MIT Reports to the President 1999–2000
The MIT Sloan School of Management had enjoyed a year of positive growth and development in many arenas during the academic year 1999—2000. Sloan’s mission is to be the leading academic source of innovation in management theory and practice. MIT Sloan aspires to develop effective, innovative, and principled leaders who advance the global economy and to conduct rigorous and innovative research that improves management theory and practice. Sloan’s mission, along with our uniquely close linkages with the rest of MIT, position the School exceptionally well in today’s global, entrepreneurial economy. This is an extraordinary time for Sloan.
One of the most significant efforts of this past year was the launch of MIT’s $1.5 billion capital campaign. Sloan plays an integral role in that campaign with our top priority being new facilities. A major investment in the future, the campaign will fund three critical areas — people (endowments for chairs and fellowships), programs (including education and research initiatives) and facilities.
On October 28, 1999, Sloan Alumnus William A. Porter, founder and chairman emeritus of E*Trade, and his wife Joan announced their contribution of $25 million toward a new Sloan facility to be named the William A. Porter Management Center. We would like to see Sloan housed in facilities that match the quality of our students, faculty, staff and programs. Bill and Joan’s extraordinary vision and generosity put us a giant step closer toward achieving that goal.
Sloan continues to draw the nation’s top students to its ranks. The School is rewarded and enriched by the diversity of its student body. The MIT Sloan student body consists of more than 1,100 graduate and undergraduates from approximately 70 countries. The entering MBA class of 2001 consisted of 96 women and 260 men, including 135 international students and 83 members of minority groups. The average age of entering students was 28 years, with an average of five years of full-time work experience.
The incoming class this year was particularly well "wired." It was the first class of any business school required to apply on-line. The students built an on-line global community even before they set foot on campus. They published newsletters, created an indexing system to retrieve messages, and arranged gatherings worldwide, establishing tight-knit, synergistic groups well before most students traditionally meet.
Students ran an extremely successful 11th annual MIT $50K Business Plan Competition. There was a 37 percent increase in the number of teams participating (206) this year with more than 1,000 people attending the final ceremony. This competition is run and entered by students from all over campus providing a rich intermingling of academic disciplines. The competition was heralded by more than 40 media stories on this year’s contest, bringing worldwide attention to MIT and the program.
Students also held the Second Annual eBusiness Awards, garnering entries from around the world. This contest doubled its attendance and media coverage from the previous year.
Students in the Sloan 2000 Leadership Forum inaugurated a day-long leadership conference. Speakers included Duane Ackerman, BellSouth CEO and Sloan Fellow alumnus, and Howard Gardner, Harvard professor and author of the bestseller "Leading Minds." Ackerman also was selected by the students as the Sloan Distinguished Alumni Lecturer this year.
The Lemelson-MIT Program awarded the student prize for inventiveness to Amy Smith, Masters candidate in the Technology and Policy Program. A new team prize for innovation in telecommunication and networking was awarded to MIT students Michael Lim, Jalal Khan and Thomas Murphy.
Alumni involvement continues to grow. More than 900 alumni volunteered their time and talent to Sloan this past year. Sloan set records for reunion attendance and for reunion class gifts. The School held its first alumni leadership conference for volunteers from around the world, providing volunteer training and recognition.
Sloan continued to expand its faculty with several new appointments, and current faculty received a number of honors and awards. The new appointments included Jonathan W. Lewellen as Assistant Professor of Finance, and S.P. Kothari as the Gordon Y Billard Professor of Accounting and Finance.
Several faculty honors of note include the following.
Ernst R. Berndt, Louis Seley Professor of Applied Economics, was named chair of the newly established Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Commission (FESAC).
James M. Utterback, MIT Sloan School Professor of Management and Engineering, was honored as a new Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in Stockholm last fall.
Edgar H. Schein, Sloan Fellows Professor Emeritus of Management and Senior Lecturer, received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Workplace and Performance from the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD).
Lotte Bailyn, T Wilson (Class of 1953) Professor of Management, was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration from the University of Piraeus in Greece for her "significant contribution to the advancement of Business Administration theory and practice."
The Universidad de San Martin de Porres de Lima awarded Thomas A. Kochan, George M. Bunker Professor of Management, a Doctor Honoris Cause for his "outstanding personal merits and extraordinary professionalism and human quality."
Stewart C. Myers, Gordon Y Billard Professor of Finance, received an honorary doctorate from the London Business School of the University of London in July for his outstanding intellectual contribution to management and business studies.
Journal of Business Strategy (September/October 1999) named Senior Lecturer Peter Senge a Strategist of the Century, one of 24 men and women whom the journal regards as having "had the greatest impact on the way we conduct business today."
Sloan launched the New Economy Value Research Laboratory with a pledge of $10 million from the firm Arthur Andersen. This lab, under the direction of Professor S.P. Kothari, will study creation, management and measurement of value in the new economy, looking at risk management and how the financial markets measure value.
The Center for eBusiness @MIT, created in 1999, attracted 15 corporate sponsors in its first year, who collectively pledged approximately $20 million to support the Center’s educational and research programs over the next three years.
The five-year research program "Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century" presented its findings in a day-long symposium in November 1999, outlining faculty views of promising organizational structures of the 21st century.
Fudan University in Shanghai graduated it first class of 38 International MBA students in January, the second school in Sloan’s China Management Education Project to graduate a class. Beijing University’s first class graduated last spring and Lingnan (University) College’s first graduation is yet to come. This program allows faculty and students at Sloan to be at the forefront of knowledge of Chinese business development and has established a first-class curriculum at these top Chinese universities.
At the beginning of the academic year, Sloan established the Office of Alumni and Corporate Relations, merging two separate areas, with Ron Thomann as Executive Director. Jackie Wilbur was appointed the new Director of the Career Development Office, and Al Essa became the new Executive Director of Information Technology. MIT Sloan Management Review appointed Professor Michael Cusumano to chair its board of directors and named Allan Alter as the new editor-in-chief.
While Sloan continues to run its programs independent of outside ratings, Sloan monitors the ratings as a form of feedback. U.S. News and World Report ranked the undergraduate program first in the nation in August 1999. After the close of this academic year, Business Week announced that MIT Sloan had moved up 11 slots in its ranking of business schools to fourth place. This is the same place Sloan holds in the 2000 U.S. News and World Report survey of the top MBA programs, and the Financial Times 2000 survey of the world’s business schools. Both rankings moved Sloan up from fifth place in prior surveys. In Forbes magazine’s first ranking of business schools, Sloan was rated sixth.
As Sloan pushes ahead to 2001, the School’s top priorities continue to be the capital campaign and new facilities for the school. Plans are also under way for Sloan’s 50th anniversary celebration scheduled for Fall 2002.
More information about the MIT Sloan School of Management and its programs can be found on our web site at http://mitsloan.mit.edu/.
Our mission is to create and deliver a small MBA program based upon collegiality and teamwork, an international focus, and a diversity of cultures and interests. The innovative and integrative curriculum aims to provide a strong analytical foundation to management, encourage the interplay of ideas and their practical application, and allow students to design an individualized educational program exposing them to leading-edge research and practice.
At the beginning of the 1999—2000 Academic Year, the Sloan MBA Program administrative units were restructured and consolidated. A new Executive Director position was created, and Margaret Andrews (a Sloan ’92 alumna) was hired in August 1999, with strategic planning responsibility for the overall MBA Program as well as responsibility for the integrated operations of the MBA Admissions, Student Affairs, and Career Development Offices. This transition brought the MBA Program's three key administrative offices under the same executive manager for the first time in recent memory, and initiated a busy and productive year.
This has been another highly successful year for Sloan Admissions. The new MBA Class of 2001 is made up of 356 students, including 49 Leaders for Manufacturing joint Sloan/Engineering candidates. Continuing the trend of the past several years, the class is an experienced one, having an average of five years of employment before matriculating. The average age is 28 years. Average GMAT score has risen to 695 (median is 700).
Sloan continues to be a diverse population on all dimensions. The incoming class is 38% international (47 countries are represented), 27% women, and 9% underrepresented minority students. Twenty-nine members of the first-year MBA class are from underrepresented minority groups. The Class of 2001 includes 17 African-Americans and 11 Hispanic-Americans; they joined 27 second-year minority students.
In addition, students have come from all over the United States with backgrounds in engineering, mathematics, economics, political science, history, languages, international studies, social science, business, publishing, law, computer hardware and software, communications and transportation. Many are already entrepreneurs who have founded their own businesses.
The number of applications fell slightly this cycle to 3,164, reflecting a leveling off of candidates for MBA programs in general and the effects of a continuing expansionist trend in a strong economy. Nonetheless, as business becomes more complex and reaches into sectors that were previously less business-oriented, such as health care, we continue to see a diversification of our applicants to include doctors, lawyers, architects and other professionals who find themselves in need of sophisticated management skills to complement their professional expertise. This year's applications came from all 7 continents, including Antarctica.
