MBA makeover: has the business school curriculum sat so long on the shelf that it has passed its sell-by date?.

When the Carnegie and Ford Foundations unveiled their scathing critiques in 1959 of what was then the modern MBA degree, they made a serious impression on their intended audience. The top business schools scrambled to make the suggested changes in an effort to earn back a little respect from both

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While there has not been another formal report since the 1950s, there has also been no shortage of rebuke for the once-golden MBA. In recent years, critics have charged that business school education has fallen out of step with the needs of the 21st century corporation, that it fails to understand the global threat and has become more about club membership for future consultants than serious training for corporate executives. CEOs complain that MBA training has become too theoretical to be practical and that graduates are ill-equipped for the kind of leadership companies sorely need. Recruiters have gone so far as to suggest that an MBA could be a liability, if an employer thinks the candidate had to take a university detour because he or she couldn't hack it in the real world.

Still others say the fracturing of the MBA industry, and the proliferation of alternative degrees--one-year, niche, and MBA "lite"--have eroded standards and confused the value proposition. "In the elite business schools there is a de-institutionalization going on about the coherent body of knowledge required," says Rakesh Khurana, a professor at Harvard Business School and vocal critic of B-school education. "Because it's such an inchoate, ill defined degree, there is almost no standard by which one can accredit what a qualified MBA program is."

But it appears that the top business schools have been paying attention, and many have spent the last several years reflecting inward, examining their core curricula and making changes to address issues of relevancy. Some deans, in fact, feel the critics have not done a good job keeping up with the changes their schools have made. "I'm mystified by it," says Glenn Hubbard, dean of Columbia Business School, of the suggestion that MBA education has lost its luster. "Many of the critics must not have been in one of the top business schools in many years or they would see a very different culture. Can we do some things better? Absolutely. But there is a lot of innovation going on."