Gala of the First Graduation of the Mandel Social Leadership MBA Program at Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business & Management
a gala event marking management in social change
On Dec. 26, a gala event celebrated the first graduating class of the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business & Management (GGFBM) Mandel Social Leadership MBA Program (SLMBA). This was a particularly special graduation of a degree program unlike any other, as it is the culmination of years of planning, reflection, redirection and innovation among leading minds to create just the right inter-disciplinary degree program in management for social change.
Prof. Drory addressing the SLMBA grads
The Program is close to the heart of BGU Vice President for External Affairs Prof. Amos Drory who mentioned in his address to the students and guests, how it all started about ten years ago, when he was Dean of the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business & Management (then the School of Management). The University leadership was searching to establish a program that would epitomize BGU’s vision which “may today sound cliché: BGU is committed to social and environmental responsibility and is working to develop the Negev, Israel and the world and aspires to be among the best inter-disciplinary research universities in the world.”
The Israel Center for Third Sector Research was established, and then studies in Third Sector Management. During these years, explained Drory, the remarkable combination of ideas, minds and devoted people, intent on innovating and spearheading an idyllic degree program in social leadership, the Mandel Social Leadership MBA was established.
Honored guests indcluded Beer-Sheva Mayor Ruvik Danilovitch, Mandel Foundation director Moshe Vigdor, BGU President Prof. Rivka Carmi, BGU Vice President for External Affairs Prof. Amos Drory, BGU Rector Prof. Zvi HaCohen, GGFBM Dean Prof. Oded Lowengart. Interestingly, this graduation ceremony was emceed by graduate representative, Efrat Oppenheimer, exhibiting the leadership spirit and the solidarity of this pioneering class. Moreover, the keynote lecture was a group presentation titled “Act of Leadership,” given by the graduates themselves.
“The Mandel Social Leadership MBA at BGU never allowed us just to be good people. It never allowed us to ‘just’ be MBA students, it never stopped demanding of us that we be more, much more. With this weight on our shoulders we set out. Your high expectations – our teachers, our advisors, the head of the program and everyone who accompanied us on the way are very strongly felt. We felt them on the first day when we were asked to explain in 15 minutes how we were going to change the world. Despite the fact that the high expectations frighten us, they also spur us to succeed. It is your expression of your faith in us,” Oppenheimer said.
As Mayor Danilovitch said to the students with delight, “you are happy, we can see it…”, explaining that this overt happiness among these particular students is the joy that will continually inspire them in their careers and further infect everyone they touch with their optimism. Mayor Danilovitch went on to qualified his statement saying, “I don’t believe any university can really make leaders,” but rather it is because of their innate joyfulness, for life and for others, that they were attracted in the first place to participate in such an innovative program aspiring to teach social leadership management. “So, you are sure to succeed,” he concluded.
Rector HaCohen offered a similar sentiment, explaining how in general, worldwide, people enroll in management degree studies to learn how to enhance financial capital, “but you enrolled in studies to enhance social capital.”
Prof. Pierre Kletz, Director of the Program, noted that among the esteemed guests were members of the extended Mandel Foundation programs network, including Prof. Chaim Adler, a groundbreaking researcher in social change through education and recipient of the prestigious Israel Prize (2006) in education, who has remained consultant for the Mandel Leadership Institute’s Graduates. Prof. Kletz mentioned these guests to highlight the importance of this first graduation event, not only to the Mandel network, but really “to the world.” He related this to his own aspirations 20 years earlier as a student dreaming to create a program that would combine social change, ethics, values and management as an establishment in the academic world. Prof. Kletz faced the graduates, promising that “from now until you retire and even later”, they will remain part of the Mandel “family” and will not be left alone for a moment, but will be accompanied and monitored consistently, as this bond is an integral policy and tradition of all Mandel programs creating an international network of social leaders.
GGFBM Dean Prof. Oded Lowengart spoke directly to the students, discarding his prepared speech, expressing his astonishment over the content of their viewmaster-poster displays. “I viewed each and every one, and the statistical distribution is unpredicted and unprecedented, you must know it. Statistically, how could you have such a high percentage of pictures of hands, holding hands, shaking hands, open hands…This is an obvious expression of giving, of some kind of benevolence which is the essence of not only who you are, but what this degree program is all about. It is not by chance that the degree in Social Leadership is part of Management, of the GGFBM, and it is not by chance that you were accepted to the program and are now graduates. It is all about the open hand, the aspiration to give and to change in your generation’s world where the social compass has now changed.”
The graduates’ viewmaster-poster exhibition, From Visionary to Conventional Past, Present and Future Perspectives, had an emotional impact on all the guests. Graduate Lior Shar’s parents and grandmother were standing captivated at the displays, refusing an offer to sit. While Lior was explaining his vision, mentioning firstly that “I’ve stayed in Beer-Sheva, I grew up in Kokhav Yair, but I live here now,” his grandmother proudly interrupted, observing the full-circle effect, as she herself had settled in Beer-Sheva in 1949 “when there was nothing here, really nothing. Now look!”
viewmaster-poster exhibit expressing ideas and ideals
