Abstract

Finishing School for Executives

Big business enterprises are worried about one of its human products--executives. For years, large companies have been selecting their men on the basis of narrow technical skills, forcing them into a highly competitive environment, and thus shaping them into a progressively more rigid outlook. Now the companies find that these men lack the glamour for the top jobs. A surprising number of campuses are cooperating to make the programs available. The University of Pennsylvania pioneered a schedule of courses in liberal arts for telecommunications company AT&T, in 1953-54. In most of the programs, which range in duration from two weeks to five years, a stupendous amount of "pure" culture is thrown, at the students. Lectures on architecture, follow discussions of Ulysses and the Pisan Cantos.