Bentley University News

The MBA is in trouble. Organized and taught in the same way for generations, the traditional MBA program is increasingly anachronistic.

I am a baby boomer, one of the many Americans approaching their dream retirement age. I am also one of the many baby boomers who has a little panic attack every time I look at my retirement accounts and my exposure to the whims of the stock market.

One of the questions that I often get as a financial planner (and one that I ask myself) is: Should I take money out of my retirement account to pay off the remaining balance on my home’s mortgage?

The answer: It may make you feel good, but it is an expensive decision.

In the past decade, the presence of women on the boards of public companies has been increasing virtually everywhere in the world — except in the United States.

Internationally, the 16.6 percent of female directors serving on U.S. Fortune 500 boards falls somewhere in the middle; Japan sits at slightly over 1 percent and Norway at 40 percent. But that U.S. number is only 3 percent higher than it was 10 years ago. 

The numbers are surprising, considering:  

During my time at Bentley, I took a variety of business courses. We all know that to be a successful business person in today’s world, you need a variety of skills and exposure to many different ways of thinking.

In one class, Professor Tim Anderson introduced the talking stick.

He explained to us that it was an ancient tradition. Whoever held the talking stick was the person talking. They could hold on to it as long as they wanted, say whatever they wanted  and everyone else had to allow them to speak and not interrupt.

When we talk about the importance of global business education, most people think about the integration of international business concepts into the curriculum, or opportunities to take students abroad.

Increasingly important, though, is the degree of international diversity in the classroom. A good example is our new Bentley University MBA, which brings together 13 international students from 11 different countries with six domestic students.

Did Occupy Wall Street provide the campaign’s subtext?

During the recent campaign Occupy Wall Street seemed to have disappeared completely. In fact, Occupy lurked just below the surface. Mitt Romney’s infamous remark that 47 percent of Americans are irresponsible mooches was an unhappy echo of Occupy’s 99 percent. When the GOP nominee later insisted that he cared about 100 percent of Americans, he nullified Occupy’s distinction between the 1 percent and the rest — just as his tax plan promised across-the-board cuts for all Americans, including the top 1 percent.

This fall, college student debt load has come into focus in the U.S. presidential campaign. Critics have a point. Many young graduates face tremendous debt from college loans. Many in private colleges, especially, rightly question whether the benefits of higher education outweigh the costs.

On September 11, 2012, Ambassador Chris Stevens was slain in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Stevens spent his life, and gave his life, to bring good will from the United States to the people of the world. We may never know all of the circumstances of Stevens’ death, but we do know this: ongoing protests against the U.S. in other parts of the world mean that we have not yet succeeded in building strong bridges. We don’t understand them, and they don’t understand us. Some even harbor resentment, which we also don’t understand.

Anyone experiencing the current political climate might easily conclude that our system of governing is either severely dysfunctional, even broken.  

If Mitt Romney is elected the next president of the United States in November, it will mark an epic milestone for his church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), better known as the Mormon Church.