Abstract
Professional schools, including collegiate business schools, are pulled in two opposing directions. The academy, where they live, pulls them to emphasize science and its values, and to focus on expanding the field of knowledge. The profession, into which their graduates move, pulls them to deal with immediately relevant, practical problems. The two also seek different characteristics in curriculum, the academy emphasizing that which will groom future scientists and the profession emphasizing that which will produce immediately employable practitioners. Collegiate business schools have not done a smooth, integrated job of balancing these competing claims for allegiance. Rather, history shows that they have satisfied one side and then, when the other side’s complaints became too loud, switched sides completely to the irritation of the constituency just jilted. This article describes what has happened and proposes a model which, if built into the accreditation standards, could reduce these unfortunate pendulum swings.