Paul Simko / Darden

The Darden School will soon be welcoming its third cohort in the Global MBA for Executives program. As part of this program students enroll in global business courses that are delivered in various parts of the world. One location is Brazil, and in December of this year my core MBA accounting course will be partially taught in Sao Paulo and Rio. While in these locations students have significant amounts of time away from coursework.

My dream idea is to use some of this downtime to coordinate a set of experiential learning activities related to the societal and economic impacts of Rio’s hosting of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. More specifically, I would like to spend a day with students immersed in seeing firsthand how the planning for the Olympic Games is currently unfolding. Funds from the Mead Endowment would help with the following: (i) site visits to planned and existing venues for Olympic events around the Rio area, (ii) speakers (and perhaps an expert tour guide) that could put into context the impacts of the Games on the city (e.g., dislocation of favelas, future use of venues), and (iii) other miscellaneous costs (i.e., a group dinner, transportation, and/or venue admission costs). This would be an optional experience for any student, and I expect around 20 would participate.