Stories
Stories
With excitement and anticipation, we begin a new academic year at HBS. This will be the third year I have had the pleasure to serve as the School's Dean, a wonderful job full of fascinating challenges and great satisfaction.
The October issue of the Bulletin celebrates the accomplishments of a distinguished group of people: this year's 25th Reunion class. Over the last two years I have had the opportunity to meet and speak with hundreds of alumni, and I have been deeply impressed by and grateful for our graduates' leadership ability and keen interest in the future of Harvard Business School. I know you will join me in congratulating the Class of 1972 as they observe this important milestone.
This is an exhilarating time to be associated with HBS. The mission of the School - to educate leaders - has never been more important, and the enduring values that have characterized this institution for almost ninety years are firmly in place. Our commitment to excellence in teaching, field-based research, the case method of instruction, and education for leadership remains as strong as ever. But there is also much about the School that is changing. I would like to bring you up to date on a few of our current initiatives.
I will start with our faculty, because that is where almost everything begins at HBS. The mission of this School demands a gifted faculty that is close to practice. We need people who can see business through the eyes of the general manager and yet can step back to teach, write, and build deep knowledge based on that insight and perspective. This year, after an aggressive recruiting effort involving many people at the School, we welcome over twenty new faculty members, many of them from countries outside the United States. These extraordinary individuals bring an infusion of talent and energy that will help to drive our research and teaching initiatives well into the next century.
Three of those initiatives are particularly important because they build on our strengths and take us into areas that will be vital to 21st century business practice. The first is information technology. We have embarked on a major technology initiative that will help us bring the world into the classroom in even more powerful ways. Through new Web-based electronic cases, we are creating an educational context where numbers come alive, where students access information from around the world in real time via the Internet, and where full-motion videos take students into the reality of business to study the challenges of general management on-site. These tools strengthen nuance, stimulate discovery, and promote a deeper understanding of problems, all essential tools general managers need to frame problems, exercise judgment, and lead. We are just at the beginning of this work, and the future holds enormous promise.
Second, we are continuing to sharpen our focus on entrepreneurship. Since Howard Stevenson's return to the School in 1981, teaching and research in this area have grown to the point where we now have a large, dynamic, and highly successful Entrepreneurial Management Group with a commitment to this field that is unparalleled. This large faculty commitment is needed not only because the level of student interest in entrepreneurship has reached record levels at HBS, but also because an understanding of the dynamics of growth and change within an enterprise is increasingly essential to all managers. Course development and research in this area has expanded exponentially over the last few years. This summer, in fact, we established a Center for Research and Course Development in California's Silicon Valley in order to provide a base of operations for our faculty who are studying and developing cases on the rapidly growing, dynamic enterprises in that region. In Chicago next June, global issues for entrepreneurs will be the focus of our 1998 Global Alumni Conference.
From past alumni conferences, most recently last spring's gathering in Hong Kong, it is obvious that HBS graduates share our faculty's enthusiasm for another important project at the School: the global initiative. From the outset, HBS has had a significant international presence: we have helped launch a number of business schools around the world, conducted pathbreaking research, educated thousands of global business leaders, and written thousands of international cases. Today we are about to embark on an ambitious effort that builds on that foundation by expanding research and course development internationally, creating new programs in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Perhaps the most important element in this initiative is the development of research and education centers outside the United States, beginning next year with the establishment of the first HBS research center in Asia. Over the next few years, we will create other centers in key regions of the world.
Future issues of the Bulletin will report on details of these and other thought-provoking HBS initiatives. It is appropriate, however, to start the academic year with a Bulletin that places the spotlight on you, our alumni. Not only are you critical in supporting our mission, but in the work you do in organizations large and small all over the globe, you are living proof that we educate business leaders who make a difference in the world. It is a privilege to be a part of this remarkable community.
Dean Kim B. Clark
September 1997
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