This is a remarkable time in the business world and in the history of Harvard Business School. With advances in technology, a thriving global marketplace, and the entrepreneurial spirit alive and well in companies of all sizes, we are in an era of expanding possibilities. It is a time of transition in business education, when we have an opportunity to make investments that will chart the School's course for decades to come.

For almost a century, HBS has been educating general managers who make a difference in the world. As we move forward, that emphasis on education for leadership remains unchanged. However, to stay on the cutting edge of management education, we must innovate, create new ideas, and bring our knowledge to bear in new kinds of programs. We must break new ground. And that is what we are doing.

In the global arena, where the business world is almost daily redefined, we have just expanded our reach with the opening in August of the Latin America Research Center in Buenos Aires. The center will support our faculty's research on important business issues in South America, Central America, and Mexico. As with our Asia-Pacific Research Office in Hong Kong and planned initiatives in Europe and Japan, the Latin America center is part of the School's continuing strategy to deepen the international content of our curriculum and research while opening new opportunities for cooperation with business and academic communities around the world.

Closer to home, we are seeing the results of our ongoing investment in information technology. Innovative technologies are making possible new ways of learning -- including distance learning or e-learning -- that will extend and enhance our ability to pursue the mission of the School. We see these approaches as a way to enrich, enhance, and complement our tradition of case-method teaching.

In that spirit, we are moving forward on three fronts. First, we are continuing to develop technologies for use in our MBA and Executive Education Programs. Online prematriculation course work, for example, enables us to give our students a head start on learning before they come to campus. Live, two-way satellite feeds between HBS and remote sites bring the business world directly into our classrooms. A second major thrust is Harvard Business School Publishing's (HBSP) continuing development of multimedia materials that enrich business education in schools and companies around the world. Third, we are in the early stages of creating a new organization -- called Harvard Business School Interactive, or HBSi -- that we hope will become the premier online educational resource for leaders around the world.

Advances in classroom technology will play a role in a new initiative that has grown out of the strong interest many of our students have in entrepreneurship and high tech-businesses. This January, our Intensive Field Study Program will allow students to sharpen their entrepreneurial skills by pursuing field studies based either in Boston or on the West Coast (in conjunction with our California Research Center in Silicon Valley). Our faculty will teach a distance learning course with some classes originating in California and some at Soldiers Field, while parts of the course will be offered online.

These kinds of innovative endeavors place a high priority on the recruitment and support of a dedicated, world-class faculty. We are competing for talent in a crowded job market, and we must continue to make a significant investment to cultivate an outstanding faculty with the background, skills, and energy that our programs require.

The quality of our students is also at the core of what HBS is about. As a community and a school, we have a special responsibility to reach out -- through fellowships and other forms of financial assistance -- to make an HBS education possible for anyone who has the capacity and the potential to be a great business leader.

We also have a responsibility to match our predecessors' careful planning and high standards as we develop our extraordinary campus. With last spring's groundbreaking for Hawes Hall, a building that will provide us with eight much-needed, state-of-the-art classrooms, and the winter 2001 opening of the Spangler Center, which will allow us to pull together many social and administrative aspects of the MBA Program, we are entering an exciting new era at Soldiers Field.

As HBS graduates, you are well aware of your own potential to make a difference in the world. A degree from HBS is more than just a credential. Education at HBS is a transforming experience that provides students with a unique set of skills and values, an enduring relationship with a vital extended community, and a foundation for a lifetime of leadership. As you build on that foundation in your professional lives and in all that you do to make the world a better place, you bring honor to the School and give meaning to the degree throughout your career. We thank you for your dedication and for your tremendous support of our initiatives.

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