MBA Recession Course Catalog

Every year, business schools update their course offerings, taking into account professor availability and popularity with students. This year, some business schools are adding something new: classes about economic crises and how to manage a company during a crisis.

These new courses are geared toward teaching students about present and past global financial crises, how they begin, what happens during a recession (or depression), and how each crisis is resolved. At the same time, these courses also focus on the future, teaching students how to manage an organization during a crisis, and the different challenges and opportunities a downturn can offer. By studying economic crises, the hope is that students will be able to successfully weather today's economic storm--personally and professionally--when they graduate.

Here's a look at some of the new additions to the B-school course catalog:

University of Chicago, Booth School of Business
The Analytics of Financial Crises: "The class on financial crises is an advanced course that uses the tools of corporate finance to analyze financial crises. Much of the material will pertain to the most recent global crisis, but the class will also study past crises."

NYU Stern
Restoring Financial Stability: How to Repair a Failed System: As early as this past February, NYU Stern introduced a six-week course to current students as a knee-jerk reaction to the Wall Street crisis that the Manhattan program witnessed unfolding. In mid-December 2008, 33 Stern professors collaborated to write 18 White Papers and deliver them to 100 policymakers, including Congress and the Federal Reserve. "This collective effort has not only yielded a book, but also a six-week course offered to MBA students, taught by the White Paper authors. The course was oversubscribed within the first few hours, with 450 students registering."

Dartmouth Tuck School of Business
Economics of the Credit Crisis: The new Tuck 2012 program recently launched research-to-practice seminars that allow MBA students to delve into specific topics and collaborate with faculty research initiatives. One of the first courses analyzed the current credit crisis. Admissions Director Dawna Clarke described the seminar as "an in-depth look at the economic and financial issues of the credit crisis in the recent past, currently and in the future. A lot of the focus of the class is on what we learned from this credit crisis that can prevent it in the future." The course was first offered this spring and is slated to make a repeat performance this winter.

-Posted by Megan Cassidy