Our new curriculum was refined for more flexibility and practical application of theory. The specialized tracks in finance and strategy enjoyed especially high demand. Overall satisfaction with our programs was very high (e.g. 50% rated us 9 or better on a 0 to 10 scale and 80% rated us 8 or better) across the two year and executive programs. Innovative experiments were carried out in our new engineering/Sloan "Systems Design and Management" (SDM) program. Planning and initial funding was developed for our new program in entrepreneurship. Our five year international educational development program in Singapore with Nanyang Technical University was completed successfully this year and planning for a continuing phase concentrating on the Ph.D. was completed. We reached agreements with Fudan and Tsinghua Universities to develop a prototype MBA program for the Peoples Republic of China.
Tang Hall made major progress and is being completed for a September 1995 opening. We also began construction on a "Laboratory for Financial Engineering" with a full trading room data and computer capability. Planning was completed for a new "Distance Learning Lab" to promote remote interactive teaching to Singapore, China, and our SDM, executive, and alumni audiences.
Our reengineering efforts began to pay off this year with 15% more revenue being generated with the same staff as last year. We increased the student population, improved the quality, and thereby produced 15% productivity gain. Likewise the faculty is committed to more teaching (12%) and improved efficiency (e.g. fewer small classes).
Sponsored research volume is up and the new program on "Designing the 21st Century Organization" is underway with sponsor and faculty involvement. In conjunction with the trading room new research on computational finance has been undertaken. Individual faculty continued their high levels of output through our Research Centers and individual grants.
Resource development reorganization efforts have resulted in a very successful year with additional funding for Tang Hall (e.g. two large classrooms and lobby for 2.2 million dollars), annual fund (increased over 20%), and chairs (e.g. Modigliani Chair).
All this progress was reflected in our #1 ranking in U.S. News and World Report. We are making good progress toward our goal intellectual leadership in a time of resource constraints. Thanks to all the faculty, staff, students, alumni, and MIT President and Provost who helped make this one of the best years ever for Sloan. In the following sections we detail this progress as reflected in the activities in our teaching programs, research and administration.
MIT Reports to the President 1994-95