Chapter 1: The MBA Program and Two New Arrivals

College is supposed to change you, right? But this way?

Harbridge College was just the place you might expect an idea like this one to spring up. One hallmark of their educational curriculum was Innovation. They sought innovations in what they taught, how they taught, where they taught, and who they taught, all in the overall ambience of the beautiful tree-lined campus in Dillon, Massachusetts – a suburb of Boston.

Harbridge must have been doing something right because what had started as a small liberal arts college in the 1900s in a Boston suburb, had quickly blossomed into one of the top business schools in the country, particularly in the areas of business and innovation. They now had about three-thousand undergrad students, many commuting from nearby, and a graduate school of over five-hundred students.

Dr. Joe Basehart was one of the few tenured professors at the college. He didn’t care; tenure wasn’t what turned him on or motivated his achievement. The school had abolished tenure about ten years earlier, the year after Joe received the honor. He advocated for its elimination. He’d been one of the mainstays in the college’s MBA program for the past seven years.

Joe sat in one of the annual curriculum planning meetings. Tim Harding, the president of the college, asked him, “So, you said you have an idea for the MBA program that you wanted to float by this group because it needs top-level approval? Tell us about it.”

Joe nodded and the other six members of the committee and several deans shifted their attention to him. He said, “This is not an entirely new idea, but adapting it to our college and to the Masters’ of Business Administration curriculum probably is. What I propose is a live-in, residential program for some two-year MBAs. A faculty member would live with some grad students, probably in one of the houses on the edge of campus. They’d foster continuous discussions with the students in the house, and help mentor them. We all know that we only see some students once a semester. This would make it almost daily. They’d have meals together daily. That person would constantly challenge them, everything about their thinking, their lives, how they behave, and so on.

“The students would come and go, take mostly the general curriculum for the MBA degree, but their interaction with each other and in the confines of their living quarters would be more intense and more around the clock. The goal would be to turn out a higher and deeply educated and aware graduate.

“The students would also do some internships at companies in the surrounding area the way the work-study undergrads do – two weeks to two months, but they’d continue to live in the special housing and share their experiences with others in the house – even daily or nearly so. There’d be a prescribed set of things they had to learn about or do for their sponsoring company, too. We do some of this already.

“For their usual grad courses in management, operations, analytics, and innovation, their assignments might be a little different given the intensity and live-in nature of the rest of the program. We’d be fostering more of a team coherence, and more entrepreneurship. We might even have them create and launch a business, but that could come later.”

There were dozens of questions that Joe fielded with élan. In the end, partly demonstrating both Joe’s power of persuasion and the willingness to try something different, his suggestion was approved providing that he ran the program and that he was the one to live with the students. He was urged to get various descriptive materials together, arrange for the house, and then win over some test subjects from the MBA candidates that would arrive to start on their degrees the following August.

One thing innovative faculty at Harbridge learned was how to harness the power and thinking of their students. Joe captured the interest of four students in the regular MBA program to assemble the various elements of the Harbridge College Residential MBA Program – all for special credit and letters of recommendation, of course.

The four – Jeff, Donna, Sarah, and Sam – quickly divided the effort in constituent parts. Jeff worked on the physical plant for the program – the building, contents, and other facilities needed. Donna worked on the curriculum for the special program and enlisting faculty support. Sarah took on the marketing effort, including the preparation of brochures and other descriptive materials for the college’s website. Seth was a numbers man; he worked on the costs, special charges, and all the rest of the financials to bring the program into fruition.

After many planning and working sessions, the Joe met with the students to review their work. Jeff went first, and, of course, he’d coordinated with his unique classmates.

The Residential MBA Program would be based in Colburn House, an especially large pair of stately homes next door to each other with a relatively new connecting addition between them to triple the space. The house was on the distant edge of campus and across one of the town roads, so it was somewhat isolated. There was a short walk to the building where the graduate classes were normally held.

Jeff filled in some details, “There are ten studio apartments in the house, and two complete multi-room apartments resembling some of the married student housing on the other side of campus. There is one common kitchen in the central addition, a large common living room and dining room that can be the space for the graduate seminars and discussions, as well as a large television. A makeshift gym exists in one of the basements with some weights, a treadmill, and an elliptical. The home had been used by the Department of Languages as an immersive environment for seniors, so it’s in pretty good shape.”

Joe questioned, “So, if we wanted everybody in the program under one roof, we could admit ten single students and two married couples?”

