In this roundup:

• ISB, Hyderabad Admission Information Session in Mumbai on November 15
• Prerana 2009: The annual management festival of NITIE, Mumbai
• Subash Palekar, launches the first of MDI Gurgaon-GAP Inc lecture series

Much of the criticism of the MBA program in its current form revolves around ’soft skills’, and how b-schools have failed to teach them to MBA students successfully. In that light, here are two examples of thoughtful communication from two b-schools, one from SIMS – Pune and another from ISB – Hyderabad that really caught my eye and begged to be featured here.

The Indian Institute of Management Calcutta signed an MOU with the University of Melbourne, Australia, on September 14, 2009. The MOU was signed by Professor Saibal Chattopadhyay, Dean, Program Initiatives, IIM Calcutta, and Professor Nasser A Spear, GD Wood Chair of Accounting and Associate Dean (International), University of Melbourne. On the occasion Professor Saibal Chattopadhyay said, “IIM-C enjoys a very good reputation amongst the affiliate universities primarily due to the high quality of students. With this MoU, IIMC’s total number of partner institute goes up to 43″. Professor Nasser A emphasized the fact that student exchanges would help students from both institutions acquire the cross-cultural skills that are critical for modern business. Faculty exchanges and joint research projects and conferences are also envisaged as part of the MOU.

The need for a business education is has its roots in people wanting to earn more money, and business schools address this need by building their propositions around placements and salaries. And then we have the economic recession, which at a profound level is blamed on business greed of managers. Where does that leave us? Last week’s AIMS 21st Annual Management Convention at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad had some interesting a-ha moments on the subject.

The Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad like most schools has experienced a drop of 20 percent in salary levels and had a long drawn out placements seasons. The most interesting statistic regarding this year’s placements at ISB is that 55 percent of students have changed careers when it comes to industry or function and this is a reduction of 26 percent as compared to last year’s placements. The average work-experience of students at ISB is five years and this statistic clearly shows that even high work-experience along with an MBA is not enough to allow for a career switch in these times.

The Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad’s Admissions Director Mr VK Menon is back on PaGaLGuY to interact directly with ISB applicants and answer questions on the admissions process, advantages of ISB, placements and other matters important for a prospective applicant. Yes, you too can pose a question to him on the ISB Official Query Section (you’ll need a PaGaLGuY user ID) and see what he has to say.