Plans for the coming year include building on the virtual community developed by the incoming students, our first class of applicants to apply exclusively on line, as well as continuing our traditional recruitment events and activities worldwide. The voluntary participation of current students and alums in these efforts gives evidence of the satisfaction with our program.
Academic Year 1999—2000 was a challenging and successful one for enrolled MBA students and the Student Affairs Office staff serving them. Overall full-time MBA student enrollment at Sloan, including Leaders for Manufacturing, is 720 (624 MBAs and 96 LFMs). The fall of 2000 marks the end of a two-year revamping process for the MBA curriculum involving current students, alumni/ae, faculty, the Dean’s Office, industry representatives, and administrators. This final phase of the Core 2000 redesign and rollout includes the addition of an introductory marketing elective in the Fall Core which complements the finance elective put into place in 1999. Room was made in the core for these two elective options by the reconfiguration of the Organizational Process course into a half-term format as well as final adjustments to the content of the Economic Analysis for Business Decisions, Accounting, and Data, Models and Decisions courses.
After students complete their required fall core requirements, they then choose a specific Management Track or Self-Managed Track, all of which require the completion of a sequence of extended ‘Spring Core’ electives common to all the Tracks in addition to each Track’s specialized electives. The Core 2000 initiative also encompassed changes in the Spring Core; the required sequence format for the 2000 Spring Core was expanded from one ‘4-of-6’ series to two ‘3-of-5’ sets of subjects.
The School currently has a roster of seven Management Track offerings (Financial Engineering, Financial Management, Strategic Management and Consulting, Information Technology and Business Transformation, Manufacturing and Operations, eBusiness, and New Product and Venture Development). More than two-thirds of graduating MBA students completed a Management Track in academic year 1999—2000, with an especially strong enrollment demonstrated by students drawn to the New Product and Venture Development Track's emphasis on entrepreneurship and new product marketing. Students who did not join one of the seven tracks noted above opted for the Self-Managed Track, which provides them with maximum flexibility of course selection and the ability to customize their program following completion of the Fall Core.
The Minority Business Club and Minority Student Support Group met regularly during the academic year to discuss minority student issues. The MBA Program again subsidized the membership of minority students in the National Black MBA and National Hispanic MBA associations, allowing students to attend national conferences. Résumé books were developed for both groups and were used at career fairs for these events.
U.S. News and World Report ranked the Sloan MBA Program #4 in the nation in its 2000 annual survey of graduate business schools published in March, up from #5 in 1999. The program’s continued high rankings (#3 in 1998, #4 in 1997, #2 in 1996) are recognition of our student selectivity, high graduation rate, career placement success, and academic reputation.
MBA students, faculty, and staff participated in three School-sponsored international trips last year. The international trips continue to be an important part of the MBA Program student experience, and are collaboratively organized by students, the MBA Student Affairs Office, and International Management faculty. The trips are preceded by an academic seminar that examines the relevant management, social, and cultural issues of the countries visited. The trip destinations last year were Brazil and Argentina; Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon, and China. More than 120 MBA students participated.
The 1999—2000 Academic Year was a notable one for the Career Development Office. The CDO offered 65 seminars/workshops on 21 different topics during 1999—2000. Subjects ranged from an overview of effective career management to self-assessment, resume development, networking, conducting a proactive job search, managing relationships with employers, interviewing, negotiating, evaluating offers and making final career decisions. Five new seminar topics were introduced to address special search issues: visa issues of international students, finding a job with a start-up, hands-on negotiation practice, and finding housing in NYC.
From October through May, CDO staff held more than 650 individual counseling appointments, in addition to answering regular questions on a drop-in basis. Support for more than 175 alumni seeking new career opportunities were also provided during this period of time.
The career development office coordinated the logistics for over 90 corporate presentations and over 245 interviewing companies. In addition, the CDO successfully attracted 83 new firms to recruit our students during the 1999—2000 academic year; these firms participated in traditional recruiting processes as well as through newly developed career fairs.
At graduation, 97% of the Class of 2000 reported receiving a job offer. The median starting salary for accepted positions increased to $90,000 from $85,000 in 1998. Fourteen percent of the Class of 2000 chose to join a start-up or are in the process of starting their own companies. This is an increase of 6% from 1998.
The CDO is well positioned to build on these successes in the 2000—2001 academic year. New initiatives for 2000—2001 include developing separate and distinctive career services for each class; involving key corporate friends in the career education process; developing and delivering a new approach to resume development and review; closer coordination with the MBA Student Affairs Office to enhance the career education process within each Management Track; and enhanced recognition of employer contributions to Sloan.
The Leaders for Manufacturing (LFM) Program is a partnership between MIT and over 25 global manufacturing firm to discover and translate into teaching and practice principles that produce world-class manufacturing and manufacturing leaders. This partnership is motivated by our shared belief that excellence in manufacturing is critical to meeting the economic and social needs of individuals, firms, and society, and that the health of companies operating in global markets is essential to society’s well-being.
Now in its 12th year of operation, LFM is a partnership between the School of Engineering, the Sloan School of Management and leading manufacturers. Launched in 1988 with significant industry funding, the program emphasizes collaboration and knowledge sharing with its partner companies across the entire spectrum of "Big-M" manufacturing enterprise issues. LFM supports students both as fellows in the program (with fully-paid tuition) and as research assistants throughout the Institute. The largest component of the educational efforts is the Fellows Program, a 24-month dual-masters degree (engineering and management) experience involving a single integrative research project carried out on site in partner firms.
Forty-eight students in the class of 2000 completed the Fellows program and 66% have taken positions in manufacturing firms. Twenty-eight students have taken positions with one of the LFM partner companies. Intel was notable for a large number of hires from the class.
Each of the 48 graduates completed an internship at a partner company during the summer and fall of 1999. Internships are focused projects of concern to the partners, accomplished by interns with company support and MIT faculty guidance. Representative projects this past year included the launch of a Ford production IT system; applying lean manufacturing principles to a virtual business; and implementing a kanban card for a manufacturing plant, which reduced inventory, streamlined the products’ material flow, and resulted in a $50,000 savings.
Forty-eight students (Class of ’01) completed their first year of on-campus studies and are starting their six-month internships. Forty-seven new students (Class of ’02) were admitted and have begun an intensive summer session. All of these students have an average of approximately 5.3 years of practical work experience.
Bea Mah Holland, who holds the position of Director of Leadership for the Sloan School and LFM, officially joined MIT full-time early in fiscal year 2000. She has significantly increased activity in the classroom about the concept of leadership and what it means for industry.
Research has been conducted with seed funding from LFM in the following areas: Product Life Cycle Analysis, Scheduling and Logistics Control, Variation Reduction, Design and Operation of Manufacturing Systems, Integrated Analysis and Product Development, Culture and Organizational Change, and the Next Generation Manufacturing project. Each area has both a faculty and an industry leader. The groups focus on detailed issues of benefit to several member companies, but with implications for many companies. On-site student interns have played a valuable role in teaming with on-campus researchers to more effectively define problems, gather data, and analyze it. Midstream and end-of-internship presentations convey research results to MIT and partner company personnel. This past year the Integrated Supply Chain Management partner companies participated in the scheduling and logistics presentations.
The three-year study, "The Utilization of LFM Graduates," conducted by Jan Klein, Senior Lecturer in the Sloan School of Management, includes research findings of interviews with alumni, supervisors, and managers from each company that has utilized LFM graduates and students. These companies include ALCOA, Boeing, Chrysler, Compaq (formerly Digital), Kodak, Ford, GM, HP, Intel, Motorola, Polaroid, and UTC. This past year the study was expanded to include MIT faculty, which resulted in the interviewing of over fifty MIT faculty.
LFM now provides all LFM theses in a word search format on its website, http://lfm.mit.edu/.
The National Coalition for Manufacturing Leadership (NCML), a partnership of fourteen Universities with joint management and engineering programs, hosted a joint recruiting forum (the National Manufacturing Recruiting Forum) sponsored by the University of Michigan. Over two hundred students and seventy companies participated in this event. LFM made a significant contribution to the NMRF by developing a robust, web-based interview scheduling system that increased interview scheduling efficiency and was applauded by students and companies alike. The NMRF has been very popular with Coalition partner companies and will be repeated each year. Representatives from the Coalition meet each year to share curriculum, research, and program best practices.
