Chris Blattman

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The perils of a liberal arts education?

Together with representatives of the university, Bell [Telephone] set up a program called the Institute of Humanistic Studies for Executives. More than simply training its young executives to do a particular job, the institute would give them, in a 10-month immersion program on the Penn campus, what amounted to a complete liberal arts education.

…But Bell gradually withdrew its support after yet another positive assessment found that while executives came out of the program more confident and more intellectually engaged, they were also less interested in putting the company’s bottom line ahead of their commitments to their families and communities.

By 1960, the Institute of Humanistic Studies for Executives was finished.

In the NY Times.

2 Responses

  1. um well there is no point having some ‘community minded’ executives if they can’t get executive jobs (because they suck at being executives)

  2. “less interested in putting the company’s bottom line ahead of their commitments to their families and communities.”

    Sounds like a good thing to me.

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