Deans' Retreat
Dean Bob Joss and the Administration
Issue date: 10/1/01 Section: Deans' Corner
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As has been customary, we held a day-and-a-half retreat late in August, together with faculty members Mary Barth and Chuck Holloway. We discussed a number of specific topics, but the main topic of discussion, and the main focus of this report, was the ongoing Needs Assessment process, which is now moving into its final stages.
For readers new to this story, the Needs Assessment process is a university-wide process in which the various units of the university are assessing where they are and where they wish to be over the coming decade. It is driven by constraints imposed on the university as a whole both financial and in terms of square footage and number of individuals, the latter two constraints being imposed by the University’s General Use Permit.
For the GSB, the Needs Assessment process has tied in with a general “review” of the school, begun by Dean Joss as he began his term of office about two years ago. Earlier steps included a thorough data-collection exercise undertaken by Bain and Company, which aimed at understanding where the GSB stood both absolutely and relative to other first-rank business schools. Then, over the course of last year, the school--through consultations with various constituencies and through a joint student-faculty-alumni committee--investigated three possible growth options for degree programs.
As a result of these earlier steps, Dean Joss declared late last spring his intention to reject the three growth options that were investigated. Based on advice received and our own analysis, we concluded that the advantages for scholarship, for our teaching programs, and for our community of both our relatively small size and focus on existing programs outweighed the benefits of expanding.
But this determination is not the end of the story. While maintaining our degree programs at essentially their current size, there are a number of important concerns that we must address. The retreat was devoted primarily to discussing tentative priorities for the next several years.
We will continue to consult widely about these priorities, with all of the important constituencies of the school, over the coming year. But we can, at this point, give an interim report on our thoughts and rationale.
The story begins with our history. Beginning in the 1960’s, the Stanford GSB revolutionized MBA education by bringing disciplinary-based scholarship to the problems of general management. We pioneered a model that was identified by the phrases “balanced excellence”--balancing world-class disciplinary-based research and world-class professional education--and “relevance with rigor,” studying and teaching issues of relevance to general managers with the highest level of analytical rigor possible. At the time, many believed the model would not work. But time has proven that our strategy was right.
Success breads imitation, of course, and our competitors have moved decisively toward the Stanford model. Chicago has moved from rigor towards relevance; HBS has increased their level of rigor; Wharton, Kellogg, and others have adopted the basic design we pioneered. The field has become quite crowded, and we can no longer claim to be leading simply by saying we blend rigor and relevance. In the 60s, it was a distinct strategy; in 2001, it is what all the first-rate business schools around the world do.
We believe that we continue to lead the pack, in terms of the quality of education we provide, the research we do, and the other outputs we generate. But our lead is less commanding, and we seek (once again) ways to move decisively ahead of the competition, while maintaining our basic strengths, and shoring up some of our weaknesses.
Maintaining our basic strengths means rededication and continuing efforts in research and teaching in the basic disciplines and functional fields of management. It means continuing efforts to offer the very best professional degree and Ph.D. programs in the world, including efforts to improve the classroom effectiveness of our faculty. It means continuing efforts to keep our research output and curriculum ahead of the curve.
Shoring up some of our weaknesses largely concerns devoting time and resources to problem areas, including areas where our small scale has presented problems in the past. Important pieces of this include: Although we believe we have made some strides in improving communication between students and faculty and administration, we aren’t done. We will continue to strengthen the sense all constituencies have of being part of the GSB community. The GSB South Building is over 35 years old and continues to require refurbishment. The Best-Web project continues to require attention. Student and faculty service activities for which we are at an inefficiently small scale, such as the CMC, require additional attention and resources. (We already have plans we are executing to increase our staffing within the CMC, to use our excellent alumni network to greater advantage for our current students and to re-launch aggressive outreach efforts to companies we want recruiting here at the GSB.) In some specific areas and fields, our faculty coverage is one-person thin; some building to provide “depth” is required.
These activities--sticking to our knitting and making improvements--are important. But they won’t move us far ahead of the competition. We are thinking instead of several major projects and initiatives that, we believe, could both energize the GSB community and provide breakaway strengths to the school.
In terms of pedagogical technique:
In terms of content:
To strengthen our community:
In terms of our people:
The key to leaping ahead of the pack is not to think in terms of repositioning ourselves in terms of the current relevance—rigor frontier. Instead, by redefining how we teach, what we study and teach, and who we are, both collectively and individually, we should look for innovations that will push the frontier out, so we can increase both relevance and rigor simultaneously. A small change in each of our daily activities can generate an enormous increase in the school’s leadership and impact.
For readers new to this story, the Needs Assessment process is a university-wide process in which the various units of the university are assessing where they are and where they wish to be over the coming decade. It is driven by constraints imposed on the university as a whole both financial and in terms of square footage and number of individuals, the latter two constraints being imposed by the University’s General Use Permit.
For the GSB, the Needs Assessment process has tied in with a general “review” of the school, begun by Dean Joss as he began his term of office about two years ago. Earlier steps included a thorough data-collection exercise undertaken by Bain and Company, which aimed at understanding where the GSB stood both absolutely and relative to other first-rank business schools. Then, over the course of last year, the school--through consultations with various constituencies and through a joint student-faculty-alumni committee--investigated three possible growth options for degree programs.
As a result of these earlier steps, Dean Joss declared late last spring his intention to reject the three growth options that were investigated. Based on advice received and our own analysis, we concluded that the advantages for scholarship, for our teaching programs, and for our community of both our relatively small size and focus on existing programs outweighed the benefits of expanding.
But this determination is not the end of the story. While maintaining our degree programs at essentially their current size, there are a number of important concerns that we must address. The retreat was devoted primarily to discussing tentative priorities for the next several years.