Class size: 48 students
(10 Partner Company sponsored students; 1 non-Partner Company sponsored student; and 37 non-sponsored free agents.)
|
# Hired |
% of Class |
||
|
Partner Companies |
28 |
58 |
|
|
Other Mfg. Companies |
4 |
8 |
|
|
Total Manufacturing |
32 |
66 |
|
|
Consulting/Banking |
6 |
13 |
|
|
Other Operations |
3 |
6 |
|
|
Other |
7 |
15 |
|
|
Total employed graduates |
48 |
100 |
|
|
Free agents hired by Partner Companies |
19 |
40 |
|
Students accepted positions with the following companies:
Sloan’s Office of Executive Education has continued its efforts to probide superior programs to key partner companies and alumni of executive education, drawing on Sloan’s reseach depth and expertise to help managers and executives solve important business problems. The offerings of Executive Education increased greatly during the year responding to the demand for open-enrollment courses and for customized programs.
Both the Sloan Fellow and Management of Technology programs, flagship programs for executive education at Sloan, successfully recruited large classes for 1999—2000, indicating continuing strong demand for these mid-career management degrees. (See separate reports that follow.)
Five executive short courses of five days each were successfully presented in May and June. A two-week course on Latin American business was run in October and will be offered again in response to enthusiastic demand. And the portfolio of open enrollment two-day courses has increased dramatically over the year.
Responding to market demand for more customized programs, Sloan increased its offerings of executive education programs for individual companies, particularly partnership companies such as Merrill Lynch. Sloan Executive Education is working with a set of companies on programs addressing the issues of change management, information technology, ebusiness and financial engineering. An important trend is incorporating new learning technologies into most programs. The Office of Education now includes a director of learning initiatives.
More information on executive education at Sloan can be found on the World Wide Web at http://mitsloan.mit.edu/execed/.
Susan C. Lowance
The MIT Management of Technology Program (MOT), the first joint program between the Sloan School and the School of Engineering, was established in 1981 to develop leaders who will create the linkages between their organizations' underlying technology and overall strategy. The 12-month program grants the special degree SM in Management of Technology. In addition to providing executive development for strong technical leaders who are taking on senior leadership positions in their firms, the program has also attracted an increasing number of participants who are involved in entrepreneurial opportunities.
The MOT Class of 2000 included 52 participants from 18 countries. They averaged 11 years of work experience, representing a wide variety of industries and functional expertise. More than 70% of the participants were sponsored by their organizations during their year at MIT. More than half of the class had advanced degrees prior to joining the MOT Program, most in technical disciplines. This year’s annual program evaluations yielded the highest student satisfaction ratings in the history of the MOT Program.
This past year, domestic field trips provided the MOT class an opportunity to visit leading high technology firms on both coasts of the United States. In November, the annual trip to New York included visits to telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, financial services, media, electronic commerce and technical consulting organizations. In January, the group spent a great week in Silicon Valley, visiting a wide array of large and small technology-based firms, venture capitalists and intellectual property consultants. While large firms such as Netscape, Intel, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, Agilent, and Oracle provided great insights into how technological innovation is implemented, much was also gleaned from visits to smaller firms, particularly those involved in the very competitive electronic commerce marketplace.
In March 2000, the MOTs set out for the "Wireless Valley" of Scandinavia, arriving just as the world began to explore the intersection of mobility and Internet technology. Following an excellent kickoff in England, which included visits to the British Parliament, and Cambridge University (taking advantage of the new partnership between Cambridge, MIT and the British Government) the group toured Norway, Sweden and Finland. Visits to such telecommunications titans as Nokia and LM Ericsson, along with petroleum giants like BP Amoco and Statoil, provided an interesting backdrop for visits to smaller, innovative firms. Companies such as Cambridge Display Technologies, FAST Search & Transfer, IDEO, and THINK Norway (a Norwegian electric vehicle plant, now fully owned by Ford Motor Company) all provided a perspective on how entrepreneurship works in a global context. Visits to Egg Financial Services, OM Stockholm Stock Exchange, and MeritaNordbanken helped MOT students explore the impact of Internet technologies on the financial sector.
More information about the MOT Program can be found on the World Wide Web at http://mitsloan.mit.edu/mot/.
David A. Weber
The Sloan Fellows program is the oldest degree granting executive education program in the world. Begun in 1931 with the backing of several industrialists, it was designed as an innovative 12-month graduate program covering the fundamentals of management and managerial decision-making. Now approaching its 70th year, the program has evolved over the years to keep abreast of a changing world and has remained the leading choice among the world’s top corporations to prepare today’s managers to be tomorrow’s leaders. The individuals designated as Sloan Fellows are fully sponsored by their organizations during their 12-month stay in Cambridge.
The program continues to make a significant contribution toward achieving the Sloan School’s strategic objectives: to develop effective, innovative and principled leaders who advance the global economy and to conduct rigorous and innovative research that improves management theory and practice.
In support of the first objective, the program attracts and educates individuals from corporations that are industry leaders from around the world. The class of 2000 represented 19 U.S. and 38 foreign organizations, many of which have long associations with MIT. The class formed a diverse, mutual-learning community from which individuals took away not only the analytical tools necessary to perform, but also the intellectual confidence to help them to make the right decisions in the complex environments they face. Addressing the second objective, through an active alumni network, strong partnerships with sponsoring organizations and the Sloan Fellows’ thesis work, Sloan faculty have enjoyed many opportunities to conduct research in which to improve management theory and practice.
The class of 2000 represented 20 countries, providing an excellent opportunity for cross-cultural exchange. A record eleven Sloan Fellows were women in 1999—2000. The number of applications in 1999—2000 increased by 10% over the previous year, with increased applications from Europe, continued strong interest from Asia and Latin America, and a good balance of public and private institutions.
The newly designed Web site has begun to alter the way the program is promoted and how information is disseminated to prospective candidates. This will continue to evolve by design in the coming year, and, together with improvements in the marketing database used by the Office of Executive Education, should contribute to expanding the pool of candidates to be Sloan Fellows and identification of new organizations to participate in the program. Program staff participated in key industry conferences and made a number of corporate visits in order to increase visibility of the program. Additional emphasis will be given to increasing conference participation and corporate visits in the coming year.
Active participation by Sloan Fellow Alumni in program and MIT events continued. The Seminar in Leadership series, and the annual Sloan Fellow Field Trips to New York, Washington, and an International Trip to Japan, China, and Hong Kong all provided opportunities for alumni to take an active role as speakers and hosts. A high point of the year was hearing the MIT 2000 commencement address given by a Sloan Fellow, Carton S. Fiorina, SF’89, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett-Packard.
The newly re-constituted Board of Governors for the Sloan Fellows Program met twice during the year and provided valuable guidance and direction to the program. They looked into how distance learning technology may affect the delivery of education in general and the Sloan Fellows program in particular. They also discussed how the topics around e-business are being integrated into the curriculum.
1999—200 saw some changes that we would also like to report. At the end of the year, Professor D. Eleanor Westney was named as the faculty chair, succeeding Professor John Van Maanen. Also at the end of the year, the director of the Sloan Fellows Program, Toby Woll, was named to a new position, Director of Learning Technology Initiatives within the Office of Executive Education. Stephen Sacca (SF’90), became the new Director of the Sloan Fellows Program. Finally, looking forward to 2000—2001, Faculty and Program staff will undertake a comprehensive program review.
More information about the Sloan Fellows Program can be found on the World Wide Web at http://mitsloan.mit.edu/sf/.
Stephen Sacca, Toby Woll
Sloan’s doctoral program aims to provide institutions in the united states and abroad with outstanding management faculty and researchers. On the output side, we graduated 13 people this past academic year with job success and placements being quite good in all of our management fields. Recent graduates have found positions at Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Washington University in St. Louis, Insead (France), Brigham Young University, and MIT. Although two graduates succumbed to the blandishments of industry, most remain committed to academic careers.
On the input side, we experienced another record-breaking year, due in part to the ease of access to our Web page (http://mitsloan.mit.edu/) and the application form availability via this method. We received 534 applications from 58 countries, 36% from China. We made 26 offers and got 13 acceptances (50% yield). Total enrollment now stands at 88, with 54 international and 34 US, and a total of 22 women. While the number of under-represented minority students remains small at three active students, we continue initiatives begun three years ago to increase our diversity, including participating in the KPMG Peat Marwick PhD Project (an annual recruitment event). We also continue to explore other means to increase the participation of minority students in Ph.D. studies here.
Sharon Cayley
The MIT Sloan Visiting Fellows Program provides the opportunity to pursue full-time, non-degree studies tailored to individual goals and interests. Each Visiting Fellow's program of study, usually for one or two semesters, is designed in consultation with a faculty adviser to meet individual professional needs and interests.
Sloan Visiting Fellows is a small program. Participants usually have an existing relationship with the school through their company, their school or a member of the Sloan faculty. Enrollment per semester averages around twelve. Eleven participants were enrolled in fall 1999 and seven in spring 2000.
