Spence Prepares to Step Down

Photograph by Anne Knudsen

Mike Spence has been a dean for the nineties, leading the School through an era of rapid change. He will step down at century's end.

By Cathy Castillo

Michael Spence will step down as dean of the Business School on August 31, 1999. "I have considered this move carefully over a long period of time, and I've decided to announce my plans now to ensure a smooth transition," he told students, faculty, and staff in April. "The year 2000 is the 75th anniversary of the founding of the GSB. It is a good time for the next dean to begin." Later this year, Stanford Provost Condoleezza Rice will appoint a search committee to select a new dean.
       In leaving the deanship at the end of a decade, Spence, who came to the GSB in 1990, is following in the footsteps of his immediate predecessors. Just as Ernest Arbuckle put his stamp on the sixties, Arjay Miller on the seventies, and Robert K. Jaedicke on the eighties, Spence has been a dean for the nineties.
       "When future generations look back on this era in business education, I believe they will see this as a per-iod of rapid change," Spence told the Faculty Senate in his annual report last June. "Changes in technol- ogy alone, particularly in information technology, have had an immense impact on business organizations and on markets. In a global economy, companies must maintain adequate levels of communication and control, all the while increasing speed and efficiency. Doing so requires that they--and their managers--understand in some depth the current and future technological possibilities and, as well, the potential impact on their markets and their companies. Aspiring to be the leading academic school of management in the world, we must bring into our research the challenging issues facing managers, without losing our academic rigor to the cry for relevance, and quickly bring these issues into the classroom."
       Under Spence's leadership, the School has expanded its view outward, building relationships between researchers and business and industry leaders and emphasizing global management. Specifically, it has:

* increased the number of global management courses
* encouraged and supported faculty members doing international research and course development
* introduced the Global Management Program
* established the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
* revised the MBA core curriculum
* constructed the $31 million Schwab Residential Center and begun a new faculty office building
* expanded the executive education program
* encouraged the development of joint programs with industry and the engineering school, like the Stanford Computer Industry Project and the Stanford Integrated Manufacturing Association
* recruited an impressive array of faculty
* recruited business leaders as lecturers
* developed cases and innovative courseware
* expanded Business School alumni/ae events to include a series of conferences on women's issues
* raised $120 million for these and other programs.

       "All of this required innovation and leadership from faculty, staff, and students," said Spence. "It is a testament to the School's academic history, traditions, and values that the necessary leadership was more than up to the challenges."
       Spence also has been active in the University at large, playing a key role in the early 1990s as the University cut its budget and reorganized. On a national level, he served as chairman of the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy of the National Research Council, where he headed a distinguished panel of
academics and business leaders that studied factors affecting the nation's economic growth. He currently serves on the boards of directors of Bank of America, Sun Microsystems, General Mills Inc., Nike Inc., and Siebel Systems Inc.
       Spence has no specific career plans past the nineties. "I hope to be able to return to teaching, but I have not made any definite commitments. After I finish the work ahead of me as dean, I will take some time and weigh a variety of opportunities," he said.