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.”

You don’t have to have an MBA to know the value of basic business skills. Just ask Greg Shaw, 22, and the 54 other recent graduates of the Carolina Business Institute at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

These new biologists, psychologists and arts majors added the business course to their resumes before stepping out into the real world. Many think it will give them a competitive edge in the workplace. Some think such skills are necessary if they want to one day run their own businesses. And others want the confidence of knowing how to manage personal finances.

UNC’s Friday Center has offered a 4-week business boot camp to non-business students for 16 years. The intense course covers basic business practices including marketing, accounting, finance and operations management.

Its latest class graduated in June.

Among them was Shaw, who received a bachelor’s degree in biology at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Shaw said that in addition to helping with his personal budget, the class gave him the skills to one day manage his own medical practice. “Running a clinic is a business,” he said. “You have to know what to pay people and how to buy equipment and machines.”

Other schools across the nation offer similar programs, including the Tuck Business Bridge program at Dartmouth College and the Summer Institute for General Management at Stanford University.

At North Carolina State University, nonbusiness students are offered four business minors, in accounting, business administration, economics and entrepreneurship, said Steve Barr, a professor who heads the department of management, innovation and entrepreneurship.

In the past, students took such classes mainly to bolster their resumes. But the curriculums have been enhanced to help with a variety of business practices, and students are gleaning practical use from such programs.

Will Aldridge, 28, a UNC psychology graduate who completed the institute in 2006, said the courses give him a competitive advantage in the workplace.

Aldridge was working as an intern at a workplace consulting firm in Atlanta when a client needed advice about the benefits of Six Sigma. It’s a management program that identifies and replaces the causes of defects and errors in manufacturing and business processes.

“I told them, ‘Hey, I just had a class on that,’ ” Aldridge said. His boss was not familiar with Six Sigma, so Aldridge used what he had learned to help the client.

More : courant.com

THE faculty council of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM-C) on Monday decided to move the Calcutta High Court challenging the validity of the 164th meeting of the board of governors, which took place on March 26, 2004.

Prof Asish Bhattacharyya, Dean (Planning & Administration) and spokesperson of the faculty council, told newspersons that the validity of the said meeting was being called into question since four members had been replaced or substituted just before the crucial meeting to decide on the fee cut issue.

The council has also recommended that the Director of the institute provisionally maintain the fee structure for the forthcoming session, which begins in May.

Prof Bhattacharyya said that the council has suggested that since the board of governors has not been able to take a decision on fee reduction as directed by the Union HRD Ministry, the continuation of the same fee structure was advisable in view of smooth functioning of the institute as per the curriculum.

In the just concluded two-year session, IIM-C had charged a total of around Rs 2.5 lakh. The payments were obtained in various stages. The initial payment was around Rs 48,000.

“We have also suggested to the Director, who was present at the council meeting today, that fee received in excess of what might be finally decided by the board of governors or the Supreme Court be refunded with interest to the students.”

Prof Bhattacharyya also said that it has been the practice at IIM-C that before every session the faculty would recommend the fee structure and the board would take it up for approval. The council has also suggested that the Director, in the absence of clarity, might keep aside the Central Government’s proposed grant of Rs 4 crore for 2003-04 on account of non-Plan expenditure.

“The fund has not come in yet. But if it comes, the council advises that it should not be used until the matter is resolved by the Supreme Court or through a process of dialogue.” Meanwhile, the IIM-C faculty council has requested the Ministry that it be included in the process of dialogue on the fee revision issue.

The council has decided to form a three-member committee consisting of two faculty members and one alumnus for the proposed dialogue.

The sustainability of Akshaya “overcome the digital divide” in the state project is carried out if the positive aspects of the famous model for development of Kerala emulated by private entrepreneurs, not afraid to take risks.

After the Prime Mover in the state of Kerala IT mission official of an executive body, Akshaya draws heavily time to test the model as schools, health centres primary, know-how centres (reading rooms public) and other utility companies within a few kilometres from each other to provide efficient services.

This unique development paradigm put into practice by directors of yore contributed to what the State achieve enviable physical quality of life index.

Provides concept, in the presence of Professor Kenneth Keniston visit, the Indian program director, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), M. Kiran GR, Mission Coordinator, IT mission of the Business Line said that it wanted to be replicated in Akshaya, has already been mentioned in the pilot project in Malappuram district.

E-Akshaya kiosks have been planned so that every household in the country would not be farther than a long search for a distance of two kilometres to access electronic services. A number of masses of information and communication technology (ICT) to experiment with models elsewhere in the country have failed to take merely the absence of a sufficient number of service centers.

The government has directed public institutions, failed because of the laity management styles. In the Akshaya model, however, that the private contractor is responsible for enforcing the provision of services with the government ready to renew the support infrastructure, including content.

The sustainability of Akshaya centres is ensured, at least theoretically, to the extent that the contractor is underway for a benefit for which it has a Business Model. Unlike the case of a government of the project, the contractor is free to innovate and implement his ideas, according to local needs.

Asked if it spreads everywhere comparable model, Professor Keniston, said the group ITC e-choupal kiosks were the first to see in his eyes.

“At least, this is the only business model that I can not in India. It is a great effort disintermediation, where farmers have benefited and where the pay system itself. But what is operational and functional distinguishes itself by the Akshaya - Model and disability groups in which they become familiar with the theme on the needs of a rich and already well-established rural, agriculture, “he added.

There is another angle. Malappuram district is known for the large number of foreigners in the Gulf region, plus other sites abroad. Akshaya centres, a long way to ensure that women and communicate them immediately at a lower cost so menfolk with their employees overseas.

Among the five lakh families in Malappuram district, 4.5 times more than lakh have someone in the Gulf region.