The 1999—2000 academic year included both self-sponsored and company sponsored participants as well as visiting students from the Norwegian University of Sciences and Technology and also the Digital Institute of Technology in Munich. In addition, Graduates of the Management of Technology (MOT) Program continue regular participation in the Visiting Fellows Program as a second semester or year of sponsored study.
Sponsors of participants included Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd., Scandinavian Airlines, Site Design Co., Ltd., Norwegian University of Sciences and Technology and also the Digital Institute of Technology in Munich.
More information on the Sloan Visiting Fellows Program can be found on the World Wide Web at http://web.mit.edu/.
Jennifer Mapes
The mission of System Design and Management Program is to educate future technical leaders in architecting, engineering, and designing complex products and systems, preparing them for careers as the technically grounded senior managers of their enterprises. SDM intends to set the standards for delivering career-compatible professional education using advanced information and communication technologies. SDM was one of MIT’s early entries into the field of distance education and remains the only degree-granting program at MIT that can be earned primarily at a distance.
The SDM Program is a joint offering of the School of Engineering and the Sloan School of Management, leading to a Master of Science degree in Engineering and Management. Targeted for professional engineers with three or more years of experience, the program centers on a 13-course curriculum in systems, engineering, and management, including a project-based thesis. It offers three curricular options: a 13-month in-residence format; a 24-month distance education format for company-sponsored students, requiring one academic semester in-residence at MIT; and a 24-month, on-campus program for self-supporting students who can obtain a research assistantship in one of MIT’s labs or centers. The program was conceived as an alternative to the MBA for professional engineers, allowing working professionals to pursue a degree without interrupting their careers and relocating themselves and their families.
Co-directors for the program include Paul Lagace (Engineering), Steve Graves (Management), and Bill Hanson (Industry) and John Williams (Engineering) until his sabbatical in January 2000. In June, Thomas Kochan from the Sloan School also continued in the combined enterprise as a co-director filling in for Steve Graves' during his sabbatical.
In June 2000, SDM graduated its second full class. Forty-five of the 58 graduates attended the commencement ceremony to receive their degrees–a tribute to the cohesiveness of this distance education group. The graduating class includes 17 employees from Ford, 12 from UTC and three from Xerox, and two from Kodak, as well as employees from Fuji Xerox, ITT, PictureTel, Intel, USAF, ComputerVision, Silicon Graphics, Sun MicroSystems, Comicrom SA, and Honeywell.
In January 2000, SDM admitted its fourth class, enrolling 50 students. Forty-three students admitted in 1999 continued in the program, with three 13-month students from the January 1999 class graduating in Spring 2000. In all, 12 companies sponsored students in the incoming class, including four sustaining enterprise companies: United Technologies Corporation sponsored four students, Ford Motor Company sponsored 13, Xerox Corporation sponsored six, and Eastman Kodak sponsored two students. Other sponsoring companies include: NASA which sponsored seven students for the first time, Polaroid, Delphi Packard, U.S. Navy, IBM, Intraware, Integrity Solutions and Mide Technology.
|
1997 |
1998 |
1999 |
2000 |
|
|
admitted |
35 |
58 |
47 |
50 |
|
on-campus |
8 |
16 |
6 |
14 |
|
self-supported |
3 |
1 |
2 |
5 |
|
Research assistant |
3 |
12 |
2 |
4 |
|
distance education |
27 |
42 |
41 |
36 |
|
company sponsored |
29 |
45 |
43 |
41 |
Specific program accomplishments included the following.
SDM admitted the fourth class of 50 SDM students. 54 students graduated from the 1998 distance education program for new careers in systems as well as graduating three thirteen-month students from 1999 class. All but one of the 1998 students have now graduated and many students have successfully parlayed their SDM education into new positions in their companies–these promotions occurred either while they were in the SDM program or after graduation. The Program Office has begun the process of exit interviews with this group of newly graduated students. SDM continues to support the student council to work on student concerns and issues that are unique to the SDM program. Student council initiatives this year included planning for the International Business Trip and establishing a student committee to more fully utilize the time spent on Business Trips.
SDM continues to develop its three core subjects in system architecture, system engineering, and system and project management. Ed Crawley, the faculty for System Architecture, was provided with additional TA support to work on further improvements in the course. Additionally, a curriculum committee has been re-instituted for SDM to begin to look at the curriculum. This effort will be the first review of the curriculum since the program’s inception in 1996. At the June LFM-SDM Workshop, committees were formed to look at five initiatives meant to strengthen the LFM and SDM programs. SDM-specific initiatives include a team looking at the SDM value proposition and curriculum and a team studying the effectiveness of distance education.
SDM shares its placement resources. Although sponsored SDM graduates will return to their companies, unsponsored graduates will typically seek new careers in systems engineering and product design. LFM-SDM offered placement services to all non-sponsored SDM students. SDM leads an effort to replicate its product development track at other universities to help them develop and introduce an SDM-like program. Together with Ford, IBM, ITT, RIT, UDM, the U.S. Navy, and Xerox, SDM and CIPD have formed a consortium called PD21: The Education Consortium for Product Development Leadership in the 21st Century, to disseminate the product development curriculum to other universities. SDM has taken a lead role in the consortium1999 saw the first cohort of students enter similar programs to SDM at Rochester Institute of Technology and University of Detroit Mercy. Both schools successfully recruited a second cohort that began in January 2000. A new consortium member, the Naval Postgraduate School, will matriculate its first cohort in September 2000.
SDM delivers the full range of its course offerings to both on-campus and remote students, including three core systems courses, six fundamental courses, and five elective courses satisfying SDM’s design, engineering, and management elective requirements. The faculty have substantially adapted other courses for the distance education medium of multipoint videoconferencing to as many as 15 simultaneous company sites.
SDM continues to provide web support for faculty and students as well. The COMMAND System, developed by John Williams and a lab of research assistants, has been used successfully since the inception of the program. SDM is looking at further ways to use the web to support its faculty and students.
SDM is experimenting with new distance formats. When SDM students could not get into Rebecca Henderson’s Technology Strategy course because of over enrollment, SDM program administrators created a course format in which SDM distance students receive the core of Henderson’s teaching while not necessarily having direct access to her time throughout the semester. The alternative, which relies heavily on traditional distance education technology, includes using taped classes from Henderson’s previous semester on-campus class and live, videoconferenced recitations with high-level graduate students serving as teaching assistants. The format also featured a two-day workshop on campus during which Henderson devoted herself entirely to SDM students who travelled to MIT
As reported last year, after much discussion and consultation with the Deans of Engineering and the Sloan School of Management, on July 1, 1999, Leaders for Manufacturing and System Design and Management Program officially consolidated their administrative staff. Much energy has been devoted during the last year not only to achieve the economy of scale planned for by the consolidation, but also to understand how these two related programs can work more effectively for the LFM-SDM partnership as a whole.
One of the first actions taken by the new LFM-SDM partnership was to advertise for the position of Director of Fellows (SDM). Created to mirror the position held by Don Rosenfield in LFM, the Director of Fellows (SDM) reports to the LFM/SDM co-directors, has primary responsibility for the overall SDM program and involves both administrative and teaching responsibilities within the SDM program. Dennis Mahoney, a retired captain in the Navy (engineering duty) began serving in this position on August 1, 1999.
As a newer program within the Institute, SDM has already benefited considerably by its association with LFM. Processes already established by LFM have been adapted to SDM, including entrance and exit interviews and greater emphasis in the admissions process in collecting data for determining profiles of successful SDM students. A new effort was begun to get placement and salary data of graduates in an effort to determine what the experience of SDM graduates were after the program in partner companies and in companies that hire non-sponsored SDM students. The Operating Committee and Governing Board for LFM assumed oversight of the SDM program, and began the process in fiscal year 2000 of bringing advocates for both programs onto these boards. Because there was little history of industry partnership for SDM, much work still needs to be done in this regard. Of the four SDM enterprise partners (Ford Motor Company, United Technologies Corporation, Eastman Kodak Company, and Xerox Corporation), only Xerox was not a partner with LFM, but has since been invited to join as a full partner of LFM-SDM.
Much time over the last year has been spent determining the future direction of this new entity within the Institute. Beginning with a two-day off-site with co-directors in June 1999, this effort led this year to the production of a White Paper entitled, "A Strategic Vision: Building on and Strengthening the LFM-SDM Programs." LFM-SDM have chosen the phrase "Leaders for the Total Enterprise" (LFTE) as the central concept around which to build the next generation LFM and SDM programs.
