School Notes: School of Management
July/August 2007

New curriculum year one

The school completed the first year of its new MBA curriculum in May, and it has been deemed a success by faculty, students, and recruiters alike. After the Orientation to Management and Organizational Perspectives segments, the year culminated with the Integrated Leadership Perspective course, which involved 23 professors from varying disciplines and focused on tying together all of the learning that had come before. "People weren't sure quite how it was going to work out, either on the faculty or the student side," said Matt Miller ’08MBA, "but in many ways I could give it a 10 out of 10 and call it seamless."

A new way to study business

In April, the school debuted a first-of-its-kind multimedia case study. Built on the theory that the traditional print format for business case studies could be augmented to reflect the multidimensional business problems executives face today, the new form uses Internet, database, and media technology to reflect the real-time nature of business; it also supports the integration of traditional business disciplines that is at the heart of the school's new MBA curriculum model.

SOM faculty found an extraordinary teaching moment in the November 2006 acquisition of Equity Office Properties Trust by the Blackstone Group, which was the largest real estate deal in U.S. history. After three months of work by faculty and case writers, including extensive interviews with the CEOs of both companies, students got their first crack at the Blackstone/EOP case. The multimedia case forced them to evaluate federal filings, analysts' reports, dozens of news reports, and studies of the real estate and private equity industries. "I believe it's the case of the future," said Will Goetzmann ’78, ’86MPPM, ’90PhD, the Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Management Studies, who helped design it.

Record year for fund-raising

SOM enjoyed the best fund-raising year in its history in 2006-2007, with more than $110 million raised. This more than triples the previous year's fund-raising figure, and dwarfs the 2004-2005 total of $9 million. The amount is counted towards the school's Management Tomorrow drive to raise $300 million in seven years. With four years to go, the school is close to the halfway mark for its overall campaign goal. Nearly $50 million of the funding raised to date is targeted to the new SOM campus, the architect for which should be revealed shortly. The SOM Alumni Fund is also on track for record participation this year. Among major business schools, historically only Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business has a higher rate of alumni giving than Yale SOM.