This year marks the completion of the fourth year of Sloan's five-year plan for preeminence. In 1994 we introduced a new Master's Program curriculum that has met with high acceptance from both students and faculty. The new curriculum, with its introduction of communication courses, team learning, and five specialized tracks, is at least partially responsible for improving satisfaction scores and raising the yield in student acceptances of our offers to a new record (83 percent of students admitted accepted our offer in 1996). We have boosted our student admissions to 350 MBA students (including 50 Leaders for Manufacturing candidates), but decreased the average class size in the core curriculum by increasing the number of sections. Applications have more than doubled since 1993, and selectivity increased to eight applications for each position in the class.
INITIATIVES
Our educational initiative in system design and management (SDM) in conjunction with the School of Engineering has progressed with the completion of test classes and an SDM launch in January 1997.
Sloan aims to be a leader in remote education. We currently have 10 videoconference-ready classrooms and common areas. Several videoconference classes were held this year in our executive education and international initiatives.
Sloan's international initiatives are providing new resources for both curriculum development and research. Our initiative in China is moving forward, and eight faculty from two of China's most prestigious universities, Tsinghua and Fudan, in residence at Sloan.
In executive education, we are responding to market shifts by designing an innovative program combining traditional classes, remote learning through two-way video, and Web-based tools and databases.
A new research initiative--Inventing the Organization of the 21st Century--is under way.
The Entrepreneurship Center has raised $10 million to hire new faculty and establish new entrepreneurship courses and programs.
RESTRUCTURING
To generate the resources for these initiatives, we have restructured so we can provide additional services with little increase in head count. Our new matrix organization has enabled us to be more flexible in the face of changing demand and to improve efficiency through the sharing of resources across programs. Staff productivity has increased by more than 25 percent.
Major realignment in the Technology Services staff has significantly increased support for faculty research and for implementing the SAP accounting system. Another program improvement this year was student laptop/networking support, mainly in response to a move toward group work and a greater need for computers.
In addition, the faculty are utilizing a new point-based load measurement system. As a result, teaching productivity has risen by more than 25 percent.
We are taking steps to improve the efficiency of the Research Centers and to build research revenues.
BUDGET
Our budget outlook remains healthy. We have been able to contribute resources to the Institute substantially above the level of our original five-year plan: $7.3 million in incremental funds over the FY94-FY97 period (through reduction in general funds, profit sharing, and new overhead taxes) versus $5.0 million originally projected. We forecast that we will contribute another $14.6 million between FY98 and FY2002. We expect to achieve these results even despite a new program to respond to the increasing competition among business schools and to meet the attack on our faculty from the Harvard Business School.
Major issues we are now addressing are faculty compensation, interdepartmental students, and diversity. In spite of tight budgets, Sloan hired 19 new faculty this year, expanding our outreach and strengthening our accounting, finance, and marketing departments. In the area of understanding and nurturing diversity, we staged a day-long program in April which was attended by 300 students, faculty and staff. A similar event is planned for the fall of 1997.
It has been a very productive year resulting in the implementation of many of the programs outlined in the 1994 five-year plan.
Glen L. Urban
MBA PROGRAM
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, encourages the interplay of ideas and their practical application, and allows students to design an individualized educational program exposing them to leading-edge research and practice.
In 1996-97, student enrollment, including Leaders for Manufacturing, was 719, the largest in Sloan School history. The first-year MBA class contained 315 students. It had the following profile: 28 percent female, 13 percent U.S. minority, and 38 percent international, with an average age of 27.5 years and average work experience of 4.3 years. Of the students' undergraduate degrees, 49 percent were in engineering, 25 percent in social sciences/humanities, 20 percent in business, and 6 percent in math/science.
The fall of 1996 was the fourth year of the revamped MBA curriculum, in which students complete a fall core of six subjects and then choose a specific Career Management track or Self-Managed Track in the spring term. A new track in Manufacturing and Operations Management (MO) was approved by the Master's Program Committee and implemented in the spring term. MO students will join the LFM proseminar and share some LFM electives. Nearly half the MBA students elected to join 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.
Overall student satisfaction with the MBA Program remained high in 1997: 91 percent of MBA students rated their Sloan experience 7 or higher on a 10-point scale.
Forty-six members, or 13 percent, of the first-year MBA class were from underrepresented minority groups--Sloan's largest minority representation ever. The Class of 1998 includes 27 African-Americans, 9 Mexican-Americans, 9 Puerto-Ricans, and 1 Native American. They joined 16 second-year minority students.
