MAY 2007
Summer Institute: All in the Family
It’s a family affair: Alums are now recruiting their kids—and grandkids—to take part in a Stanford summer program that offers business skills to a new generation.
After Caitlin Burke graduated from Vanderbilt University, she knew she wanted to learn more about business, but she wasn’t ready for business school. Then she thought of her grandmother, Rosemary Damon, MBA ’48.
One of a handful of women in her Business School class, Damon got an MBA in the days when a woman who showed up at work with an engagement ring was fired on the spot. Burke found inspiration in her grandmother’s perseverance, which started with her GSB education. “My grandmother had always talked about her fond memories of being at Stanford,” she said. Following in her grandmother’s footsteps, Burke decided to enroll in Stanford’s Summer Institute for General Management.
Over three years, the Institute has taught basic business skills to 343 undergraduates and recent grads. Of that group, 58 were children of Stanford MBAs or Sloan grads, 8 were children of the School’s executive education participants, and 72 were children of other Stanford alumni—a 40 percent Stanford affiliation rate.
Professor Kathryn Shaw, program co-creator and director, emphasizes that both the University and alumni parents benefit from having their children in the Institute. The Summer Institute gets motivated and well-prepared students, and alumni renew their Stanford connection, which opens up new ways to communicate with their 20-something kids. “Once their kids are in this program, they feel they have a language and a shared experience that brings them together again,” Shaw says. One alumnus even said he had “better dinner conversations” with his son who attended the Institute—they discussed business principles and news in a way that had not been possible before.
Most important to Damon, the program gave her granddaughter a grounding in business. “She needed an overall view of business, and I thought this was a good way to get it at a very desirable location with some outstanding professors,” says the Portola Valley resident, a retired accountant and accounting professor who is often the only woman at reunions for those who graduated from the School 50 or more years ago.
Details about the Summer Institute can be found at www.gsb.stanford.edu/si.