We will continue to consult widely about these priorities, with all of the important constituencies of the school, over the coming year. But we can, at this point, give an interim report on our thoughts and rationale.
The story begins with our history. Beginning in the 1960’s, the Stanford GSB revolutionized MBA education by bringing disciplinary-based scholarship to the problems of general management. We pioneered a model that was identified by the phrases “balanced excellence”--balancing world-class disciplinary-based research and world-class professional education--and “relevance with rigor,” studying and teaching issues of relevance to general managers with the highest level of analytical rigor possible. At the time, many believed the model would not work. But time has proven that our strategy was right.
Success breads imitation, of course, and our competitors have moved decisively toward the Stanford model. Chicago has moved from rigor towards relevance; HBS has increased their level of rigor; Wharton, Kellogg, and others have adopted the basic design we pioneered. The field has become quite crowded, and we can no longer claim to be leading simply by saying we blend rigor and relevance. In the 60s, it was a distinct strategy; in 2001, it is what all the first-rate business schools around the world do.
We believe that we continue to lead the pack, in terms of the quality of education we provide, the research we do, and the other outputs we generate. But our lead is less commanding, and we seek (once again) ways to move decisively ahead of the competition, while maintaining our basic strengths, and shoring up some of our weaknesses.
Maintaining our basic strengths means rededication and continuing efforts in research and teaching in the basic disciplines and functional fields of management. It means continuing efforts to offer the very best professional degree and Ph.D. programs in the world, including efforts to improve the classroom effectiveness of our faculty. It means continuing efforts to keep our research output and curriculum ahead of the curve.
Shoring up some of our weaknesses largely concerns devoting time and resources to problem areas, including areas where our small scale has presented problems in the past. Important pieces of this include: Although we believe we have made some strides in improving communication between students and faculty and administration, we aren’t done. We will continue to strengthen the sense all constituencies have of being part of the GSB community. The GSB South Building is over 35 years old and continues to require refurbishment. The Best-Web project continues to require attention. Student and faculty service activities for which we are at an inefficiently small scale, such as the CMC, require additional attention and resources. (We already have plans we are executing to increase our staffing within the CMC, to use our excellent alumni network to greater advantage for our current students and to re-launch aggressive outreach efforts to companies we want recruiting here at the GSB.) In some specific areas and fields, our faculty coverage is one-person thin; some building to provide “depth” is required.
These activities--sticking to our knitting and making improvements--are important. But they won’t move us far ahead of the competition. We are thinking instead of several major projects and initiatives that, we believe, could both energize the GSB community and provide breakaway strengths to the school.
In terms of pedagogical technique:
- We hope to use the internet and related technologies to improve and enhance our teaching, to provide a richer menu of materials to our audiences, to reach new audiences, and especially to bring our alumni back more frequently and more meaningfully into the GSB, to continue to learn, to help teach us, and to be a part of our day-to-day community.
- We would like to continue developing courses that send students outside the classroom, into real organizations. We would like to explore seriously whether we can leverage our small size and alumni base, to develop interdisciplinary, community-based, project-focused courses, such as those pioneered by Holloway, Rohan, and Hyatt, and by Baron, O’Reilly, and Oyer, which if successful may ultimately become a defining element of the curriculum in our professional degree programs.
In terms of content:
- We plan to strengthen our research and curriculum on topics connected to technology x management and technology x people, in part by leveraging and building our connections with the School of Engineering and with Silicon Valley.
- We hope to help meet society’s need for better understanding of and professional training for the management of not-for-profits and public agencies, including in the fields of education and medicine.
- As an institution devoted to the education of leaders, we hope to come to a better and more rigorous understanding of leadership as a phenomenon and as a discipline to research and study.
- We will continue to react opportunistically to other opportunities to build pinnacles of excellence in research and teaching.
To strengthen our community:
- We hope to develop our physical plant in ways that will enhance our community, including an expansion of on-campus housing such as Schwab; increased and more functional office and conference space, including space for active emeritus faculty members; more flexible and better classroom space; and better facilities for service functions.
- We will continue and expand efforts to build bridges between students, faculty, and staff. For instance, we are discussing ways to increase the exposure of students and staff to faculty research (such as we are doing in the 2nd year seminars); and we are exploring ways to have students participate in both research and teaching efforts.
- We will continue to foster the right culture for the GSB, which achieves cooperation and teamwork along with individual excellence and achievement. It is critical to all of us that we achieve the right balance here and we remain committed to doing so.
- We will continue to seek out new ways to build a more sustained and stronger relationship of alumni with the other constituencies of the school. Over the past year, we rolled out a pilot program in which alumni interview MBA applicants; that program will be expanded this year. We have more fully integrated alumni into orientation. We believe that our increased emphasis on e-learning will provide an additional basis for alumni to connect with the school. Finally, especially in light of the more challenging labor market, we have actively sought out alumni in the recruiting process.
In terms of our people:
- We anticipate modest expansion in the number of regular faculty and support staff, to provide the required human resources for some of the initiatives listed above. We will continue to seek the very best faculty, staff, and students we can find.
- We remain committed to very high standards of quality and the extensive diversity in our student populations, including our MBA Program. We seek students with high academic and work achievement, leadership potential and with varied cultural and work backgrounds. We plan to expand the use of interviews in the admissions process in order to get an even better picture of the prospective students who apply.
The key to leaping ahead of the pack is not to think in terms of repositioning ourselves in terms of the current relevance—rigor frontier. Instead, by redefining how we teach, what we study and teach, and who we are, both collectively and individually, we should look for innovations that will push the frontier out, so we can increase both relevance and rigor simultaneously. A small change in each of our daily activities can generate an enormous increase in the school’s leadership and impact.