The Sloan School provided significant financial support for its minority MBAs. During the academic year, Sloan funded 39 first-year minority MBA scholarships at $10,000 each, and 15 second-year scholarships at $5,000 each. Funding for these scholarships came largely from private donations as well as from General Electric, United Technologies, CMP Media Corporation, the Toigo Foundation, and Citicorp.
The Minority Business Club and Minority Student Support Group met regularly during the academic year to discuss minority student issues. Representatives from the MBA Program and Master's Admissions Offices also attended school Diversity Committee meetings and participated in the first schoolwide diversity training day in the spring term.
The MBA Program 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 1997 annual survey of graduate business schools published in March. The program's continued high rankings (#2 in 1996, #1 in 1995, and #2 in 1994) are recognition of our student selectivity, high graduation rate, career placement success, and academic reputation.
The MBA Program Office expanded the number of student international trips to 7, up from 6 last year and 4 in 1995. The international trips have become an important part of the MBA Program student experience. The trips are initiated by students (itineraries, logistics, and fundraising) and are supported by the MBA Program Office and International Management faculty. Each trip is preceded by a regional academic seminar that examines the relevant management, social, and cultural issues of the countries visited. The trip destinations this year were China; Japan and Korea; Cuba and Mexico; Brazil and Argentina; India; Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia; and Eastern Europe. Some 250 MBA students participated.
Lawrence Abeln
LEADERS FOR MANUFACTURING FELLOWS PROGRAM
The Leaders for Manufacturing Program (LFM) is a partnership between MIT and 20 U.S. manufacturing firms to discover and translate into teaching and practice principles that produce world-class manufacturing and manufacturing leaders. LFM supports students both as Fellows in the program and as research assistants throughout the Institute. Both groups of students participate in a research program that is directed by a joint faculty-industry committee.
The largest component of the educational efforts is the Fellows Program, a 24-month dual-masters degree (engineering and management) program involving a single integrative research project carried out on site in partner firms. Of the 45 students graduated in 1997, over 90 percent have taken positions in manufacturing firms; 30 students have taken positions with LFM sponsors, notably Boeing, Ford, Intel, and GM. Industry continues to show strong support for hiring LFM graduates. The class of '98 comprises 48 students; the class of '99, 42.
Research has been conducted with seed funding from LFM in diverse areas. The Organizational Change group, for example, has focused on how LFM helps its sponsoring companies to change. This initiative has resulted in an assessment of the real value of LFM to companies and provided recommendations back to the program and partner companies on how to better utilize graduates of the program.
Another initiative, the Next Generation Manufacturing project, has sought to address LFM's mission of discovering the principles for world-class manufacturing in the future. Phase one of the project, completed in January 1997, was partly funded by NSF and was performed with Lehigh University's Agility Forum and the TEAM program. Through extensive discussions with manufacturing practitioners, a set of principles has been outlined.
LFM is collaborating with Stanford's SIMA program on a project on remote diagnostics. Partner companies have strongly supported such joint research.
LFM has added Genzyme Corp. and Qualcomm, Inc., as new small and medium-size enterprise partners. Bay Networks, Inc., has moved from involvement through internships to become an official limited partner. (Inland Steel Industries is no longer an active partner.) Membership fees have been restructured to allow companies more flexibility in how they participate in program governance, internships, and research.
The LFM operating committee has developed four standing committees to focus on areas of critical importance: Fellows, Internship, Research, and Knowledge Transfer. The latter committee's charter is to improve effective transfer of program knowledge between MIT and the companies. To date a set of 22 "learning tools" (including cases, simulations, and exercises) have been developed from internship experiences for company and classroom use.
The National Coalition for Manufacturing Leadership (NCML), founded by LFM, met twice this past year to share knowledge about industry needs and program curricula. Tuskegee University joined the coalition for help in starting an integrated manufacturing program. The coalition now includes 14 universities.
A memorandum of understanding with Beijing's Tsinghua University was made to assist partner companies with operations in China and to offer opportunities for student and teaching exchanges with China. Informal ties are developing with four other technical universities in Mexico and Europe.
LFM'S goals for the coming year include:
More information about LFM can be found on the World Wide Web at the following URL: http://web.mit.edu/lfm/www/
Stephen C. Graves, David E. Hardt, William C. Hanson
EXECUTIVE EDUCATION
The mission of Sloan's Office of Executive Education is to be the preeminent provider to key partner companies and alumni of executive education, drawing on Sloan's research depth and expertise to help managers and executives solve important business problems. Consistent with this mission, the office achieved the following results in 1996-97:
Both the Management of Technology and Sloan Fellows Programs--which fall under the purview of Executive Education--successfully recruited large classes for 1997-98, indicating continuing strong demand for these mid-career management degrees. (See the separate reports that follow.)
