Right before the pandemic took us all in unprecedented new directions, I had the honor of participating in Northeastern's third-annual Global Leadership Summit in Mumbai. There, I had the privilege of moderating a fireside chat with Mr. C.P. Gurnani, CEO of TechMahindra, and at the request of President Aoun, I used the opportunity to tell the audience more about D'Amore-McKim's strategic plan.

I passionately shared our vision that the synergistic combination of experiential learning and humanics education is the foundation for our future. I told the audience about our successful combined majors at the undergraduate level and our new MBA x concentrations at the graduate level, which exemplify how technology, data, and human-centered literacies (aka Humanics) can prepare our students for the future of work.

I realize now that I was poised to share all of this so easily in Mumbai because John Byrne, the editor-in-chief of Poets&Quants, had recently interviewed me on camera for a full afternoon about all of the innovative things we are doing at Northeastern. John shared the resulting video interview last week on his social platforms, for which I'm greatly appreciative! We talked about a lot of things, but the topics that were highlighted in the finished product touch upon all of the things I think are important to know about D'Amore-McKim's strategic direction.

D'Amore-McKim Dean Raj Echambadi On The Latest MBA Twist: MBAx

D'Amore-McKim Dean Raj Echambadi On The Latest MBA Twist: MBAx Opens in Modal

In addition to detailing how we're infusing humanics education into our graduate and undergraduate programs, I made sure to introduce these mindsets we want all of our students to have:

Global mindset

Global literacy is imperative for our students, and D'Amore-McKim is well poised to stand out in inculcating global literacy given our capabilities within our prominent International Business and Strategy group. We run a one-of-a-kind BS in International Business program, we have a strong bench of scholars who are experts in various regions of the world, and we have a vibrant Center for Emerging Markets that fuses research rigor with the relevance of the current global business world.

About 25 percent of our undergraduate student body is international, and 60 percent of our undergraduate students have global experiences like study abroad, global co-ops, and opportunities to participate in Dialog of Civilizations courses. Last year, we even pioneered a unique Global Engagement Program (GEP) that enables students to complete their first year in London – now they're getting ready to move to San Francisco for the next phase of their studies. In addition, our Full-Time MBA program has both an International Field Studies opportunity and a Global Projects course. In the end, our goal is to ensure that all of our students have the appropriate global literacy that will make them impactful leaders.

Entrepreneurial mindset

We have a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem within Northeastern. IDEA, our student-run and student-managed accelerator, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Mosaic, a quilt of student-run organizations that spans various colleges and is highly unique to Northeastern, helps foster this student-centric entrepreneurship learning. Our results are impressive: over the last three years, our student ventures have raised over $200M in revenues, speaking to the impressive interdisciplinary ecosystem that we have built here.

Beyond new ventures, our ultimate goal is to imbue an entrepreneurial mindset in all students. We want to lay the foundation for our future “Chief Entrepreneurial Officers” who will possess the ability to think differently and do more with less in order to solve the grand challenges of our times.

Lifelong learning mindset

The future of work requires people who are relentlessly curious with the ability to both learn and unlearn throughout their lives. As a content repository, D'Amore-McKim can provide “byte-sized” content for our students and learners to upskill and reskill themselves. As important as providing content in smaller chunks is the ability to articulate this content into bigger and better credentials such as courses, certificates, and degrees. This means that we must change our mindset to be in the business of education, not the business of degrees.

I've received so many positive reactions after sharing our story with John in San Francisco, as well as with the audience in Mumbai. These reactions solidify my optimism about our future. I believe D'Amore-McKim is in great shape because of our outstanding faculty, staff, and students. I'm also thankful for our alumni, community, and corporate partners for all their support. I look forward to continuing this work with all of you, which I'm confident will help place our college among the world's elite universities.

Raj Echambadi
Dunton Family Dean
D'Amore-McKim School of Business

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