LFTE maintains and builds on the unique bases of LFM and SDM and thereby allows the interdisciplinary issues facing organizations to be effectively addressed in a broader context while still maintaining our originals focuses on issues in the more local domains. The new larger partnership of LFTE allows LFM-SDM to continue to address the two key discipline areas of engineering and manufacturing (product design, development and delivery) while broadening our domain and thereby learning about and developing the practices and principles that occur at the interface and integration of these disciplines.
There are five thrusts to developing LFTE:
After discussion with all the partners and stakeholders, it was determined that while there was interest in how a combined LFM-SDM might develop in the future, stakeholders were focussed on how LFM-SDM might strengthen the two individual programs. Accordingly, LFM-SDM held a faculty retreat in June, attended by faculty, students, alums, partner companies and staff. This year’s topic "Strengthening and Building on the LFM and SDM Programs" was driven by the need to continually adjust the programs to meet the changing needs of all our partners--students, alumni, faculty, and industry.
After a full day of brainstorming, the group determined five initiatives that it wanted the partnership to address within the next six months. These initiatives included:
Global teams consisting of representatives from all stakeholder constituencies have been formed and are working on addressing these issues over the long term.
Current LFM-SDM Co-directors are: Stephen C. Graves, William C. Hanson, and Paul Lagace.
More information about LFM and SDM can be found on the World Wide Web at http://lfmsdm.mit.edu/.
William C. Hanson
Seventy-one seniors majoring in management science were graduated during 1999—2000 academic year, two in February and 69 in June. Of those 71 seniors, 39 choose the option in finance, 18 selected information technologies, three choose marketing research, and eleven selected operations research.
Twenty of our students received simultaneous S.B. degrees from other MIT departments. Eleven received S.B. degrees from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, six from the Department of Economics, and three from the Department of Mathematics.
Four students were triple S.B. degree recipients: one from the Departments of Economics and Mathematics, two from the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering and the Department of Mathematics, and one from the Departments of Physics and Mathematics.
At a post commencement reception, the School recognized June graduate David F. Yang with the Sloan School of Management Senior Prize. Awarded to outstanding seniors majoring in Management Science, this annual prize honors students who achieved high scholastic standing and demonstrated leadership and professional promise.
Enrollment in the undergraduate program has more than doubled since spring 1994. At the end of spring, term there were 267 students enrolled in the Management Science SB Programs. Of these, 49 are pursuing their primary SB degrees in other MIT departments. The Sloan SB program is now the fifth largest undergraduate major at MIT, larger than most of the undergraduate majors in the School of Engineering, and larger than all but the biology major in the School of Science.
A large number of undergraduates from other MIT degree programs continue to enroll in management subjects. (The exact number is difficult to tally separately from current program enrollment because many of these students will add a Sloan SB to their current primary SB degree before graduation.)
During January 2000 Sloan offered a number of IAP activities: Professor Arnoldo Hax led a seminar titled "Strategic Consulting Toolkit." Dr. William Lucas taught a seminar in "Basic Social Science Methods for Management Research." Professor Barbara Bund offered "Marketing: an Introduction for Entrepreneurs," and Professor John Harrald of George Washington University led " Group Exercise in Hindcasting." Three entrepreneurial subjects were offered: Senior Lecturer Russell Olive offered "Personal Entrepreneurial Career Strategy and Preliminary Venture Analysis." Visiting Lecturer Frank Zenie offered "Starting and Building a Successful Technology Based Company." Senior Lecturer Joseph Hadzima presented "The Nuts and Bolts of Business Plans." Professors John Little and Tom Magnanti presented a series on "What is Management Science? What is Operations Research?" and Professor Nelson Repenning led a series of sessions on "Management Business Dynamics." (Beginning this coming academic year, IAP will be coordinated by Sloan’s Educational Services Office.)
Faculty who served as undergraduate advisers included Professors Thomas J. Allen, Daniel Ariely, Paul Asquith, Dimitris J. Bertsimas, Paul Carlile, Chyrsanthos Dellarocas John deFiguueriedo, Stephen Graves, Denis Gromb, Leigh Hafrey, Neal Hartman, John Little, Stuart Madnick, Michael Mikhail, Stewart Myres, J.D. Nyhart, Jim Orlin, Ed Steinfeld, John VanMaanen, Roy Welsh; Dr. Jeffrey A. Meldman, Director of Undergraduate Programs; Heather M. Madnick, Assistant Director of Undergraduate Programs; and Etaine Smith, our new Assistant Director of Undergraduate Programs. Professor Carroll continued as departmental coordinator of MIT's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) and Neal Hartman as departmental writing coordinator for Phase Two of the Institute WritingRequirement. Etaine Smith also served as an advisor to MIT freshman.
Faculty serving on the Undergraduate and Interdepartmental Policy Committee included Professors Allen, Graves, Gromb, Madnick; together with Dr. Meldman, Ms. Madnick and Ms. Smith. Professor J. Carroll served ex officio and Professor J. Little chaired the committee.
Jeff A Meldman, Etaine Smith
The MIT Center for Coordination Science conducts multidisciplinary research to help understand how information technology can provide new ways of organizing human activity and help people work together better. Primary funding comes from a variety of government sources, including DARPA and NSF. The center also has corporate sponsorship from Fuji Xerox, Intel, and British Telecom.
The past year has brought significant progress on both the center's main research areas. The Process Handbook research area made significant advances in a collaborative project focused on "supply chain visualization." This project is integrating the process knowledge management functionality of the Process Handbook with tangible user interfaces (from the MIT Media Lab) and process simulation tools (from the MIT Systems Dynamics Group). The Adaptive Systems and Evolutionary Software research area made significant progress in the area of exception handling and norms for multi-agent systems.
More information about this center can be found on the World Wide Web at http://ccs.mit.edu/.
Thomas W. Malone
The Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) has been the locus of research at MIT on energy economics since the mid-1970s and on environmental economics since the late 1980s. This research draws on resources from the Sloan School, the Department of Economics and the Energy Laboratory, and it receives financial support from corporations and government agencies. In conjunction with MIT's Center for Global Change Science, CEEPR co-sponsors the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, which conducts interdisciplinary research to inform global climate policy.
The most notable event during the year was publication of Markets for Clean Air: the U.S. Acid Rain Program, co-authored by Denny Ellerman, Paul Joskow, Dick Schmalensee, Juan Pablo Montero and Elizabeth Bailey. This book reports CEEPR's research on SO2 emissions trading during the first three years of the program, and it is the definitive source of information and analysis concerning the U.S. experience in using tradable permits to achieve environmental goals.
In addition, seven working papers and eight article reprints, reporting CEEPR-sponsored research, were published, distributed, and posted on the CEEPR website. In November 1999 and March 2000, CEEPR convened its usual Energy and Environmental Policy Workshop in Cambridge to present research results to corporate and government sponsors and other interested parties. Also, in June 2000, the Center co-sponsored a workshop on electric utility restructuring in Spain in conjunction with a Spanish electric utility.
During the year, the director and executive director of CEEPR were invited to make numerous lectures and other presentations of CEEPR’s research and to participate in various advisory and expert groups. Of particular note, the executive director was invited to Japan as MIT’s Mitsui lecturer in November 1999 on the subject of emissions trading.
In 1999—2000, CEEPR sponsored research on the topics of SO2 emissions trading, new electricity markets, productivity improvements in crude oil supply, and energy futures, forwards and arbitrage. Most of the research effort was devoted to emissions trading and electricity markets, and this emphasis will continue during the 2000—2001 academic year.
More information about this center can be found on the World Wide Web at http://web.mit.edu/ceepr/www/.
A. Denny Ellerman
Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century was a five-year research and education initiative that concluded in December 1999. A major symposium reviewing the results of the initiative was held in November 1999.
More information about this program can be found on the World Wide Web at http://ccs.mit.edu/21c/.
Thomas W. Malone
The focus of the Laboratory for Financial Engineering is the quantitative analysis of financial markets using state-of-the-art mathematical, statistical and computational models. The LFE’s goals are to spur advances in financial engineering and computational finance; and to support curriculum development for financial technology in undergraduate, graduate and executive educational programs.
The LFE has received major funding support for its activities from Merrill Lynch this year as part of the five-year MIT/Merrill Lynch partnership announced in March 1999. As a result, several new research initiatives will be launched, including the following: Trading Costs and Liquidity Project; Global Financial Crises Project; Risk Preferences Project; Financial Visualization Project; and Nonlinear Financial Time Series Analysis Project.
