The Dean's Fund
Supporting Key Priorities
Make a Difference
Your support makes the Dean's Fund a powerful resource for innovation. In FY 2011, the Dean's Fund:
The goal for FY 2012: $17.5 million with broad alumni participation. Be counted by making your contribution here:
Global Endeavors
HBS's seven global centers are located in key regions—including Europe, Asia-Pacific, India, California, and Latin America—where they support faculty research and forge connections with industry, government, and academic institutions. The School's small physical footprint yields large dividends when it comes to innovative research and intellectual ambition. "Our strategy is to leverage Harvard Business School's scale and size not by greatly expanding our physical footprint, but by expanding our larger intellectual footprint," explains Dean Nitin Nohria. Of the 263 new field cases created last year, 135 were global in scope. About a third of the cases taught in the first-year MBA Program have a global focus, and five new electives address globalization.
The Executive Education experience is also deepened by our global endeavors and connections. New presentation and classroom spaces in our global centers, most recently in the Harvard Center Shanghai, which opened in the spring of 2010, serve as two-way conduits for worldwide business knowledge and best practices.
"Our strategy is to leverage Harvard Business School's scale and size not by greatly expanding our physical footprint, but by expanding our larger intellectual footprint."
–Dean Nitin Nohria
New Initiatives
The Dean's Fund supports a number of forward-thinking programs that address complex intersections between business and urgent social issues, including the Business and Environment Initiative (BEI). The initiative seeks to deepen business leaders' understanding of today's environmental challenges and to assist them in developing effective solutions. BEI helps leaders to think clearly about the design of economic and political institutions that enable firms and societies to thrive while maintaining the physical and biological systems on which they ultimately depend.
During their two years at HBS, MBA students are exposed to environmental content through cases and discussion in a range of courses related to agribusiness, energy, finance, real estate, technology and operations, entrepreneurship, negotiation, social enterprise, and leadership. Each year, many students pursue field-based academic projects with a focus on the environment.
The Business and Environment Initiative seeks to deepen business leaders' understanding of today's environmental challenges and to assist them in developing effective solutions.
Financial Aid
Need-based grants directly reduce students' costs. The HBS fellowship program supports the School's need-blind admissions policy, thus attracting the most talented students regardless of their financial circumstances. About half of all MBA students receive need-based fellowships. By reducing debt, fellowships also help expand career options.
As the HBS endowment recovers from the economic downturn, the Dean's Fund has been essential in making up for decreased distributions. In FY2010, total fellowship spending was $21 million—almost $3 million of which was provided by the Dean's Fund. Given the School's commitment to increasing the fellowship budget annually to offset tuition increases for students in need of financial assistance, the Dean's Fund will likely remain an important source of fellowship funding. Today's average two-year MBA fellowship award is $49,000. Tuition for the Class of 2012 is $97,200, with the total cost of attendance estimated at $158,200.
In FY2010, total fellowship spending was $21 million—almost $3 million of which was provided by the Dean's Fund.
Field-Based Learning
One of Dean Nohria's key objectives is to develop innovative approaches to learning. Under his leadership, HBS faculty are implementing a "field method" of learning—based on practice-centered activities—that supplements and enhances the School's renowned case method. "The field method," Dean Nohria says, "will address what has been called the knowing-doing gap, by giving students opportunities to practice what they would actually do in various managerial situations that might range from launching a new product in an emerging market to starting a new business."
IXPs (Immersion Experience Programs) are one way in which students step outside of the classroom to put their knowledge into action. In January, 26 MBA students traveled to Rwanda to observe firsthand the country's transition from a subsistence-agriculture economy to a knowledge-based one. In addition to those in Rwanda, more than 300 students participated in IXPs throughout the world including India, China, Haiti, and Turkey.
HBS faculty are implementing a "field method" of learning—based on practice-centered activities—that supplements and enhances the School's renowned case method.
Cross-Disciplinary Research
Harvard Business School has had a tremendous impact on management education scholarship, and Dean Nohria believes the School should aspire to even greater intellectual ambition—particularly by exploring previously underappreciated connections between private and public sectors and among multiple academic disciplines.
One example of this focus on cross-disciplinary research is the Networked Businesses Project , which seeks to unite faculty members who research business models that have strong numerical or social network effects. Projects focus on the intersection of traditional marketing and digital marketing, and faculty research looks at how to acquire and retain customers in the digital age. As Professor Mikolaj Piskoski explains, "It used to be a business of averages, where companies had to manage the expectations of the middle. Now it's the extremes and the passions that spread virally."
The Networked Business Project seeks to unite faculty members who research business models that have strong numerical or social network effects.
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Donor Spotlight
“If there is one thing that the downturn of 2008 taught us, it is the importance of flexibility. The best way to support an institution you believe in is to give unrestricted funds, particularly during difficult economic times. I trust HBS to deploy resources where they are most needed.”Alex Roepers, MBA '84
