University Park, Pa. (April 16, 2009) – Penn State's Smeal College of Business has launched a new capstone course for MBA students that has students work with third-party organizations to solve cross-functional business challenges while at the same time contributing to the greater good.
The four-credit Smeal ICE (Integrated Capstone Experience) course is being piloted this semester with three teams of MBA students and will officially launch in the spring 2010 semester as a requirement for all second-year MBAs. The course is designed to develop students' leadership and professional skills by working on a real world business problem.
Each team works directly with a sponsoring organization to develop solutions to a business challenge currently facing the organization. All of the projects must be cross-functional in nature so that students use the full spectrum of knowledge and skills that they have acquired at Smeal. Consistent with Smeal's philosophy that business leaders need to understand that success is more than just the bottom line, each project must also serve society in some way beyond the financial success of the sponsoring organization.
"We've always done a great job at Smeal developing the managerial skills and abilities of our students," says David Lenze, who developed Smeal ICE and serves as its director. "But Smeal ICE goes beyond that. In addition to making sure that our graduates are ready to tackle the challenges they will face in their careers, the program seeks to develop true leaders who see the big picture and appreciate that business today significantly affects society far beyond the boardroom."
Smeal ICE is a component of the college's new MBA curriculum, which was instituted this year to increase opportunities for students to gain practical experience as well as enhance the program's focus on communication, leadership, and teamwork skills. The revamped curriculum is the result of a faculty review of the program along with feedback from alumni and recruiters.
This semester, the pilot sponsoring organizations are Dell, the Coalition of Cancer Cooperative Groups, and Penn State's Intellectual Property Office.
The Dell team is tasked with developing a strategy to improve the company's net asset recovery rate of its reverse supply chain (product returns). The goal is to find a way for Dell to capture more of the value from its product returns by putting a higher percentage of the product back in the market and not in landfills.
The Coalition of Cancer Cooperative Groups is a nonprofit dedicated to improving the survival and quality of life of cancer patients through increased participation in clinical trials. As part of that mission, the Coalition developed TrialCheck®, a Web-based information and software system that screens patients and matches them with existing cancer clinical trials located near their homes. Smeal's team is working with the Coalition to develop a detailed business plan for TrialCheck that will increase revenues for the organization while making the service available to more patients, who pay no fee to use the service.
The Smeal team working with Penn State's Intellectual Property Office is helping to evaluate the commercial potential of a patent pending "carbon capture" technology created by Chunshan Song, Penn State professor of fuel science and chemical engineering. Song's invention is a two-step process that removes carbon dioxide from power plant emissions much more efficiently than currently available technologies. The challenge for the team is to evaluate the various options and to recommend the best alternative to bring this technology to market.
Teams of three to five students work on the projects for 14 weeks in the spring semester. Before the work begins, the sponsoring organization works directly with Smeal faculty to discuss the project, set goals, and define deliverables. Throughout the semester, the organization’s primary liaison collaborates with the Smeal team and provides feedback, evaluates performance, and reviews reports from the MBAs. The projects culminate with a formal presentation of each team's findings and recommendations.
ICE is different from most other student practicum programs in three ways. First, ICE projects all address cross-functional business challenges. Conversely, most practicum programs have projects that are focused on a specific function such as marketing, supply chain, or finance. Second, ICE comes in the last semester of study whereas most practicum experiences happen either the first year or earlier in the second year. This timeline provides a true capstone experience in which students can apply all of the skills and knowledge that they have gained throughout their MBA experience. Finally, ICE teams have a very high level of faculty engagement. In addition to meeting with their supervising faculty member each week, students have access to the other MBA faculty who provide support in their specific areas of expertise.
Sponsoring organizations can be public corporations, private businesses, nonprofits, entrepreneurs, or any other organization facing a cross-functional problem that will also serve society in some fashion beyond the organization's bottom line. The immediate benefit to the sponsoring organization is the value provided by the Smeal team and a fresh perspective on their business. Moreover, they get direct access to Smeal's talent pool and the knowledge that their involvement is helping to produce MBAs who are better prepared for the leadership challenges facing the business community.
For more information on Smeal ICE or for consideration as a sponsoring organization, contact David Lenze at dlenze@psu.edu.