I. Find out and say how you understand:

1. HBS, MBA;

2. a NBS formula, an MBA programme, B-schools;

3. teamwork, more integrated courses, forced grading curve.

II. What is meant by:

A radical blueprint for sth; to shift classwork into fewer integrated courses; to increase student diversity; to downplay the likelihood of sth; insiders; to install revisions; to do away with the traditional courses; to revamp.

III. Find English equivalents for:

Быть решительно настроенным сделать ч-либо; согласно плану, предложению; быть одобренным, получить признание; придавать новую форму, содержание; даваться легко; предвещать; весомая реформа; жесткая шкала оценки успеваемости; сократить, ужать до каких-то размеров; разбить учебный год на три семестра; курсы по какому-либо предмету; соответствовать ч-либо; утечка информации; быть принятым (о программе); отменить, избавиться от.

IV. Say what is implied in the lines below.

1. "At HBS, change does not come very easily, and when it does, it comes in incremental steps."

2. Under the plan, the school would deemphasize its fabled case-study mode of instruction, long heralded as a major advantage over competing programs.

З.The consolidation, according to confidential documents obtained by Harbus would change an "increasingly fragmented required curriculum to one that consciously seeks to integrate and unify the essential concepts and skills of management and leadership.

4."I don't think this is a new paradigm," says Edward A. Fox.

5. Still, Harvard being Harvard, the proposed remake of the business school seems destined to disturb some sacred cows. 6."It's not a revolution, but it's definitely a step in the right direction."

7. There’s no forced curve, after all, in Corporate America.

V. Points for discussion.

l. What revamp is the article centered on? Make a list of proposed overhauls in curriculum, teamwork, grading, admissions and dwell upon them. Why do not changes come easy?

2. Do the modifications constitute a new paradigm? Will they be successful?

З. Соme out with your suggestions concerning possible modifications to Russia's higher education system. What things should be done away with and what should be ushered in?

Getting Down to Cases

Some of Harvard B-school’s influential case studies will finally feature women executives

When her father and his business partner both died suddenly in the same month, Victoria Jackson was just 22 years old and about to graduate from college. She quickly junked plans for a career in fashion and took control of their Nashville diesel-parts distribution company. Jackson earned her M.B.A. from Vanderbilt on the weekends and then, based on a B-school paper she wrote, expanded the business into manufacturing. Within six years, the company had doubled its revenues and leaped into the top five in its field.

Jackson’s is the sort of story that might inspire and instruct young businesswoman. But they won’t learn about it in America’s business schools. While most M.B.A. courses are based on real-life case studies, few include tales of women in prominent roles. Jackson, now 42, recalls that during her entire two-year M.B.A. program, only a single case featured women – and they were production-line workers dubbed “the girls”. While the number of women in senior management has swelled by some 60 percent in the past decade, gains in the boardroom have yet to penetrate the classroom. The few cases involving women, while not as overtly sexist as the one Jackson encountered, have still tended toward the stereotypical, centering on executives at companies such as Mary Kay Cosmetics and Tupperware.

Now an elite group of women business leaders wants B-schools to break their own glass ceiling. The Committee of 200 (C200), which Jackson chairs, plans to donate half a million dollars to Harvard Business School to develop more women-centered case studies. The committee, named 15 years ago in the hope that there might one day be 200 top female execs, now boasts 380 members. An antidote to the old boys’ club, C200 has focused on networking and mentoring. But Marjorie Alfus, a former Kmart executive, wanted a more formal effort. She donated $250,000, matched by C200, to launch the case-study initiative. When Harvard kicked in $500,000, the project had a $1 million imprimatur.

Despite the handsome dowry, the marriage of C200 and the famed business school seemed a strange match. Harvard’s B-school has a dismal record on women’s issues and is hardly in need of C200’s money. “If Harvard had really wanted to focus on this, then they could have done it,” admits C200’s administrator Anna Lloyd. And C200 has a history of successful alliances with other, more progressive schools like Columbia and Simmons. But the group couldn’t pass up Harvard’s prestige and its reach; it peddles more than 5 million case studies a year to schools around the world. “This is a legacy,” says Jackson.