Thanks to major funding support from the MIT/Merrill Lynch Partnership, the LFE has been able to expand its research focus in number of new directions, in addition to making progress on several existing projects. In particular, the LFE launched three new initiatives last year: the Risk Preferences Project, the Global Financial Crises Project, and the Marketing by WebMarkets Project. The Risk Preferences Project involves theoretical, empirical, and experimental analysis of the risk preferences of investors, and includes collaborations with cognitive scientists, computer scientists, and professional traders at two local financial institutions. The Global Financial Crises Project is an attempt to develop a systematic framework for understanding the mechanisms by which financial crises in one institution or country is transmitted to others. The Marketing by WebMarkets Project is a collaboration between faculty in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Sloan Finance, and Sloan Marketing departments in which artificial financial markets are proposed as a more efficient and cost-effective alternative to standard marketing surveys to elicit consumer preferences.
In addition, there has been considerable progress in each of the existing projects of the LFE: Trading Volume Project; Derivatives Project; Derivatives Sourcebook Project; Risk Management Project and Nonlinear Financial Time Series Project.
These projects and their corresponding preprints and reprints, along with LFE staff and affiliated faculty, are described in more detail at the LFE’s web site http://lfe.mit.edu/.
The MIT/Merrill Lynch partnership also includes an important educational component, the Financial Technology Option (FTO), a new graduate minor in financial technology that has been jointly developed by the Sloan School of Management and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences in the School of Engineering. The program’s intent is to provide training in financial engineering for MIT graduate students from technology fields such as engineering, math, computer science and media studies. The minor will increase financial applications within the School of Engineering’s technology courses and boost the number of technology courses available to MBA students in Sloan’s Track in Financial Engineering. This is the first year of the FTO and approximately 35 students have signed up for the option.
Research support for the LFE has been generously provided by a number of industry sponsors and donors, including
sponsors: FleetBoston, Gifford Fong Associates, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, National Science Foundation, Putnam Investments, Silicon Graphics, and Sun Microsystems; and donors: Harris & Harris Group, and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.
More information about the LFE’s research program can be found on the World Wide Web at http://lfe.mit.edu/.
Andrew W. Lo
The mission of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center is to train and develop leaders who will make high-tech ventures successful. To that end, we offer educational programs to inspire, educate, and coach new generations of entrepreneurs from all parts of MIT. To support this mission, MIT’s Entrepreneurship professors, practitioners and staff teach more than a dozen courses and conduct basic research to enhance our fundamental understanding of the dynamic process of high-tech venture development in the United States and around the world.
The MIT Entrepreneurship Center was launched as an Institute-wide initiative in 1996. At that time, President Vest said, "We must not only be the best. We must also serve as a model for others and ensure that, together, we all make a significant global impact in this vital field." To achieve these objectives set out by our President, we established two goals: to recruit ten leading professors and practitioners and to raise $60 million in endowment to fund their teaching and research.
Since then, our ranks have grown as we continue to recruit world-class educators. In fiscal year 2000 we recruited experienced entrepreneurs Noubar Afeyan ’87 and Shari Loessberg as Senior Lecturers. We also engaged five tenured or tenure-track faculty members: Diane Burton, Assistant Professor of Management of Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MTIE); Richard Locke, Alvin J. Siteman Associate Professor of Management, Political Science, and Entrepreneurship; Fiona Murray, Assistant Professor of MTIE; David Scharfstein, Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank Professor of Management; and Antoinette Schoar, Assistant Professor of Finance.
In fiscal year 2000 the Center sustained its rapid growth, increasing student enrollment in entrepreneurship courses while launching new courses, student activities, and faculty initiatives. From 1996 to 2000, student enrollment in Entrepreneurship courses grew from 288 to 1086. In the same period, the center increased its recurring course offerings from five to eleven.
|
Course |
1995-96 |
1996-97 |
1997-98 |
1998-99 |
1999-00 |
|
New Enterprises |
70 |
107 |
270 |
180 |
161 |
|
Entrepreneurship Lab |
20 |
60 |
138 |
150 |
174 |
|
Entrepreneurship Without Borders |
70 |
55 |
55 |
||
|
Entrepreneurial Marketing |
60 |
49 |
|||
|
Technology Entrepreneurship |
34 |
40 |
|||
|
Entrepreneurs in the Internet |
125 |
||||
|
Entrepreneurial Finance |
47 |
||||
|
Independent Activities Period |
128 |
170 |
283 |
418 |
369 |
|
All Others |
70 |
180 |
165 |
146 |
66 |
|
Total |
288 |
517 |
926 |
1043 |
1086 |
In fiscal year 2000, our faculty launched two new courses: Entrepreneurial Finance and Entrepreneurs in the Internet. In the coming year, our faculty will develop and teach three additional courses: Global Entrepreneurship Lab, an international version of the Entrepreneurship Lab, now in its fifth year; Business Plans that Raise Money; and Raising Early Stage Capital. In addition, we will continue to develop our executive education course Entrepreneurship Development Program (EDP).
Student organizations supported by and housed in the MIT Entrepreneurship Center achieved new heights this year. The MIT $50K Entrepreneurship Competition celebrated its 11th Anniversary with an epic 220 business plan entries and a new summer breakfast series for start-ups. In November, e-MIT launched the portal of choice for the New England entrepreneurial community. The e-MIT student organizers received the second annual Patrick J. McGovern, Jr. Prize, which is awarded each year to a student organization that works closely with the MIT Entrepreneurship Center and contributes most to the entrepreneurial spirit of MIT.
We expanded our efforts to build the alumni community in 1999—2000. In addition to the local monthly Entrepreneurship Society functions, the center hosted major networking galas in Silicon Valley and Manhattan. The events drew over 600 members of the center’s network, including MIT and Sloan graduates engaged in entrepreneurial activity.
On the financial side, endowment pledges of support from entrepreneurial alumni since 1996 have provided $18 million in seed capital toward our goal of $60 million. Eleven corporate sponsors were selected in the upcoming year for their ability to add to our educational programs and assist our students and alumni in starting new technology ventures.
Kenneth P. Morse
The MIT Program on the Pharmaceutical Industry (POPI) was founded in 1991 as a research and education program for understanding the structure and dynamics of global pharmaceutical industry, the firms and their suppliers, customers and regulators.
Currently, more than 10 MIT faculty and 12 outside collaborators from other universities are participating in the research program. Since POPI’s inception, some 30 MIT graduate students have completed doctoral work with support from POPI. More than 20 pharmaceutical, biotechnology or other healthcare firms have contributed funding and/or data for POPI’s research or educational activities. As of June 30, 2000, 80 articles and working papers have reported on research conducted by POPI faculty and students.
In 1999—2000, faculty associated with POPI continued research on case histories of important drugs, the cost of new drug development, the use of new tools to systematize key aspects of drug discovery, pharmacoeconomics and many other topics.
In December 1999, POPI held its biennial symposium on the Future of the Pharmaceutical Industry. With more than 200 senior executives from industry and government in attendance, the Program launched a new research thrust with an examination of how science and technology are driving change in drug discovery, development, manufacturing and the business of pharmaceuticals. The Program has recently embarked on a major initiative that will examine how those changes are impacting the availability of new drugs and the delivery of health care.
Stan N. Finkelstein
The System Dynamics Group was founded by Professor Jay W. Forrester in the
early 1960s to pursue research in the area of understanding the importance of
structure in the behavior of complex systems, particularly corporate structure.
Currently, we are studying three areas.
The National Model Project, a large computer model, strives for a better understanding of how the U.S. economy works, and is used to help analyze the effects of proposed economic policies. The Group uses the National Model to capture the interactions of local structures and decision-making policies, building a bridge that joins microstructure with macrobehavior. Corporations and private individuals fund this research which is directed by Professor Jay W. Forrester.
The System Dynamics in Education Project was established in 1990 with private funding. Writing the Road Maps series is the main area of activity. Road Maps is a self study guide for learning system dynamics which is available free at http://sysdyn.mit.edu. The series of self-study chapters use modeling exercises and selected literature to provide a way of learning about the principles of system dynamics and it's many uses. More recently, a distance learning course in system dynamics called The Guided Study Program has been offered using Road maps as the core text. This is a large UROP effort involving approximately ten students per term. The educational work of the System Dynamics in Education Project is headed by Professor Jay Forrester.
The Improvement Paradox: Designing Sustainable Quality Improvement Programs is directed by Professor John D. Sterman. With initial funding in the mid-90s from an NSF grant, the project studies the design of sustainable quality improvement programs. In the past, many firms abandon TQM programs due to lack of perceived impact on profitability, even after they experience a significant increase in performance. Through the development of formal models and original case histories, the Group seeks to identify the critical interactions between quality programs and a company’s other organizational structures. A number of papers on this work are available from http://web.mit.edu/sdg/www/. Corporate sponsors have contributed additional support.
John D. Sterman, Nan Lux
Major Developments for the year:
During fiscal year 2000 Alumni Relations (AR) focused on identifying and capitalizing on opportunities to leverage and manage various projects, particularly class reunions, alumni club events, and speakers’ series.
