Babson Among Founding Colleges of UN-supported Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) Champions

WELLESLEY, Mass., Sept. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Babson College is among the 25 founding colleges of the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) Champions.

Underscoring the role of management education in addressing sustainable development challenges - from climate change to widespread poverty and gender inequality - a group of 25 higher education institutions joined United Nations Under-Secretary-General Yukio Takasu, Department of Management, in New York for the launch of PRME. This new leadership group of the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) initiative will work to unlock the next level of responsible management and leadership education.

The representatives of PRME Champion institutions, who convened at a special event of the Global Compact Leaders Summit 2013, made ambitious commitments to work collaboratively to develop and promote activities that address shared barriers to making responsible management education a reality.

Babson Provost and Vice President Dennis Hanno, attending the launch event, noted that "Babson is pleased to be counted among the global leaders asked to lead this important work. Our selection as a PRME Champion both underscores our commitment to preparing responsible leaders and recognizes the path-breaking work that we are already doing in this area."

Since its launch at the Global Compact Leaders Summit 2007 by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, the PRME initiative now counts over 500 signatories from 81 countries. During the initial two-year pilot phase, the PRME Champions group will work to refine what leadership means in the space of responsible management education, identify criteria for recognition of progress, and lay out a roadmap for continuous improvement by the PRME community.

Participants also pledged to work more actively with United Nations agencies, funds, and programmes, as well as participant companies of the UN Global Compact. With a view to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - which include many targets which are set to expire in 2015 - Under-Secretary-General Takasu said: "[The United Nations] are engaging with a wide range of stakeholders to explore future development priorities. In the Post-2015 era, business schools and higher education institutions have a critical role to play as well." Mr. Takasu encouraged participants to reflect on how these new global priorities will challenge academic institutions to adapt curriculum and research paradigms.

Mirroring the recent progress of Global Compact LEAD, a leadership platform of Global Compact participant companies, the PRME Champions group will operate under an initial two year pilot phase. The 25 PRME signatory institutions that have committed to the Champions group have been actively engaged in the PRME initiative by contributing to issue area working groups, serving as hosts of PRME meetings, regularly reporting on their progress to implement the Six Principles of PRME, and/or are leaders in the field of responsible management education. The group is globally and proportionally representative, according to the makeup of the larger PRME community.

"Since the inception of the PRME initiative in 2007, there has been increased debate over how to adapt management education to train a new generation of business leaders capable of managing the complex demands faced by business and society in the 21st century," said Jonas Haertle, Head of the PRME Secretariat. "While consensus has been reached by the majority of globally focused management programmes that sustainability issues must be incorporated, many questions remain regarding how to change. The PRME Champions group will work to address these questions."

See list of PRME Champion Institutions: http://bit.ly/16euUuV

For PRME information, visit http://unprme.org/

About Babson College

Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader for Entrepreneurship of All Kinds(tm). The College is a dynamic living and learning laboratory, where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society--while at the same time evolving our methods and advancing our programs. We shape the leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to create economic and social value. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought and Action(r) as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value. Visit www.babson.edu.

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Media Contacts:
Michael Chmura, mchmura@babson.edu, 781-239-4549

SOURCE Babson College