Jeff smiled, “Actually, as we got into how the program would run, we saw you and your wife as living in one of the apartments so you were close to the action, so to speak.”

Joe pondered that assumption. He already had a large home about a mile from campus. He’d have to talk to Marjorie about living in other quarters. Marjorie was one of the most brilliant people he’d ever met – a blind date for a dinner party twenty-two years earlier when he was in England presenting a student paper that he’d written on innovations in the pharma industry.

Marjorie sold very high-end real estate in and around Boston. She wasn’t interested in properties that would sell for less than two million. Given the way real estate commissions worked, she regularly pocketed several hundred thousand dollars from a sale, giving her an annual income well into what one of her multi-million-dollar homes might sell for in total.

Marjorie was British, and had grown up in Surrey, the daughter of a member of the House of Lords. She was conservative in manner, but a free-thinker in her approach to work – a magnificent example of rule-breaking in a fairly structured business. She belonged to Mensa. Joe and Marjorie had one daughter, Emma, who was a junior at the University of Chicago.

Donna went next. She passed out a thick sheaf of pages with dense print describing the entire curriculum for the Residential MBA Program. Included were details for a thrice weekly discussion group among all participants listing the topics and major points to be sure were addressed. The traditional courses were merely addressed by reference to the college’s course list.

Sarah took up the third slot in their presentation. She called up on a large screen in the room the future website for the Residential Program. It included a complete prose description of the program along with a series of innovative graphics to draw people into the program and make them want to participate. There were pictures of Colburn House. Her theme was, ‘Are you really innovative?’

Sarah then spoke, “I’ve prepared several separate brochures and mailers regarding the program to be sent to accepted candidates. If we can mail within the coming month, we’ll be able to capture a few candidates from those the college has already accepted for the regular MBA program.”

Joe gestured and said, “Make it happen, please.”

Sam went last. “Fundamentally, we can offer the program, room, and board, for the same amount as the regular grads in the program that live on campus. There are some assumptions in that. First, we can get service from the cafeteria caterers for the three meals a day. I took the liberty of negotiating that with Marriott, who provides that service for the college in the regular cafeteria at the student union. They’ll deliver to Colburn House. Second, the people living in the house clean their own quarters. We’re not providing maid service for the home or any part of it. The exception is the maintenance of the heated pool and Jacuzzi in the backyard; there’s already a service that handles those things and the college routinely does the landscape service.” He sat back down to show he’d finished. Everyone had copies of his spreadsheets in front of them.

Joe asked the group, “Pitfalls or potholes?”

The four shook their heads. Sam said, “The only one I see is getting ten students, a married couple, and your wife to join you in this endeavor.” He laughed when referring to Joe’s wife. They’d all guessed it would take some salesmanship.

A week later on a Saturday afternoon, Joe escorted Marjorie into the enlarged ‘double home’ on Forest Avenue in Dillon. Marjorie was impressed with the furnishings. She liked modern and the Danish style.

Joe said, “The two apartments in the unit are on this floor on the south end or upstairs over it. They look about the same to me. I think I’d pick this one because it’s more in the center of things.”

Marjorie strolled through the open door into the apartment on the first floor. “If you’re supposed to be the Big Cheese for this, you should be on the main floor so you’re more accessible.” The apartment had a living room, its own kitchenette and dining area, a three-quarter bath between the living room and a guest bedroom, and then a master bedroom with an ensuite bath.

She turned, “When I went to Cambridge four of us girls lived ins something like this. We had a lot of fun. This IS small, but I can live with it for a couple of years – providing I can go camp out in our regular home part of the time. My answer is yes, go for it.”

Joe breathed a sigh of relief. He thought it’d be a much tougher sell.

Marjorie added, “There are a few requirements, however.”

Joe moaned internally. “What might those be?”

“I want to attend some of the discussion groups. I read through the pile of pages one of your chippies put together about the curriculum for your Program. I want to be able to sneak under the tent and participate. The other ‘wife’ might like that, too.

“Second, I want to have a social relationship with the eleven students. You need to build that into their ‘at home’ time so they mix together. I can help with that sometimes – when I don’t have a hot sale pending.

“Third, I want to be able to use that gym, pool, and Jacuzzi without any concern. I assume the college won’t care. I count on you to make it all right with the others in the house. The Jacuzzi should be good even when there’s snow on the ground; in fact, that’s when I think I’ll find it the best – laying back relaxing in a warm tub of love with snow falling around me. How very New England!