Sydney Business School’s triumph on global score card

The 2011/2012 QS Global 200 Business School Report officially announced this week gives a resounding tick to the University of Wollongong’s Sydney Business School (SBS) climbing the rating table better than any of its Australian counterparts.

In last year’s rating the SBS was positioned 18^th in the Asia Pacific region and this year has soared to 13^th while other business schools have fallen against their placements last year. The SBS is now positioned as 3rd in Australia in the ratings having been 5th in 2010.

The Executive Dean of the SBS, Professor John Glynn, puts the latest success of the school down to:

• Designing programs to meet the needs of employers and students. The approach to curriculum development includes detailed discussions with industry partners, graduates and fellow students as well as international benchmarking to ensure programs reflect state of the art knowledge and leading edge application. Innovative programs include the Executive MBA, the Master of Business Coaching and the Graduate Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship

• Encouraging permanent and adjunct faculty to constantly seek to improve the quality of their teaching from induction through regular workshops. Through individual reflection and collaborative partnerships such as staff observing each other teach, SBS staff are inspired to adopt new approaches in the classroom which help students make the most of the face-to-face session, supported by its eLearning platform. SBS staff are regularly recognised through faculty and university teaching awards, nominated by students and colleagues for their innovative and dedicated approaches to teaching in all its campuses. SBS surveys its students in every subject every time to ensure it gets on-going feedback with which to improve. The school also asks its alumni for feedback after they have completed their degrees as they may have different suggestions to make with the benefit of hindsight

• As a graduate business school, SBS recognises that many of its students are senior business people, with relevant experience and expertise. Diversity in the classroom is seen as a rich resource to facilitate an exploration of how to work together in a multicultural environment, whether in a large multi-national or an Australian small-to-medium enterprise with a diverse workforce. SBS’s approach in the classroom is to respect this experience and to encourage its students to challenge theory from a sound basis, and not to listen passively to a lecturer. Assignments are not generic summaries of the literature but require students to consider the application of theory in specific real-world contexts. In addition to increasing their understanding of relevant topics, students develop skills such as how to select and use information efficiently and effectively, rather than for example go to Google and be confronted with millions of references to often dubious sources

• SBS staff have industry experience as well as current theoretical knowledge, a combination which allows the school to explore the application of theory with credibility, rather than teach from a textbook or purely theoretical approach. SBS staff are also active researchers and students benefit from their latest research insights

• SBS includes high calibre external speakers in its classes so that students have the opportunity to engage with the latest thinking in government, industry, commerce and the not-for-profit sector

• In addition to its standard classes, students attend master classes in current topics such as sustainability and managing in times of crisis, as well as professional development classes including public speaking, writing resumés and how to perform well at interviews

• SBS has recently been recognised by the Supply Chain and Logistics Association of Australia with the 2011 Australian Training, Education and Development Award for its MSc Logistics program