Six executive short courses were successfully presented in May and June-- The Chief Network Officer: Managing the IT Infrastructure; Negotiation: Theory & Practice; Management of Change in Complex Organizations; Corporate Strategy; System Dynamics: Modeling for Organizational Learning; and Product Design, Development, and Management.
Responding to market demand for more customized programs, Sloan increased its offerings of executive education programs for individual companies. For the second time, the School offered an innovative "change agent" program to Siemens Nixdorf.
We launched a new series of regionally focused programs in collaboration with leading institutions in India and Latin America.
The strategy for fiscal year 1998 includes the following:
More information about Sloan's Executive Education activities can be found on the World Wide Web at the following URL: http://web.mit.edu/sloan/www/academics/
Robert Russman Halperin
MANAGEMENT OF TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM
The MIT Management of Technology (MOT) Program, the first joint program between the Sloan School and the School of Engineering, was established in 1981 to develop leaders capable of bridging technology and strategy within an organization. The program grants the special degree SM in Management of Technology.
The MOT Class of 1997--with 51 members, including 8 women--was the largest to date. As in previous years, the average age was 35, and average post-university work experience was 10.5 years. Some 55 percent of the participants were international, representing 19 countries, and 85 percent were sponsored by their organizations. Before entering the MOT Program, 43 percent had earned master's degrees, 15 percent PhDs.
For the first time, MOT participants and Sloan Fellows jointly took two required classes during the summer term. Professor Gabriel Bitran taught a half-term subject each in managing manufacturing and services. The groups enjoyed the interactions, but agreed that 113 participants were too many for this type of class.
For the annual MOT international trip, the class of '97 visited the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Highlights included a three-hour conversation with Stan Shih (CEO of Acer) and a dinner with many of the CEOs from the Epoch Foundation.
The 1997 end-of-year surveys indicated an exceptionally high level of satisfaction among participants. On a 10-point scale, 34 percent gave the program a 10, and 37 percent gave it a 9. Overall, 94 percent of the respondents rated their satisfaction 7 or higher.
The MOT Program has begun to attract greater attention in the outside world. It was featured in two magazines this year: Electronic Engineering Times (January 20, 1997) and National Society of Black Engineers (March 1997). In addition, our new Web page received 20,000 visits in its first five months.
Our goals for the coming year are to strengthen our relationships with U.S. sponsoring organizations, to maintain our strong applicant pool, and to manage our rapid growth (from 41 participants in the class of '96, to 51 in '97, to 56 in '98) while maintaining our present staff size and level of customer satisfaction.
More information about the MOT Program can be found on the World Wide Web at the following URL: http://web.mit.edu/mot/
Rochelle Weichman
SLOAN FELLOWS
The MIT Sloan Fellows Program entered the 1996-97 academic year with one of the largest classes over the 66 year life of the program and ended it with great pride as one of its alumni, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, SF72, delivered the MIT Commencement Address.
The program strives to provide a learning community that reflects the international character of organizations today and to select participants with the highest potential for leadership roles. The 1997 class comprised 56 participants, all sponsored by their employers, of which 50 percent were U.S.-based organizations and 50 percent were international. This balance was achieved in the face of increased demand for places by Latin American companies, continued demand by Asian companies, and strengthening demand by U.S. companies. Participation by women and U.S. minorities, however, remained low, at 15 percent.
The teaching quality, as ranked by the participants, received the highest praise, as did program administration--an indicating that stability has occurred after the extensive reorganization of the Sloan School.
For the first time, graduates were offered the option of choosing between the degree designations MBA or MS in Management. The majority elected the MBA. The thesis remains a degree requirement for Sloan Fellows.
The program will continue to cultivate a dynamic and balanced U.S./international learning community that cultivates effective leadership to meet the fast-changing demands of today's economic environment. Efforts will continue to increase participation by women and minorities.
Susan C. Lowance
DOCTORAL PROGRAM
Sloan's Doctoral Program aims to provide institutions in the United States and abroad with outstanding management faculty and researchers.
