Dean's Message

Dear Yale SOM Alumni and Friends,

With our spring term well underway, I am impressed by our faculty's commitment to the integrated core curriculum. In the words of my colleague Anjani Jain, senior associate dean for the full-time MBA program, Yale SOM continues to most closely approach the holy grail of business education, i.e., meaningful integration of business disciplines and functions. Also this spring, both second-year full-time MBAs and the inaugural class of Master of Advanced Management students are taking SOM electives, with the MAM students adding fresh perspectives. On a personal note, earlier in the semester I had the opportunity to co-teach our executive MBA students in a session on leadership issues, along with Professor Will Goetzmann and Yale alumna Robin Jaffee Frank PhD '95.

Our regular coursework has been enriched by compelling talks, gatherings, and research. Investing legend Wilbur Ross YC '59, Analysis Group president and CEO Martha Samuelson YC '76, and chairman and CEO of Honeywell Dave Cote have contributed to our Leaders Forum speakers series. Professor Fiona Scott Morton, recently returned from serving as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, shared her experiences with students in a Faculty Forum, while other Yale SOM faculty leaders have provided new insights through their research. Yale's great convening power was evident at Yale SOM Center for Customer Insights' annual marketing conference and at the MBA student-led Yale Philanthropy Conference.

Next month the Global Network for Advanced Management will provide our students with their first major opportunity to connect with top MBA students from a spanning set of countries. Eighty-six Yale SOM students will participate in Immersion Week, traveling to another Global Network school to engage in a program focused on a business-related theme, along with students from the other participating Network schools.

Meanwhile, excitement grows about the school's distinctive positioning—the business school most closely involved with its home university, most distinctively global, and best equipped to prepare elevated leaders for all sectors. Applications are up for all of our programs, and we are now officially counting down to the opening of Edward P. Evans Hall in January 2014.

I am well aware that Yale SOM's excellence is built upon the achievements of the visionary leaders who, in 1974, created a truly distinctive business school, and of the many faculty, students, alumni, and staff who have contributed to its advancement over the nearly four decades since its founding. In Evans Hall, we will have a modern space to unify our community, one that will be transparent and will foster substantive exchange. Over the coming months, I encourage you to monitor our progress toward the opening of Evans Hall on January 9 here. In the meantime, I offer my sincere thanks for your support of the distinctive value of our mission to educate leaders for business and society.

Best regards,