There is a new media trope in town and it's called "Trump's election is good for..."
In an article today titled “Why Trump’s Election Is Good for International Business Schools,” Poets & Quants writes that “Canadian [MBA] programs will be sure to benefit, given the increasingly stark difference between immigration policies of the U.S. versus Canada.”
Okay, let's drum up the Trump-related benefits of going to Canadian (rather than US) MBA school.
Hold on for just a second, where are we going with this?
It may very well be that changes in US visa policy and the low Canadian dollar will make Canadian schools more attractive. But the question I ask is this:
Why is it increasingly acceptable to find some hidden values or benefits in Trump's election now that it has happened? There are none. The idea, for example, that there could be something beneficial about your colleagues going through difficult times could be from Trump himself.
As someone who has been working in one of Canada's best business schools for many years, I can see a million great reasons for coming to Canada to live and learn. Let's not make Trump one of them.
Making Trump's election good for Canadian business school erases many problems in the US and Canada. And it underplays the ecosystem within which all MBA schools operate - one that significantly benefits from US training and experts, research associations and journal debate. And most importantly, friendships and co-authorships with US scholars.
Every January, for example, when the Ivey School organizes its research camp, Canadian and US scholars often drive through heavy snow storms for hours in order to be able to come together to share their ideas. This isn’t researcher romanticism but one of the realities of scholarship. By definition, research is an act of border crossing to fix things.
And so is teaching. Arguably our best-performing program at the Schulich School where I work, the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA, is a US-Canadian success story. One of the coolest things I’ve done with my students here in Canada in recent times is publish our insight columns with the American Marketing Association.
So no, Trump's election is not good for Canadian MBA schools or Canada. It's not really good for anyone or anything. What may be good is continued research and teaching collaboration across all borders so that we better understand where the marketing ends and the quackery begins.
