Let’s Celebrate! HBS is 100 Years Young

A BIG DAY FOR THE HBS COMMUNITY: At the School’s centennial birthday, in a tent on the HBS tennis courts, students, staff, and faculty react to the jaw-dropping music and dance talent of friends and colleagues.

Photo by Stuart Cahill

Exotic Indian dancing, cool jazz, case discussions, lunch for 3,000, inspiring speakers, and a giant Baker Library birthday cake: all those ingredients and more came together on April 8, the date of HBS’s official founding in 1908. It was a day that saw faculty, students, and staff gather as one, as they never have before, to celebrate the School’s centennial.

The event began with Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust, a historian, saluting the School’s illustrious past and looking forward to a momentous future. She revealed that she had recently become a strong advocate of the case method after Dean Jay Light invited her to HBS, where she had observed for the first time the case method in action. Calling her visit an “eye-opener,” she added that “active learning doesn’t begin to describe it.”

And so President Faust joined a long line of believers who, over the decades, have participated in the dynamic exercise that is at the core of the transformational HBS experience. Not surprisingly, the case method was a prominent feature of this special day, intended not only to celebrate the School’s achievements but also to reflect upon the challenges that lie ahead. A special case, “HBS in 2008,” written by Senior Lecturer Mike Roberts, executive director of the Rock Center, was taught across the campus; it cast students, staff, and faculty in the role of Dean Light as he pondered the future of HBS. Afterward, at a mammoth luncheon in Harvard’s indoor tennis facility, Dean Light told the community he was eager to review the many ideas, suggestions, and observations that had emerged during the sessions.

The afternoon program consisted of a variety of panels and presentations in which guest speakers, including a number from the HBS and Harvard faculties and several HBS alumni, addressed topics such as leadership, social enterprise, and empowering one’s self and others. The day’s final activity took place in a tent at HBS, where music and dance performances by community members showcased their enormous “other” talents. (Equally impressive was an exhibition in Spangler Center of paintings, photographs, and sculpture by community members.)

As Dean Light said of the day and its import, “I can’t think of a better group to celebrate with.” Still to come is the Centennial’s centerpiece for alumni, this fall’s Global Business Summit, to be held at the School October 12–14.