School Notes: School of Management
November/December 2008

New students tackle Audubon Street Project

Just a few hours into orientation, students of the Class of 2010 were launched into a two-day exercise called the Audubon Street Project, designed to introduce them to each other and to the SOM approach to solving business problems. Divided into groups of six or seven, each team had to devise a hypothetical business concept for an unoccupied storefront on New Haven's Audubon Street, near the SOM campus. Students were given background information -- maps, photographs, information about tax rates and other fixed costs -- but little more. The concepts had to be economically viable; have a social impact that reflected SOM's mission of educating leaders for business and society; and reflect Yale's desire to have a positive impact on the New Haven community. "We wanted orientation to be focused on what's unique and special about the school," Dean Joel Podolny says. "The Audubon Street Project was a chance for students to reflect on the SOM mission before they get into classwork and the job search. The student proposals didn't just meet our expectations, they exceeded them."

Yale SOM "raw cases" focus of Marketplace report

Dean Podolny was a guest on the internationally distributed business radio program Marketplace on August 28 to discuss the innovative "raw" case studies pioneered by SOM to support the school's integrated MBA curriculum. Unlike traditional "cooked" business cases -- short documents that present a business problem in a neatly packaged, single-point-of-view narrative with a sure answer -- SOM's web-based "raw" cases are open-ended, multi-perspective scenarios that can feature thousands of pages of primary documents relevant to the case, such as 10-Ks, analyst reports, news articles, stock charts, and interviews with key players, all of which students must analyze. This format reflects the way managers must access and analyze information to make informed business decisions. SOM created a case-writing department two years ago charged with creating the documents necessary to make business education reflect the realities of a global marketplace.

Yale president defines higher education in business terms

Yale president Richard C. Levin ’74PhD addressed SOM students on September 16 on the topic of leading a major, world-renowned organization. He was the first speaker in the school's Leaders Forum lecture series. Looking back over 15 years at Yale's helm, Levin explained how he took an institution with a great national reputation and turned it into one of the most respected brands around the globe. He focused on several major initiatives: rebuilding Yale's crumbling infrastructure and expanding its physical plant; working with New Haven to save depressed neighborhoods and revitalize its downtown core; strengthening science research and education; turning Yale into an international university; and taking a leadership role on the environment. The point of all the initiatives, he said, is to make sure Yale flourishes in a new global environment. "In a globally competitive world, higher education is no different than the business strategy you study," he told the SOM audience. "There's going to be a global market for faculty; there's already a global market for students. Yale wants to be at the top of the heap."