Reflections from India

Education and educators are highly regarded in India, which makes teaching a pleasure and a privilege

by Marshall Goldsmith

During a recent trip to India, I had the opportunity to work with many dedicated professionals at the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad.

ISB is an amazing place. It is a new institution that was formed with the support of Kellogg, Wharton, and the London Business School. The admission standards are extremely selective. Although it is only a few years old, ISB is already one of the top five schools in the world in terms of average GMAT score. I was there to teach a two-day executive education class on coaching to 50 top leaders from across India.

I love teaching in India. Every participant in my program was eager to learn. There is nothing that a teacher loves more than dedicated students who want to learn. The first day of my program lasted from 7 in the morning until 10 at night. I tried to answer as many questions as I could, but eventually I ran out of time! My students were willing to listen as long as I was willing to teach.

Deep Respect for Education

I was amazed at the sincerity and interest shown by the participants in my course. There was absolutely none of the cynicism or skepticism that I sometimes encounter in the U.S. or Western Europe. As a rule, people in India have a deep respect for education and for educators. At the end of the two days, I was given a lovely card with a personal thank-you note from each participant. I was very moved by their gratitude.

As I headed to my room at around 10:30 p.m., I saw three young ISB MBA students working on an assignment and decided to stop by and introduce myself. I asked them several questions about their lives, their futures, India, and the new global economy.

When I asked, "How many hours a day do you work?" one young woman laughed and said, "28!"

Income Gap Widens

All three agreed that they started studying each day early in the morning and finished late at night. They didn't seem to mind. They realized how fortunate they were to be admitted to such a selective program. They were grateful for the opportunity to be there and wanted to learn as much as they could.

As a country, India still has hundreds of millions of extremely poor citizens who live in villages. The differentiation in incomes between the rich and poor has increased dramatically in the past 10 years.

I asked the MBA students, "How do the poor people in the villages feel about fortunate students like you? You are going to be making a lot of money when you graduate from ISB. Is there increasing resentment out there in the countryside?"

Emigration Not as Attractive

Their answer surprised me. The students all knew people in the villages. The general feeling was that, in almost every village, there was a resident who had left, attained a good education, and achieved a much more affluent life. If there was not a person in the village who had made it out, there was a relative in a nearby village. The students felt that even poor villagers saw hope for their children or grandchildren through hard work and education.

The world has changed a lot in the past few years. In the past, brilliant students, like the ones that I met at ISB, all dreamed of going to America or Europe for a quality education. Now they can get a quality education in India. In the past, brilliant young students all planned on leaving India to get great jobs. Now they can get great jobs in India.

The students went on to discuss India's problems. Corruption, lack of infrastructure, and emerging competition in Asia all represent real challenges for India.

U.S. Heading Backward?

As I listened to these brilliant young students, I thought about America. In the past few decades, we have made progress on many fronts and may have gone backward on others.

In some ways there seems to be a decreasing respect for education—and for educators—in our country. The average high school teacher used to make a little less money than an accountant or consultant, but not that much. Today the difference in income is huge.

In general, teachers don't seem to get the same amount of respect that they did when I was a student. And, unlike the people whom I met in India, many Americans are not very confident that their children and grandchildren will have better lives (BusinessWeek.com, 8/21/07) than they have.

The Future Is in Knowledge

As parents, teachers, leaders, and citizens, we can learn a couple of lessons from the people whom I met in India. Individually and collectively, we may need to revisit our priorities. We may need to demonstrate more respect for education and for educators. In the competitive world of knowledge work, educated individuals and educated societies are going to have a huge competitive advantage. We may also need to connect the value of a great education with our hope for a brighter future.

Many years ago, most Americans were farmers. Those days are gone. More recently, many Americans worked in manufacturing. Those days are soon to be gone. The future of America is going to be determined by knowledge workers. Education will be a key factor in determining our collective success as a society and each person's success as an individual.

Hard-working, educated people who have hopes and dreams for a better future are going to win, no matter what country they come from.

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Scandal in Mind, Fuqua Welcomes MBAs

New-student orientation puts renewed emphasis on the honor code and ethics in the wake of cheating expulsions at the Duke B-school

by Alison Damast

With a new MBA class arriving, administrators at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business are trying to move beyond last spring's cheating scandal, while simultaneously addressing cultural differences that may have led to the incident, which resulted in mass suspensions and expulsions (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/30/07, "Duke MBAs Fail Ethics Test"

Preventing such a situation from happening again is a top priority for the school, which greeted a new class of 431 first-year students in early August. Among the orientation activities was a session on the school's honor code, during which they talked about how international students might view ethical issues through different lenses.

