On June 9, 2015, Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett made a visit to the historic city of Boston, the seventh stop on the Global Conversations Tour, which began in January 2015. The tour is part of Dean Garrett’s mission to more effectively engage with a broader demographic of Wharton alumni around the globe and communicate his core priorities for the School.

Following the success of the San Francisco tour spot in May, Wharton alumni congregated at the OMNI Parker House in Boston where they were able to meet the Wharton dean, as well as guest speaker William P. Egan WG69, founder of venture capital firm Alta Communications and private equity firm Marion Equity Partners—both Boston-based companies. In an open discussion with Dean Garrett, Egan offered his expertise and opinions—for instance, concerning the future of online learning in context to MBA degrees.

According to the Wharton dean, online education, through programs such as Coursera, allows for global engagement through collaboration with international schools. At the moment, he mentioned, the two most innovative business schools in online education are Wharton and Harvard Business School.

“I think online education is here to stay. I think it’s going to be good for the world … and I think it’ll improve the projection of [Wharton’s] brand and the value of our on campus education,” Garrett said.

Lastly, both Dean Garrett and Egan agreed that social impact is very much still a focus of the School, and emphasized the importance of maintaining that Wharton needs to be the “best business school for the world” while continuing its public role in the private sector.

Dean Garrett will visit Seoul, South Korea, for the next stop on the Global Conversations Tour in early September.

View highlights of the Boston tour stop in the video above, or in the photos below.

For additional information and registration for upcoming visits from the Wharton dean, visit the Global Conversations Tour website.