciate the comment left by the anonymous person above. Many of these typical ranking providers will only rank schools who have AACSB accreditation. All of the MBA programs that are truly sustainable, i.e. have sustainability as a lens to every course as opposed to a handful of electives, are too young to be able to achieve AACSB accreditation at this time.
Additionally, some of the ranking systems require a payment as a part of the application process for a school to be considered.
For me, the top business programs for sustainability have these three things in common:
1. Sustainability is the theme running through every course.
2. The faculty are all as devoted to sustainability in business as the students are.
3. Sustainability covers environmental responsibility, social justice and economic/organizational systems equally.
Thank you to the 2 people who
Thank you to the 2 people who commented below. I've been a bit perturbed as to why most of the ranking systems don't include what I consider to be the only true Green MBA programs in the country! What they lack in accreditation they more than make up for in the quality of their sustainability curriculum. As a Green MBA student at Dominican University, I can attest that Dominican's program walks its talk by integrating sustainability into every single course, discussion, and activity. That can't be said of the MBAs on this list, who are only just beginning to consider sustainability. Most of them only offer sustainability as a concentration or a course or two, as though it doesn't influence every business decision and department.
I am glad to see that this discussion is entering the public domain on a wider scale as more and more schools and students understand that business as usual- unsustainable business- is just bad business. I would, however, like to see these truly innovative programs get the credit they deserve for aiding in this shift.
For the sake of prospective
For the sake of prospective students researching green MBA's, this article should explain why the Princeton Review (and the other reports) omitted the MBA programs dedicated to sustainable business. (Presidio Graduate School, Dominican, Bainbridge, etc)
There's a difference between treating "green" as an add on to business and integrating sustainability as a new way of doing business. One could argue that the dedicated programs are much farther along in terms of fundamentally shifting the way business is conducted.