anonymousegmat wrote:
i know that AACSB requirements require a minimum amount of full time PhDs on staff, but... unfortunately, just because a professor retires does not mean he or she will be replaced by another professor; i think education has unfortunately adopted too much of a business model approach and professors get replaced with cheap part time adjuncts w/ no benefits whenever possible.
I would contend that part of these "business dynamics" are due to the b-school deans at top schools being so fixated on MBA rankings. One way to get up in the rankings (it's been tried before, at least) it to reduce class size and increase selectivity. That way you don't need as many faculty members and you can afford to have some retirements without replacement.
I'd also add that as someone who was an adjunct faculty member before becoming a PhD student, I don't think we can implicitly generalize that the quality of b-school education has decreased along with the increased use of part time adjunct faculty and other practitioners. I know more about accounting for business combinations than any of my current professors (at a top 20 b-school) will ever want to know, and I taught at a 2nd tier Canadian school. And while it's also true that AACSB requirements require a minimum proportion of full-time tenure track PhDs, their rules are actually almost as extensive for evaluating the credentials of adjunct faculty; as an example, practitioners/professionals who teach one course per semester are viewed much more favorably than full-time lecturers and non-tenure track faculty members.