Along the lines of your thoughts on training in the humanities contributing to success in the corporate world, I am providing the link for a recent New York Times article posted on the English Department mail server at the Graduate Center by my colleague, David Bahr:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/business/10mba.html?em

Opening excerpt:
> Mr. Martin began advocating what was then a radical idea in business
> education: that students needed to learn how to think critically and
> creatively every bit as much as they needed to learn finance or accounting.
> More specifically, they needed to learn how to approach problems from many
> perspectives and to combine various approaches to find innovative solutions.
> In 1999, few others in the business-school world shared Mr. Martin’s view.
> But a decade and a seismic economic downturn later, things have changed. “I
> think there’s a feeling that people need to sharpen their thinking skills,
> whether it’s questioning assumptions, or looking at problems from multiple
> points of view,” says David A. Garvin, a Harvard Business School professor
> who is co-author with Srikant M. Datar and Patrick G. Cullen of an upcoming
> book, “Rethinking the M.B.A.: Business Education at a Crossroads.”
> Learning how to think critically — how to imaginatively frame questions and
> consider multiple perspectives — has historically been associated with a
> liberal arts education, not a business school curriculum, so this change
> represents something of a tectonic shift for business school leaders. Mr.
> Martin even describes his goal as a kind of “liberal arts M.B.A.”
>

On a side note, I know it needs emphasis that reading and critical thinking skills lead to better business, though, to me, it is stating the obvious. I mean, don’t we all appreciate an articulate professional in any field, after all?