The general priorities of the AR group during the year were oriented toward the following:
During fiscal year 2000 the level of activity and number of programs and events managed by the AR group was very high. About 100 separate alumni events were held around the world with varying degrees of involvement and support from the AR group. The Dean addressed 14 MIT and/or Sloan Clubs around the world, while other senior Sloan faculty participated actively in many other MIT and Sloan Alumni Club events, including a Pan Arab MIT Alumni Club Conference in Cairo, and several MIT On The Road events in Boston, New York, and California.
More than 700 Sloan alumni served as volunteers in recruiting, MBA student mentoring, class reunions, and admissions. About 200 alumni took advantage of the Office’s personalized career counseling services, and about 100 others spoke at the School during the year.
Reunion 2000 attracted a record of 530 people, a 33% increase over the preceding Reunion. Several very large alumni networking events were held–two in Northern California, two in New York, and one in Boston–on numerous themes, e.g. B2B, High Tech Entrepreneurship and Careers in Silicon Valley.
The growing use of the Internet for alumni networking and access to educational and research programs and events has made a significant impact during the year. Plans are underway to develop an Alumni Learning Portal which would serve as a web site for delivering lifelong learning and training materials to alumni. The initial focus of the Alumni Learning Portal will be on eBusiness content, but will then be expanded to include much broader content.
The hiring of a new Director of AR is a top priority for the next year, as is addressing staffing needs to provide more services to alumni clubs and expanding the use of technologies.
The Resource Development (RD) group has been focused on MIT’s recently launched $1.5 billion capital campaign, in which Sloan is playing an important role. Sloan is concentrating on raising funds to support the construction of a new facility and to endow the Entrepreneurship Program. Sloan’s collective priority funding needs are about $180 million.
The Sloan team has helped raise more than $85 million since the beginning of the counting period, i.e. July 1, 1997 or fiscal year 1998. This represents 47% of the $180 million goal, putting the School in an excellent position to reach its goal with four years remaining in the capital campaign. The proposed new Sloan Building and the Entrepreneurship Program are the School’s top priority fundraising projects, compelling us to focus our efforts on raising 8-figure gifts from alumni. Several donors have collectively pledged about $30 million toward the cost of constructing the new building, $25 million of which was pledged by Bill Porter (SF1967) to name the building. About $12 million has been raised to support the Entrepreneurship Program thus far during the campaign. RD played an important role in helping the Sloan eBusiness Center attract about $20 million in cash and pledges from corporate sponsors by marketing the program to well-placed alumni in various companies around the world.
The investment made in recent years to expand the OACR has paid handsome dividends. From Fiscal Year 1998—Fiscal Year 2000 4.0 staff positions were added to the OACR while gifts and new pledges grew from $16 million to more than $85 million. If the School continues to carefully expand and more fully integrate external relations, it could raise as much as $25 million annually in the near future.
OACR plans to maintain the fundraising momentum created in recent years in parallel with MIT’s $1.5 billion capital campaign. Sloan’s internal campaign goal is to raise $180 million in seven years beginning in fiscal year 1998. This goal includes the estimated $55 million that the School would need to raise for the proposed new Sloan facility, and $25 million to support the School’s Entrepreneurship Program. I am very optimistic that we will reach these goals, due to the recent success we have had in cultivating the School’s Top 25 donor prospects, each of whom could make a gift of $5 million or greater.
For the first time since Alfred P. Sloan made a large personal gift to launch the Industrial Management Program at MIT in the early 1950s, a Sloan School alumnus has pledged $25 million to support the School. In addition, MIT’s partnership with Merrill Lynch provides the Institute $20 million over five years, almost half of which will directly benefit the Sloan School's education and research programs in financial technology.
Fiscal Year 2000 cash receipts and written pledges make this truly a record year. More than $29 million in cash and more than $39 million in new pledges were recorded. The initial success of our efforts to build a Sloan Class Reunion Program has been modest, but will grow steadily. The RD group played a particularly active role in raising funds to establish four new chairs, and in generating about $2,300,000 in annual unrestricted support and minority fellowships in fiscal year 2000.
The amount of unrestricted funds that were raised between July 1, 1999 and June 30, 2000 grew by 96%, as compared to the same period the previous fiscal year. The breakdown of annual fund amounts follows.
|
Sloan Annual Fund |
$587,392.34 |
|
|
Dean's Fund for Innovation |
$1,108,158.30 |
|
|
Business Associates |
$145,093.98 |
|
|
Master's Minority Fellowships |
$ 351,727.00 |
|
|
PhD Minority Fellowships |
$12,534.00 |
|
|
Base Budget Income |
$18,910.00 |
|
|
New Endowment Monies |
$23,000.00 |
|
|
Growth of New Endowment Monies |
$8,594.00 |
|
|
Other |
$104,590.50 |
|
|
TOTAL |
$2,360,000.00 |
+104% |
|
2641 donors |
+15% |
William A. Porter SF 1967: $25,000,000 pledge to name the facility
Rodolfo F. Barrera SM 1965: $2,000,000 pledge to name space
J. Spencer Standish 1945 SB: $1,500,000 pledge to name space
Judith C. Lewent SM 1972: $1,500,000 pledge to name space
Siebel Systems: $2,600,000, MBA Fellowships
Luis R. Alvarez Renta SM 1974: $2,000,000 pledge, Chair
Joaquin E. Bacardi SM 1998: $2,000,000 pledge, Chair
Ching C. Chen SM 1965: $2,000,000, Chair
George & Sandi Schussel P SM 1994 & P 2000: $2,000,000, Chair
Fred Kayne SB 1960: $2,000,000 pledge, Chair
Jack C. Tang 1947 CH: $1,000,000
Sukanto Tanoto UN: $1,000,000
The E-Business Center attracted about 15 corporate sponsors who have collectively pledged about $20 million over the next three years to support the Center’s educational and research programs
Arthur Andersen pledged $8 million to launch the New Economy Value Research Laboratory at the School.
Seven sponsors made gifts totaling $1,165,000 in support of the Sloan China Management Education project.
Merck Company Foundation: $600,000 to support the Program on the Pharmaceutical Industry
There were 6 gifts from companies and alumni in support of the Entrepreneurship Program, e.g. Eastman Chemical and Patrick McGovern 1959 LI.
Jeffrey Shames SM 1983: $311,388
Peter Savitz SM 1982: $214,430
Martha Amram SM 1987: $127,419
Jeffrey Shames SM 1983: $319,242
Ron Thomann
Educational Services manages the infrastructure upon which Sloan’s academic mission is carried out. The Education Services Office team prepares the space (facilities work), arranges for the players (faculty and course scheduling, student registration, student advising, program support), and manages information flow (internal communications, interface with MIT Registrar, grades, evaluations).
The office team oversees all registration issues for approximately 1100 Sloan students; manages the Web-based course prioritization system used by more than 2,000 MIT students, which equitably resolves difficult supply and demand issues in a department with increasingly popular classes and already high enrollments; handles scheduling of the nearly 200 class sections and recitations offered each term; maintains Sloan facilities; and produces both online and paper resource material for the School (including the PhotoBook, Directory, biocards, and weekly News@Sloan).
The Educational Services team focused this year on improvements to the registration process. A complete upgrade to the bidding system was necessary to meet Y2K compliancy, but was also a major step forward in serving students. The new system is even more customer-friendly and allowed us to add a new and much needed third round of bidding–the Wait List round. This option gives students far great access to wait lists, allowing them to bid over a several-week period. Bidding for wait lists, rather than a first-come first-served sign on, is a much more fair process, allowing us to better identify and meet real need. In addition, the resulting wait lists are more clearly prioritized for easier faculty use.
Support to the academic programs was strong on many fronts. An organizational restructuring set in place an MBA team, to better meet the needs of our largest group of constituents. A large effort was ongoing this year in behalf of the new MBA core. Educational Services team members were deeply involved in this process, from participation in core revision, to creating an entirely new schedule for all of Sloan’s 200 fall courses, to assisting faculty in the process of course re-writes and new unit assignments. As in previous years, Educational Services continued to refine and analysis bidding data to assist Sloan’s deans and faculty on issues of course and section offerings and teaching load plans.
Facilities management was a high priority. A prime initiative of the spring and summer was the design and construction of a new space in 3 Cambridge Center, which now houses a cluster of four of Sloan’s research centers. This important effort provides much-needed space for the e-Business Center. Of equal importance is the new and dynamic flow of knowledge between these centers, due to their co-location. In addition to this facility, which will house approximately 40 researchers and staff, Educational Services oversaw the renovation of space and moving of another 25 faculty and staff. As space grows tighter at Sloan, creative thinking and teamwork help us survive. Looking to the future, the Sloan New Building Committee is now fully operational, with the major involvement of our team.
