40 Facts About the Public Management Program

Originally published October 18, 2011

1. The Stanford Graduate School of Business was just ranked #1 in the world for social and environmental impact by the Aspen Institute.
2. The Public Management Program (PMP), was the first program of its kind at an American business school.
3. The Board Fellows program has been emulated by numerous business schools around the world.
4. The Service Learning Initiative was the first program of its kind at a graduate school. Since its inception in 2005-06, the Initiative has led 28 trips to nine countries around the world, providing transformative experiences to 502 students and 19 faculty members.
5. The Alumni Consulting Team has served 448 nonprofit organizations to date.
6. An article published in the Center for Social Innovation’s magazine, Stanford Social Innovation Review, inspired the creation of the White House Office for Social Innovation and Civic Participation.
7. The Center for Social Innovation (CSI) podcasts have been downloaded over 2 million times by social innovators from all over the world.
8. The Center supports five social innovation fellows.
9. The Center’s executive education programs educated over 1,500 nonprofit and philanthropy leaders.
10. The Center conferences and workshops served over 7,000 executives.
11. Dean Arjay Miller agreed to become the dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business on the condition that he could create the Public Management Program.
12. Dean Spence plunged in the dunk tank to fundraise in support of students choosing to intern in social purpose organizations.
13. Dean Joss sang in a band to help sponsor Stanford GSB interns in social purpose organizations.
14. Every year the students vote for a topic of public interest that becomes the Public Management Initiative (PMI) for the year. In 1993-94, the losing topic, Think Locally, Manage Globally, led to the creation of the Global Management Program. The students thought the topic was so important that they pursued their goal regardless of the vote outcome.
15. PMP founder Arjay Miller decided to join the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1968, a turbulent time on university campuses. He then said: “Anyone who joins a university administration today has to be either an optimist or a fool – and I can’t quite admit that I am a fool.”
16. The Program in Urban Management created in 1971 served as a one-year prototype for the Public Management Program.
17. The first class of PMP certificate earners was comprised of only 2 students: Tom Johnston, and Michael Lichtenstein both MBA ‘73.
18. The class of ‘88 transformed the PMP into a student-led program. They thought the school wasn’t doing a good job at addressing their needs and decided to take it over!
19. The first large-scale event held in Cemex Auditorium in the new Knight Management Center, TEDx Silicon Valley, was produced by the Center for Social Innovation.
20. Only once in the history of the Center for Social Innovation has there been more than one man on staff at a time.
21. Jim Thompson, long time PMP director, jumped out of the bandwagon to create his own social enterprise, Positive Coaching Alliance.
22. The new Knight Management Center is Leed Platinum Certified.
23. 25% of the 2011 class received the PMP Certificate and over 50% of the class took part in CSI/PMP activities.
24. GSB students wrote the business plan for the school’s caterer to switch to sustainable operations and move toward composting, recycling, and local sourcing of ingredients.
25. 98% of the Knight Management Center construction waste was recycled and/or diverted from landfills.
26. The power use at the Knight Management Center was reduced by 46% through natural lighting and optimized climate systems.
27. The I Had a Dream Club mentored 96 kids from first grade all the way through college, a 10-year commitment to each and every child.
28. The Start Up Club has mentored 1250 neighborhood entrepreneurs in East Palo Alto since 1994.
29. The passion of Conradin Von Gugelberg, MBA ‘87, for the environment still inspires today’s students through the annual lecture held by alumni of the class of 1987 to honor his memory.
30. In the Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability class, students leverage design principles to develop real solutions to real problems affecting real people, and some of them create real social enterprises.
31. John Gardner once said: “Don’t pray for the day when we finally solve our problems. Pray for the freedom to continue working on the problems that the future will never cease to throw at us.”
32. The Center will host a pre-conference to the Rio +20 United Nation Conference on International Development February 2-4, 2012.
33. The Public Management Certificate is now called the Certificate in Public Management and Social Innovation.
34. The Graduate School of Business will soon launch a new course on impact investing and is working on a Business Models for Education course.
35. The Stanford Social Innovation Review after five years of being incubated at the Stanford Graduate School of Business found a new home for its next phase of growth.
36. New Service Learning Trips this year will take students and faculty to the United Arab Emirates and Kenya
37. In 1965, 3.3 billion people shared the planet; next week, we will officially pass the 7 billion mark.
38. The Center for Social Innovation launches the Alumni Topic of the Year. This year: The Promise of a Connected World, or How Social Media and Mobile Technologies Will Benefit Humanity.
39. The student Public Management Initiative this year explores the power of Social Media for Social Good.
40. We are expecting over 400 alumni on October 20 to celebrate the school’s 40-year commitment to educating leaders who can change the world.