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GSRBM: Transforming the First-Session Curriculum This summer, first-year students at the Graduate School of Retail Bank Management will experience a new curriculum format that allows students to learn through active hands-on application, instead of learning exclusively through classroom lectures. GSRBM faculty and staff are changing the curriculum to provide first-year students with the tools to succeed in the school’s challenging program that, in three years, exposes the industry’s top performers to what it takes to run the retail bank and maximize profitability. “We’ve learned from our own best practices and feedback from students,” said Melissa Cabocel, vice president and director of the graduate school. “Our second and third-year students report that the strongest elements of the curriculum are the interactive sessions, where students learn by doing. By incorporating these elements into the freshman year, we’ll give them hands-on opportunities to practice finding and using financial data to analyze and project bank performance, and manage profitability and risk.” Cabocel says the faculty believes this gives students the financial tools they’ll need to manage the retail bank segment in the second year, and to understand and participate in Executive Management Committee discussions by the end of the third-year. The first year’s focus on GAAP analysis and risk provides a foundation for the Balanced Scorecard and Economic Value Added approaches to bank analysis in the subsequent two years. First-year students will learn a key concept in class and then break into small teams to apply it to a case study about a bank. Once the students have spent the first part of the session focused on influencing individual aspects of the bank's financials, they will spend the last part of the session making improvements to the bank versus its peers. This small team approach is currently part of the second year with Retail MarketSim, which teaches full-scale management of the retail bank, and the third year with BankSim, which examines top-down management of the entire bank. The first-year students will use a new teaching implement to forecast performance for the case bank called BankersGPS, an on-line planning tool for banks from Chicago-based Plansmith. The model is populated with actual call report data and will allow them immediate access to simulated results based on their financial projections. Plansmith will also make it available to students after the session in order for them to do forecasting exercises for the home study project, and even for their own bank. About the Graduate School of Retail Bank Management CBA's Graduate School of Retail Bank Management (GSRBM) has a history of providing the industry’s top performers in senior management with the knowledge necessary to actively support the Chief Retail Officer. GSRBM is a three-summer executive education program for bank officers from throughout the United States and abroad. In a fast-paced, ten-day resident session each summer, students work in teams to analyze the major functional areas of retail banking and how they interact. Students gain a comprehensive knowledge of the forces affecting bank profitability from the shareholder, bank management, regulator, and analyst perspectives. The curriculum delivers concepts as well as provides hands-on experience by incorporating real-time simulations, case studies, and lectures from industry executives. Graduates leave the program prepared for fast-track promotions to positions that require a broad understanding of the head-of-retail perspective. For more information about the school, click here.
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