Walk through the halls of the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business during the school year, and along with students cramming facts for macroeconomics and operating strategy you may encounter some students stretching their bodies and doing something really unusual for business school students: relaxing.

They’re members of Chicago’s yoga club, a student group founded earlier this year by two GSB students and which last term attracted 15 to 35 regular attendees to classes in the school’s Harper Center. The classes are “time to shut your brain off,” says Jody Kirchner, one of the group’s founders.

The Chicago GSB yoga classes reflect a growing popularity of yoga in the U.S., with about 16 million Americans engaging in the practice, according to statistics released by Yoga Journal. The publication said $5.7 billion is spent annually on yoga classes and products, nearly twice as much as four years ago.
Indian Odyssey

During a school-sponsored trip to India last year, Kirchner and fellow student Doug Neal bonded over a mutual interest in yoga. Kirchner and Neal, who both had been practicing yoga for years before they met, eventually decided to start a group dedicated to the practice on campus—after Kirchner noticed that other business schools had yoga groups, but Chicago didn’t.

In midyear, Neal, a 2008 MBA graduate, and Kirchner, a rising second-year student and co-chair of the club, conducted an interest survey for the group. Of the 1,100 students attending the school, about 200 expressed interest.

Kirchner said she was surprised at the large response the survey garnered, finding that a sizable portion of the student population already practiced yoga, at least to some extent. “People I know outside of school say the same thing,” she said. “After a stressful day, it’s time they can do something easily to take their mind off their stress.”

Neal says yoga isn’t just for stress relief. “Yoga is very multifaceted, and the benefits of yoga are different for each person,” he said. “Some use it for exercise, for meditation poses, some for relaxation, some for injuries.”

During the year 2007, the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B), the first Indian Business School offers an exchange program with the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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Becky Wright

The Stanford-IIM-B exchange programme for 16 students from the whole school to participate in a multi-cultural collaboration of the experience with regard to the economy and administration in the United States and India. According to Professor V. “Seenu” Srinivasan, coordinator of the Stanford-IIM-B-exchange programme of the GSB, teams of four students - two of the IIM-B and two in their second year MBA from Stanford GSB will work closely on group projects Tombent academic quarter. Students complete their understanding with readings and lectures. From September 16 to September 22, the GSB students meet with the other members of the group in Bangalore, and then the IIM-B-Stanford students who visit for the week of December 2 to December 8. At the centre of visits academics, businessmen and social activities.

“The hope is that this program is the strong lifelong relationships between American and Indian companies,” said Srinivasan.

In May, a new GSB Faculty MBA program are implemented from the fall semester 2007. It extends the GSB overall current management curriculum, in part, by students, a global experience. This requirement can be met by a study tour, an international internship approved overseas training online travel services or an exchange of students.

“Ask to visit all students and more of a country in which they do not have much time before signals to our students, that the international aspects of the economy are becoming increasingly important and will help you to prepare for the career, which inevitably with them in the International Economy, “said Prof.. John Roberts, who teaches economics, strategic management and international affairs.

The GSB is currently an exchange program similar to the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management in China. According to Roberts, the GSB to plan, others offer exchange programs, but is open to suggestions. The exchange with students at Tsinghua and IIM-B currently does not meet the test of international experience, since the programs can not be performed early enough in studies of the students.

“At the moment, we are on the ability of each student to go back to a study tour or service online training route,” said Roberts.