Dean's Message
November 15, 2006

Dear Yale SOM graduates,

Greetings from New Haven. When I last wrote a few months ago, summer was at its height and the SOM faculty was fully engaged in rewriting the SOM curriculum. Now, two months into the academic year, I am pleased to report that our bold re-envisioning of MBA education is moving ahead with great success. We continue to receive positive attention in the media; many of you have already read the The Wall Street Journal or Business Week Online articles; just last week, the Boston Globe featured a story on the new SOM curriculum on the first page of their Business Section, as part of their ongoing “Innovation” series.

I had the opportunity to speak with many of you who returned to SOM for reunions in September and October, and it was a pleasure to meet (or in some cases, re-meet) you and hear your perspectives and feedback on how we are doing at the school. As always, I hope all of you in the SOM alumni community will not hesitate to contact me with questions or comments about our school’s course and progress. I have also spoken in the last few months with a number of recruiters and with members of the school’s Board of Advisors. Almost to a person, there is a feeling that SOM is connecting with something big – taking the lead in developing an approach to management education that is absolutely essential to the current requirements of the management profession – while at the same time connecting with the school’s mission and founding principles.

And despite the fact they didn’t get the summer off, our faculty are also invigorated. I have received reports from several of my colleagues that they are very pleased with the high level of engagement of the students in their classes. But perhaps the most positive indicator that we are doing something right comes in the form of an email I recently received from a first-year student. The first-year students finished up the introductory “Orientation to Management” segment of the new curriculum two weeks ago, and embarked on the “Organizational Perspectives” on October 30. A few days later, I received the following email:

“… things this year are really amazing… I can see how integrated our management education truly is. We had a taste of that during the first six weeks (when Stan [Garstka, who taught the Introduction to Accounting class] would mention something from Problem Framing, or Nat [Keohane, who taught the Introduction to Economics class] would recall something from Accounting). But now, we are in the heart of the revolution and it is invigorating. The excitement is palpable and is evident both inside and outside the classroom.”

Beyond the tremendous energy and enthusiasm being generated here by the new curriculum, there is other good news to report. Among other things, our first quarter fundraising has been very successful, with $73 million already raised this year. This compares quite favorably with last year’s record-breaking total of $32.9 million. And our Admissions Office reports that by the October 25th deadline, the number of First Round applications for positions in the Class of 2009 increased by an astonishing 48% from last year. While it is still too soon to tell whether this increase in interest in the SOM MBA program will persist through the remaining two application rounds, it is a very encouraging signal.

What SOM has embarked upon this year is tremendously exciting – and tremendously important to management education and the management profession. I continue to be amazed by, and very grateful for, the support of the entire SOM community – faculty, students, staff, and, most especially, alumni, as we connect our pedagogical practices with the needs of management in every sector. I look forward to providing more updates on our new curriculum – especially on the international experience all of our first years and many of our second years will be embarking on in January – in the next Alumni eNewsletter. In the meantime, I hope you will have the time to read another article that we have included in this eNewsletter issue – an essay I wrote for a recent edition of the online newsletter of the AACSB, the accrediting body of business schools. In it, I highlight some of my thoughts on the connection of self with the profession of management.

With warm regards and thanks,

Joel M. Podolny
Dean and William S. Beinecke Professor of Management