Harvard’s legacy from the deal may be a badly needed image makeover. The B-school gave tenure to its first female professor in 1962 – but didn’t do so for another woman until 1980. Recent efforts to hire more female faculty and to host seminars on women’s issues haven’t turned things around. Female enrollment has stubbornly remained below 30 percent, even while it has climbed above 37 percent at rival Columbia. “It’s really a marketing challenge,” says Harvard Business School Dean Kim Clark.

Clark concedes that Harvard’s previous efforts to revamp its case studies have been ad hoc. Myra Hart, a founder of the Staples office-supply chain and a Harvard assistant professor who will coordinate the new program, relies on a handful of women-centered case studies in her entrepreneurship classes. One tells the story of Monique Maddy, an HBS grad who set up a new phone system in Tanzania. “I want to make sure my students see women like them, a few years out, being successful,” says Hart. She now plans to tap the women of C200 for their experiences, which could hit classrooms next semester.

Still, not everyone is dazzled by the new alliance. “It’s about time Harvard discovered women,” says Pat O’Brien, dean of the Simmons Graduate School of Management in Boston, an all-women’s M.B.A. program founded 23 years ago by two female professors who fled sexism at Harvard. Simmons’s own library of 100 cases all feature women – a collection that, ironically, was funded with seed money from Harvard. O’Brien, who had also vied for the C200 grant, worries that new cases won’t have much impact in an environment that’s fundamentally not congenial to women.

That’s hardly Harvard’s problem alone. While women’s enrollment has reached parity with men’s at law and medical schools, it still lags far behind in M.B.A. programs. At the University of Michigan Business School, which is undertaking a major study of the problem, Dean B. Joseph White cautions that “just adding women and stirring will not produce change.” Maybe not, but any recipe for change has to begin with the right ingredients.

Debra Rosenberg

/Newsweek, May 11, 2004/

Set Work

1. Practice the pronunciation of the words. Translate them into Russian.

Dowry, dismal, tenure, seminar, congenial, caution, recipe, ingredient, legacy, stirring.

2. Define the words and word combinations below. Say how they were used in the article.

To junk plans for a career, case study, production-line worker, to swell, [to break] a glass ceiling, exec, mentoring, dowry, to kick in, a dismal record, to pass up, to peddle, tenure, to host seminars on smth, to revamp, to concede, entre, to be dazzled, to flee sexism, seed money, congenial, to reach parity with smb.

3. Find in the article the English for:

Расширить бизнес, удвоить доход, женщина на руководящей должности, высшее руководство, нескрываемый, выступить с инициативой, приличный (не маленький), альянс, срочно необходимая смена имиджа, женский персонал, это не изменило положение вещей, неуклонно, ориентироваться на женщин, кучка, предпринимательство, описывать.

4. Say what you know about:

Nashville, Vanderbilt, HBS grad, C200, M.B.A., B-school, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Tupperware, the Staples, Harvard, Tanzania, Boston, Michigan.

5. State the difference between:

Overt – covert

6. State the idea behind the following lines:

1. Within six years, the company had doubled its revenues and leaped into the top five in its field.

2. … gains in the boardroom have yet to penetrate the classroom.

3. But Marjorie Alfus wanted a more formal effort.

4. Despite the handsome dowry, the marriage of C200 and the famed business school seemed a strange match.

5. But the group couldn’t pass up Harvard’s prestige and its reach.

6. “This is a legacy,” says Jackson.

7. Clark concedes that Harvard’s previous efforts to revamp its case studies have been ad hoc.

8. She now plans to tap the women of C200 for their experiences, which could hit classrooms next semester.

9. Maybe not, but any recipe for change has to begin with the right ingredients.

7. Sum up the key points of the article.

8. Comment on the headline.

9. Points for discussion:

1. Is the increasing number of women in senior management for the better?

2. Do businesswomen differ from businessmen? Are they more successful?

3. Is it better to be taught by a male or female college professor?

Europe's New Leader in Education

Holland plays host to a multicultural student community

Providing quality schooling from primary through univer­sity level and beyond, the Dutch education system pro­duces an exceptionally well qualified labor force widely cited by foreign com­panies as one of the Netherlands' biggest assets. "The general level of education /and training of our Dutch staff is clearly very high," says John Holloway of the U.K.-owned advertising agency KMM Amsterdam. "What stands out particular­ly is their very high level of computer lit­eracy and language ability."