Sloan enrollment remains high and Sloan classes continue to attract record numbers of MIT students from all departments. The School is working on creative ways to meet demand, including additional sections of classes in the evening, video sessions, and special seminars for the current students, as well as executive custom courses and new joint agreements with other MIT departments. The Educational Services staff faces daily challenges to maintain high levels of service to all. It is our role to balance precious resources such as classroom space and faculty teaching time across all programs. Finding new ways to track and analyze data is vital in this all-School effort.
Goals for 2000-2001 include completely revamping the class scheduling process, overhauling the teaching evaluation process, renovating the Sloan Lobby, enhancing current facilities even as we plan for those of the future and constantly improving customer service. We will continue to work with students to discover their changing needs and to find creative ways to meet them.
More information about this department can be found on the World Wide Web through the Students tab on the Sloan web site at http://mitsloan.mit.edu/.
Lucinda Hill
The Lemelson-MIT Program is a nationwide educational initiative promoting invention and innovation through annual awards, an ongoing outreach campaign, and MIT courses that teach invention and entrepreneurship. Each year the Program presents inspirational role models in science, engineering, technology, and entrepreneurship through its $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, $30,000 MIT Student Prize, High School Invention Apprenticeship, and Lifetime Achievement Award. This year the Program also partnered with a corporation (Siemens’ Unisphere Solutions, Inc.) to present a special $30,000 Student Team Prize for innovativeness in telecommunications and networking technologies. The Program’s goal is to encourage young people to pursue careers in these areas as well as to raise public awareness of the critical role inventor-innovators play in society.
Winners of the 2000 Lemelson-MIT Awards are vascular surgery innovator, entrepreneur and Stanford University professor Thomas Fogarty (Prize); engineer, product designer and Mechanical Engineering graduate Amy Smith (Student Prize); recent high school graduate and inventor Charles Johnson (Invention Apprenticeship); wireless pioneer and inventor of the walkie-talkie Al Gross (Lifetime Achievement Award); and Electrical Engineering graduate students Michael Lim, Thomas Murphy and M. Jalal Khan (Student Team Prize).
In addition to a half-hour CNNfn "Business Unusual" show dedicated to the Lemelson-MIT Program and its Award winners, the Program presented exciting inventor-innovator role models through several broadcast and print features, including TV segments on the 2000 and 1999 high school winners of the Invention Apprenticeship on CNNfn and Oprah Winfrey’s Oxygen Media, and profiles in Popular Science, Forbes, New York Times, Business Week, Time Magazine, The Financial Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe and the Boston Business Journal. The Program also conducted joint outreach programs with the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and the MIT Museum, and participated in the MIT Media Lab's first "MindFest" event.
Through funding to courses in the schools of Engineering and Sloan, the Program helped stimulate the creation of new inventions in a team-based environment at both the undergraduate and graduate levels (2.009 Product Engineering Process and 2.783J Product Design and Development), as well as helped encourage entrepreneurial student talent through the Center for Entrepreneurship's internship program (15.399 Entrepreneurship Lab). Selected student teams from 2.009 presented their prototypes in Washington, DC at the National Museum of American History as well as in New York City at the American Museum of Natural History.
New projects in 2001 include a book on American inventor-innovators to be published with the MIT Press, a special hands-on exhibit at the MIT Museum titled "Thinkapalooza" and a presentation by Lemelson-MIT Prize winner Dr. Thomas Fogarty at the Edgerton Center. For more information on the Lemelson-MIT Program, please visit the "Invention Dimension" at http://web.mit.edu/invent/.
Annemarie Amparo
The Sloan Communication Office develops and implements innovative, multimedia approaches to market Sloan as a world-class business school. The four-person staff designs and executes a global media strategy, coordinates and manages Sloan’s Web presence, provides communication support for the Dean's Office, publishes a magazine for alumni and other constituencies, and develops and produces Sloan’s marketing collateral.
Communication activity at Sloan continued to increase in fiscal year 2000 and is expected to grow further in fiscal year 2001. The added load involves ongoing management and development of the Web, increased media coverage, regular publication of ROI magazine, increased support for the dean (especially with international visits to alumni and the media), support for the capital campaign and increased coordination with resource development, alumni relations, and technology services.
Media coverage, which increased sixfold in the previous year again doubled this year, with the number of queries alone increasing by nearly 40%. Major events and announcements (i.e., the William Porter donation and the launch of the capital campaign), the dean’s continued media tour, and the increased visibility of the Entrepreneurship Center and the Center for eBusiness at MIT contributed to this increase.
The number of news releases distributed by the office continued to rise over the past year, particularly with the publicity of an increasing number of student-run events. The MIT $50K Entrepreneurship Competition and the Sloan eBusiness Awards in particular garnered a great deal of media attention.
Growth of the Internet is also pushing up media relations demands. Nearly 25% of Sloan’s media work (a percentage that is increasing) now involves working with Web-based media.
Fiscal year 2000 was the first full year of the new Sloan web site launched in February 1999. The Communications Office regularly updates the features on the section fronts and manages a much higher level of service and information demand from all constituencies. The site has won awards for its innovative architecture and feature format from CASE, Web Marketing Association, and Massachusetts Interactive Media Council and is now touted as a leading web site for business schools.
The alumni magazine, MIT Sloan ROI, was redesigned and three issues were published to very good feedback from alumni and other constituencies. The print version is now supported by an online ROI, with periodic electronic newsletters alerting alumni to the content of the latest issue.
The Faculty Expertise Guide was redesigned and published with supporting faculty profiles on the web site. The careful thought put into developing the infrastructure and people date base now makes it possible for faculty to easily update their profiles. It also gives the Communications Office–and the rest of the community–access to the most updated information.
Ranking business schools is a lucrative and growing industry. As a result, more and more publications and other rating agencies are conducting surveys –more than double in the last year. Responding to the 20 or more major surveys requires coordination with various offices throughout the School. Financial Times added two major surveys this year. Business Week conducts two surveys that are now updated annually on the Web. US News and World Report is adding a second major survey on undergraduate management education. The US News and World Report survey alone required input from at least six program offices.
The overall goal for fiscal year 2001 is to continue to manage the increasing global coverage of Sloan and its activities and ensure that the school's key messages are well represented. With the dean's visibility and his visits worldwide along with the capital campaign, we expect media coverage to at least double again this coming year.
Sloan Technology Services (STS) supports the computing needs of faculty, staff and students at the Sloan School. It is dedicated to the support of research, teaching and the best uses of information technology. STS undertook a number of initiatives during fiscal year 2000.
STS staff successfully "touched" 300+ computers and provided remediation assistance for another 100+ computers as part of the Year2000 effort. Also installed Year2000 patches and compliant software on approximately fifteen (15) servers.
STS established the Student Computing Advisory Committee to identify student computing priorities. Based on student priorities, STS installed web-based calendar software for MBA program and installed Windows NT file server with 50MB space allocation per student.
STS provided support to 67 courses during Fall 1999 and 78 during Spring 2000. Developed an interactive web-based trading simulation. The application was used by all students in the core Finance course.
STS acquired and installed the following WRDS access for financial data analysis; a Windows version of the SAS package on faculty desktops; and X- Windows software for remote host access. In addition, STS added several new COMPUSTAT databases to core research dataset library.
STS developed significant new functionality in the Sloan "People" database. Alumni can now update their profiles in "real time" and perform enhanced searches. In partnership with MIT Audio-Visual Services, STS installed state-of-the-art computer projection capability in E52-175.
Plans for fiscal year 2001 include:
Alfred Essa
Sloan Management Review (SMR) is a peer-reviewed journal that disseminates research from the top business schools, with the dual purpose of affecting management practice and publicizing the Sloan School. Fiscal Year 2000 was a very successful year for SMR in terms of revenues, profits, circulation, and citation levels.
The journal finished the year with revenues of $3 million and profits of $1 million. SMR’s circulation exceeded 35,000, readership grew to 100,000, renewal rates topped 55%, and reprints and permissions sales were at all-time highs.
SMR’s citation and impact ratings, as measured by the Social Science Citation Index, were also impressive. It ranked fourth among the management journals tracked.
Seventy-five percent of articles came from top-20 business schools, including several from MIT faculty. Well-known authors include Sumantra Ghoshal, Christopher Bartlett, Henry Mintzberg, C.K. Prahalad, Kathleen Eisenhardt, Richard T. Pascale, Constantinos Markides, Arnaldo Hax, John Quelch, and J.B. Quinn.
SMR has hired a new editor-in-chief and is implementing an aggressive growth and redesign strategy during fiscal year 2001. We expect to increase circulation to over 53,000 subscribers, improve SMR’s web offerings, and significantly increase advertising, permissions, and reprints revenues.
Susan Petri
MIT Reports to the President 1999–2000