The cheating scandal, which resulted in the one-year suspension of 15 students and the expulsion of nine students, was on many students' minds as they arrived on campus for orientation. Over the summer, school officials had been working hard to contain the fallout from the nationwide publicity over the scandal and calming fears of incoming students that a Duke MBA had become tainted. "When they first brought up the honor code, it was like, 'Oh gosh, what is going to happen now,'" said Kaamil Isles, a first-year Fuqua student. "You worry that the actions of a few students or subset of students will affect how teachers perceive us and potentially, the people who hire us."

Sending a Strong Message

Administrators hope to assuage students' fears that the school has lost trust in them by reassuring them that the school does not plan to change its educational practices. However, the school is taking new steps this year to ensure that all students, no matter what culture they come from, understand how to interpret and abide by the school's much-vaunted honor code. "We wanted to send a strong message to the students that we were not willing to change our teaching methods in response to the honor-code violations," said Bill Boulding, senior associate dean for daytime programs.

Over the summer, administrators conducted an exhaustive review of how the school presents the code to students during orientation and over the course of their two years at the school, from the admissions process to investigations of alleged violations. They asked professors to make sure that students are clear about how to conduct themselves during assignments and exams. There will be renewed emphasis on the code in academic settings this year. It will be discussed in more depth in a new three-week program at the school called the Global Institute and will be woven into the school's new curriculum, debuting this year.

Orientation for first-year students was a starting point for discussion on the topic. At the event, administrators and students guided a discussion of the honor code within the context of last year's cheating scandal. Boulding, who spoke at the event, emphasized that students need to buy into the school's honor-code culture, no matter what country they come from or education system they were raised in. "I wanted to drive home the point that we are all one culture here at Fuqua and we all have to accept the same standards, even though you might have been brought up in an education system where the accepted practices varied considerably," said Boulding.

Questions About Cultural Distortions

Indeed, the cultural issues at play in the case are ones that have taken on renewed importance in recent months. Nearly all of the 38 students found guilty of cheating by the school were Asian, according to papers filed by Robert Ekstrand, a Durham (N.C.) attorney who last spring filed appeals on behalf of 16 students. Those appeals were all denied by the school. Duke officials would not release details on the case, except to say that the students involved were from "multiple countries and multiple continents."

"It is a cultural issue, a very serious one. It is subtle and is capable of repetition without notice," Ekstrand said in an interview earlier this month. He declined to discuss details of the cases because, he said, the issue remained open.

Meanwhile, in a brief submitted to the school during the appeals process, provided to BusinessWeek by one of the disciplined students, Ekstrand asserted that the students may not have been given a fair trial by the school because of the manner in which the investigation was conducted, one that did not take into account the legal cultures the students came from.

Tripped Up by the U.S. Legal System?

According to the document, in the students' home countries, confessions are looked upon as a way to bring a person back into the larger group. The accused is expected to show remorse and his desire to be reintegrated. It's a philosophy that is "fundamentally different than that of the American legal culture," Ekstrand wrote. "When they were confronted with allegations of wrongdoing, they were predisposed to avoid even the appearance of a disagreement with the school's allegation. To these students, it would be illogical for them to admit violating the code, and then dispute the extent of the wrongdoing."

This worked against them during the initial judicial board hearings, Ekstrand wrote. Many of these students offered long and rambling confessions that expressed their remorse and repentance for their actions. Judicial board members may have misinterpreted the students' remorse, viewing their confessions through the lens of the American legal culture, Ekstrand argued.

Indeed, two of the students found guilty by the school, both of whom are Asian, spoke with BusinessWeek in Durham earlier this summer and agreed that cultural differences played a role in how they chose to answer the school's charges and defend themselves.

"Totally Changed Our Career"

One of the students received a one-year suspension, while the other was expelled. Both filed appeals that were turned down. They said they were unclear what evidence the school had against them when they were asked to issue a confession by the investigator assigned to the case. They also said they did not understand what it meant to have "the right to avoid self-incrimination," an option guaranteed to students in Fuqua's honor code.

The two students, who had established an e-mail address with the name "Fuqua Facts," asked that their names not be disclosed because they are hoping to return to Duke. They remained on the Duke campus after most of the other accused students had left, hoping to reverse the school's action, "I spent a lot of time during the hearing to say how I felt regretful and sorry about the charges. I didn't defend myself point by point," said one student from China, who received the suspension. "Now, I think this was a significant mistake."

The other student, a former financial-services worker from Beijing, who was expelled, added: "Even if we made a mistake, we just wanted to talk to the school. This has totally changed our career and lives."

But while the students and Ekstrand hold out hope that the incident will be reviewed, Duke business-school officials say they have no plans to reopen the issue. "For us, it is the end of the appeal process," Boulding said.

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