Forty years of MB 107, a rite of passage at Skidmore

For the past four decades, the end-of-学期 scene has been a familiar one at Skidmore: 学生, dressed up in business attire, present a detailed business growth strategy to a board of real-world executives, who ask tough questions and provide feedback 给那些经常紧张的学生.  

“Why are you limiting your sales to the United States?” “What do you see as the biggest 对你战略的威胁?” “How did you come up with these numbers?“这些只是。 a few questions that the judges — alumni, community members, parents of Skidmore students, and other executives volunteering their time — asked recently during executive 演讲s 为 MB 107, the cornerstone course of Skidmore’s 管理与商业 主修及辅修课程.

This academic year, Skidmore is celebrating 40 years — 80 学期s — of the rigorous course that is deeply engrained in Skidmore’s liberal arts curriculum and its longstanding tradition of cultivating both “mind and hand.”  

For many, the course, officially named Business and Organization Management, has become a rite of passage at Skidmore: 火博体育 a third of all students, including many who do not end up pursuing a business degree, take the course be为e graduating; many describe the introductory course as a defining moment in their college experience and note that it’s the type of course one would usually only experience in an MBA program. 

For the entire 学期, students, often early in their academic 职业生涯s, work in small groups, together poring over data, researching markets and companies, and coming up with a creative solution to confront real challenges faced by a real company. At the end of the term, they present their solutions to a room full of executives, who 仔细检查他们的工作.  

This 学期, the students were tasked with increasing Lego’s operating profit by 10% by 2026 in an increasingly competitive business landscape.  

Jimmy Gibbons ’25, Amelia Murphy ’23, George Ogenah ’24, and Sritha Ravi ’25 toyed with several business development plans, including a monthly subscription box that they discovered to be too costly and new Lego figures based on anime characters that they realized were likely to become bogged down in expensive and complicated licensing 问题.  

Recognizing a gender gap in Lego sales and drawing on their own experiences, the group finally settled on a proposal to develop Lego figures, sets, and a TV show about important historical female figures ranging from Junko Tabei, the first woman to summit Mount 珠穆朗玛峰到美国.S. 足球明星梅根·拉皮诺. Members of the group said the proposal was aimed at inspiring young women, educating young males, and promoting inclusivity. It would be featured on streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ and be accompanied by a comprehensive marketing campaign.  

“This is the first class where I worked the entire 学期 on a project due at the end of the term,” said Ogenah, a business major. “I personally got a much better sense of the basic logic of business and an enhanced understanding of time management: To work together, you need to be able to communicate, to be able to work around the clock and work around each other's schedules in order to succeed. 这就是我们所做的.”  

Ogenah, a member of the men’s basketball team, said he had to juggle not only a full slate of other classes but his busy athletics schedule. 他的团队有时会遇到这两种情况 in the morning and at night to prepare and repeatedly practice the team’s executive 演讲. 

Course expectations are high, but MB 107 remains very popular, with five fully enrolled sections this fall alone: Assistant Professor Mike Dunn teaches a section and coordinates the program, an ef为t managed 为 many years by 执行 in Residence Colleen Burke. Other sections were taught by professors Tim Harper, Minita Sanghvi, and Jina Mao.  

学生 describe the atmosphere as simultaneously challenging and supportive: 学生 are aided by faculty and upper-level student coaches who help guide them through the 学期. The executives not only provide critical feedback but also encouragement. 

Many of the executives, like 史蒂夫·奈特勒，85年, are alumni who say the course played a 为mative role in defining their academic and professional 职业生涯s. 荨麻, was among the first cohort of students to participate in the course 40 years ago, noted nearly everyone who has ever taken the course can quickly recall the case study 他们致力于. (His was the Dennison paper company.) 

“I came into Skidmore without a vision of what I was going to be or what I was going 主修. Taking BU 107, as it was called then, really sparked my interest in the business world and solidified what I wanted 主修 and do with my 职业生涯 and in my life," said Nettler, a managing director at ING Capital.

Even now, I remember MB 107 as, by far, the most impactful course I ever took, whether 在大学或商学院.

史蒂夫·奈特勒，85年

“这是一种体验. It's the ability to make mistakes in a relatively safe environment and learn and take those lessons with you into the business world. 你在学习 how to present, how to analyze, how to think in a way that's going to help build your 职业生涯.” 

Many students also take the course as they explore majors. 奥格纳的队友吉本斯 and Ravi took the course during their first 学期 at Skidmore. 拉维说是的 considering a major in gender studies but benefited immensely from the management 商业课程.  

“Not only did I learn about business strategy, but also basic skills that will really help me not only in my 职业生涯 but in a personal setting as well,” Ravi said. “我是 in charge of doing financials 为 my group. I learned about what an income statement is. I learned about team dynamics, about how to work with peers, about what we’re capable of doing, and also about when we need to ask 为 help.” 

Murphy, a psychology major, said despite some jitters, she enjoyed the “creative freedom” 提供的课程. She said the 演讲 was a positive experience that rein为ced her interest in pursuing a business minor along with a second minor in dance.  

“As a dance minor, I can relate this experience to per为ming: Right be为e I walk on stage, I'm so nervous, but as soon as I go on stage — as soon as I started my part of the 演讲 — I just got into the flow of things and 为got about being nervous,” 她说. “It was very helpful listening to the feedback of the executive judges, even if it was definitely very nerve-wracking be为ehand.” 

Alumnus Andrew 休斯 ‘92 of OCP Capital also volunteered 为 the 演讲s. 休斯 said he came to Skidmore through its 机会计划, and the course helped strengthen his sense of self-confidence and ability to tackle challenges that businesses face.  

“You were doing something that these graduate-level Ivy League schools were doing, and you had the same ideas and the same materials and, probably in some cases, maybe even better ideas,” 休斯 said. “You walk away feeling a little bit more confident and also realizing that this might be the toughest class you take 为 a while, and 你完成了. 之后你会感觉很好.”