Wharton Business School and QS redefine innovation: MBA News

The SEI Center for Advanced Management Studies at Wharton Business School and QS, parent company of TopMBA.com and producers of the QS World University Rankings, have joined forces to provide the first global competition for innovative teaching in higher education.

The ‘Wharton-QS Stars Awards 2014 – Reimagine Education’, aims to celebrate institutions of higher education which are striving to best serve the needs of 21st century students. The award focuses on innovative teaching; methods not constrained by the rigid structure of traditional higher education programs – e-learning, blended and classroom blended learning, for example.

“With dramatic changes  ... [in student expectations and technology] … we have to ask if the traditional models of teaching are still applicable,” says Jerry Wind, director of the SEI Center at Wharton Business School.

Founded in 1990, the SEI Center for Advanced Management is the world’s first think tank for management education. As a part of Wharton Business School, it benefits from the resources of an intellectual leader and innovator in business education. Since its inception, it has conducted global surveys, brought top executives and thought leaders to campus, sponsored conferences and engaged with issues shaping the future of business.

Finding innovative teaching

The Wharton-QS Stars award will have an independent panel of judges, consisting of a mixture of e-learning and traditional teaching experts to identify innovative teaching in the following areas: arts and humanities, engineering and technology, life sciences and medicine, natural sciences, social sciences, professional and executive education and the overall most innovative approach to teaching. Professor Wind believes the award will “leverage the wisdom of informed experts in education – to identify innovation [and] enhance the experiences of students around the world”.

The application deadline is 31st August 2014 and a three day global conference will take place from the 8th-10th December in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with a gala and a networking dinner. Leading entries from the global competition will be published in an e-book alongside the QS World University Ranking by Subject 2015.

However, identifying innovative teaching is only the first step: “We hope the innovations highlighted by these inaugural awards will be of huge benefit to the next generation of learners,” says Nunzio Quacquarelli, managing director of QS. Developing and promoting innovative teaching is the first, essential step towards developing future business leaders as finding these leaders won’t be possible without finding the right teaching. The Wharton-QS Star Awards 2014 marks the first step towards this end and the combination of Wharton Business School’s unparalleled resources with QS’s reputation as a world leading network for careers and education provide the means. We know how to find innovative teaching; all that’s left is to find the right innovative teaching.”