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Stanford Business magazine

 

February 2006

Dean's Column: Expanding Our Role at Stanford

The Business School has an important role to play in helping the University broaden graduate education.

“For most of us in business today, combining the diverse talents of people in multiple fields and countries is the essence of management. We need to train our GSB students for leadership in solving problems that have not yet been defined with technology that has not yet been invented. This can only be done through interdisciplinary training and a global framework for education.”

Those words belong to alumnus Isaac Stein, JD/MBA ’72, an attorney and investment executive, who is also former chairman of the Stanford Board of Trustees, a current member of the Business School Advisory Council, and a founding member of the Stanford Advisory Council on Interdisciplinary Biosciences. I couldn’t agree with him more. Like me, he’s been practicing management long enough to know that whatever name you attach to the notion of integrated thinking—multidisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, or interdisciplinary—it will be essential to solve the complex problems of the 21st century. Not to mention capitalize on potential opportunities.

To that end, the University is in the early stages of reshaping graduate education to induce multidisciplinary learning. The aim is not only to create but also to apply knowledge to societal challenges. University President John Hennessy has identified multidisciplinary initiatives to solve complex, global problems in human health, the environment, and international relations, as well as an effort to better integrate the arts and creativity on campus.

The Business School will be essential part of the University’s vision. The Commission on Graduate Education has been co-chaired by Mark Horowitz, the Yahoo Founders Professor in the School of Engineering, and Charles Holloway, the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Professor of Management, Emeritus, in the Business School. Jim Baron, the Walter Kenneth Kilpatrick Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources, also sat on the commission, which delivered its report to the senate of the Academic Council Dec. 1. It recommended, among other things, the creation of faculty incentives to develop multidisciplinary educational experiences, summer programs for grad students, consistent class scheduling across schools, and the creation of a vice provost for graduate education.

Historically, graduate education has been about preparation for academic life. But more than half of Stanford’s grad students are going into non-academic careers. It’s important that we think about how to prepare them for organizational life. The Business School can play a role that will benefit other graduate students as well as MBAs. The initiatives around human health, the environment, and international institution-building need us to be more effective. I am absolutely, 100 percent convinced of that. Solutions to big problems will work only when delivered by well-managed organizations.

We already have taken concrete steps toward the commission’s recommendations. Next summer the School will pilot a four-week management course for Stanford graduate students from non-business disciplines. The program will be modeled after our short-course executive programs as well our Summer Institute for non-business undergraduates.

The Business School faculty also recently approved important logistical changes in class scheduling that will take effect this fall for easier enrollment in both management and university courses. Finally, a significant portion of the generous $30 million gift we recently received from Robert M. Bass, MBA ’74, will make possible more student-driven Bass Seminars including several that draw students from different disciplines.

Last year, we made our first joint faculty appointment with the School of Education. Today students from both schools sit together in classes that examine how management in education might be improved. The GSB already has 31 courses cross-listed with the other schools at Stanford and has offered for many years joint degrees with the schools of education and law. And our MBA students are increasingly pursuing dual degrees in such fields as environmental policy and medicine.

When I talk with alumni, I hear enthusiasm for greater connection to other areas of the University. Says Advisory Council member Tom Steyer, MBA ’83, founder of Farallon Capital: “The basics of business education—many of which were pioneered at the GSB—have become widely disseminated. Stanford’s ability to integrate those essential skills with its cutting-edge involvement in other disciplines will enable its students—at the GSB or elsewhere—to develop real-world competitive advantages and the ability to lead change within particular industry segments.”

I hope that you, too, find this vision compelling.