In addition to the state system, private international schools and government-run and subsidized "English stream" schools throughout the Netherlands are well geared to deal with the educational needs of foreign students at all grade levels.

French expatriates can choose to send their children to the Lycée Francais in The Hague, Americans to the American School of The Hague and Britons to the British School of Amsterdam. For a more interna­tional orientation, parents can opt for a network of 15 government-subsidized schools, including the International School of The Hague, which offers an English-Language curriculum leading to the widely recognized International Baccalaureate.

International school programs differ from the Dutch state education system which, like other countries in continental Europe, makes an early distinction between academic and vocational education. Following eight years of primary education—which include English classes-the ninth and tenth grades are transitional years for all Dutch schoolchildren, after which they are tracked and sent to either academic or vocational secondary schools.

The less academic may take a four-yea vocational course, generally followed by a apprenticeship. The more academically inclined of these students follow an advanced four- or five- year general course usually leading to a vocational diploma pre gram at one of the country's technical colleges. The most academically gifted take six-year pre-university course and go on t one of the Netherlands' 14 universities.

Multicultural Schooling

The newly formed government of Prime Minister Wim Kok has announced plans to cut the average university degree course from four years to three, tо the consternation of some who fear that students will lose their edge. But Dr. J. Wil Foppеn, dean of the presti­gious Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), believes that shorter undergraduate courses may well benefit Hol­land's top postgraduate business schools. "Peo­ple looking for a really good business education will increasingly be turn­ing to the specialist schools, and our position can only get stronger," he says. "We will, howev­er, have to ensure that an extra influx of Dutch students does not affect our international character."

RSM's focus on the role of information technology in business administration sets it apart from its competitors. But, like many Dutch business schools, RSM prides itself on the multicultural, interna­tional nature of both its student and teaching bodies. The school's 200 stu­dents are typically drawn from up to 40 different countries.

Webster University maintains one of its four European campuses in the western city of Leiden, offering American-style undergraduate programs and postgradu­ate MBA options in finance, international business, management or marketing.

The Maastricht School of Management (RVB/MSM), previously known as the Netherlands International Institute for Management, runs what it describes as a global multicampus program offering MBA programs in 12 different locations, including .Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Cairo, Cyprus and New Delhi.

The school is currently | talking with educational; institutions in Johannes-burg and Shenzhen in China about setting up new MBA programs, according to school director Dr M.S.S. Namaki. "We control the curriculum and study modules, and at least 50 percent of the teaching staff is employed by RVB/MSM," he ex­plains. "We now have more than 500 students worldwide, with a cur­riculum that reflects the global nature of our school."

The Netherlands Institute for MBA Studies (NIMBAS), based in the central city Of Utrecht, offers students the chance to acquire the U.K's highly regarded Brad­ford University MBA degree in programs it runs in Holland and in Essen, Germany.

"Our staff come from some 9 coun­tries, and our students from 28," says NIMBAS director Josephine Borchert-Ansinger. "We offer four different MBA programs, which can be completed in one or two years, as well as a range of programs for executives from companies like AT&T, Exxon Chemical, British Petroleum and Unilever."

NlMBAS's newest venture is a unique two-year, part-time European executive MBA program. "This is a modular MBA that runs in the Netherlands, the U.K., France and Germany," says Borchert- Ansinger. "Each module is a nine-day residential course, so executives will be away from their desks for only one working week at a time. It's probably the most flexible MBA program available in Europe."

Educational opportuni­ties in the Netherlands are a double draw for foreign businesses. The system turns out a top-notch work force and also provides a fair array of international and government-support­ed specialized schools serving foreign nationals, thereby eliminating a major hurdle in the relo­cating process for them and for their families.

Steve Boommark

/Newsweek, Nov. 21, 1994/

Set Work

1. Transcribe and practice the pronunciation of the following geographical places:

a) The Netherlands, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Cairo, Cyprus, New Delhi.

(* Be ready to show them on the map)

b) Maastricht, Amsterdam, The Hague, Johannesburg, Shenzen, Leiden.

(*Say what you know about them)

2. Say how you understand:

To play host to sth/sb; quality schooling; high level of computer literacy and language ability; to be well geared to deal with the educational needs; to be tracked (about pupils); to follow an advanced course; to lose one's edge; multicultural nature of student and teaching bodies; to run a multicampus program; study modules; a double draw for sb; the relocating process .