On the input side, we broke records this year. We received 484 applications from 57 countries, fully a quarter of them from China. We made 31 offers and got 19 acceptances (a yield of 61 percent, better than in past years). Total enrollment now stands at 93. The number of women in the Doctoral Program remains at 24 percent
On the output side, our total number of graduates for the past academic year was 26. Job success and placement have been exceedingly high in all 10 of our management fields. Recent graduates have found positions at Wharton, Harvard, the University of Chicago, Cornell, New York University, the University of Michigan, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Rochester, the National University of Singapore, the Stockholm Institute of Economics, and the University of Chile in Santiago. A few graduates have chosen industrial careers at companies such as Booze, Allen & Co. and Digital Equipment.
While the number of underrepresented minority students (and applicants) remains small--currently three active students--we have undertaken several initiatives to increase our diversity. For example, we participate in the KPMG Peat Marwick PhD Project (an annual recruitment event) and have applied for and won a General Electric "Faculty for the Future" grant.
More information about Sloan's Doctoral Program can be found on the World Wide Web at the following URL: http://web.mit.edu/sloan/www/academics/PhD/
Birger Wernerfelt, Sharon Cayley
VISITING FELLOWS
The Sloan Visiting Fellows Program provides opportunities to pursue full-time, nondegree studies tailored to individual professional goals and interests. Each Visiting Fellow's program of study, usually for one or two semesters, is designed in consultation with a faculty adviser.
Originally a small program with four to six participants a semester, the program has seen demand more than double. Thirteen participants are enrolled for fall 1997. Regular sponsors include Schlumberger and The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd.
We plan to continue to maintain the program as a means for students from other universities, as well as organizationally sponsored individuals, to pursue a path of independent study at the Sloan School.
More information on the Sloan Visiting Fellows Program can be found on the World Wide Web: http://web.mit.edu/sloan/www/academics/vf/
Jennifer Mapes
SYSTEM DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
See the listing under School of Engineering
UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM
During the 1996-97 school year, 62 seniors majoring in Management Science were graduated. The Department recognized Christina Hsu and Michael Liu with the Sloan School of Management Senior Prize.
As of spring, 163 students were enrolled in the Management Science SB program, and another 49 had selected Management Science as their second SB degree program at MIT. The total undergraduate enrollment of 212 represented a 19 percent increase over spring 1996.
A large number of students from other MIT degree programs continue to enroll in our management subjects. In the 1996-97 academic year, 804 such students enrolled, up from 784 the year before.
For the first time, the Undergraduate Program administered a satisfaction survey similar to that used by other Sloan teaching programs. On a 10-point scale, the average reported satisfaction with the Sloan School was 7.1; teaching, 7.5; faculty expertise, 8.5; and Sloan facilities, 8.3. Women were significantly more satisfied (8.8) with Sloan facilities than were men (7.5). Lower satisfaction levels were reported for faculty advising (5.8), for the bidding system (6.1), for Educational Services (6.3), and for MIT's Career Services (6.3).
Jeff Meldman, Heather Madnick
CENTER FOR COORDINATION SCIENCE
The MIT Center for Coordination Science conducts multidisciplinary research to help understand how information technology can provide new ways of organizing human activity and can help people work together better. The center has two corporate sponsors--Fuji Xerox and Anderson Consulting. Its activities are also open to sponsors from the 21st Century Initiative listed below. Government funding comes from a variety of sources, including ARPA, NSF, and the Defense Logistics Agency.
The past year has brought significant progress on the center's main project, the Process Handbook, a set of tools for inventing organizations which brings together both coordination theory and coordination technology. The center began beta-testing the Process Handbook software.
Other activities included a groupware workshop (cosponsored with Sloan's Center for Information Systems Research) and the publication of several working papers on a range of topics, among them the self-governing Internet, measures of the value of information technology, and bundling information. We also hosted a visiting scientist from Fuji Xerox.
In the coming year, we plan to continue developing the Process Handbook project and to go "live" with a Web version of the software in the next few months. We also plan further research and activities in electronic commerce and virtual organizations, and are exploring the possibility of creating a Future Organizations Lab for conducting basic research in this area.
Thomas W. Malone
CENTER FOR ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY RESEARCH
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 environmental economics since the late 1980s. Jointly sponsored at MIT by the Sloan School, the Department of Economics, and the Energy Laboratory, CEEPR receives financial support from corporate sponsors and government agencies in the United States and Norway. In conjunction with MIT's Center for Global Change Science, CEEPR cosponsors the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, which conducts serious interdisciplinary work to provide a basis for global climate policy.
The principal achievements of CEEPR and the Joint Program in the past year fall into three categories:
Goals for the coming year include: continuing to expand the sponsorship base for both CEEPR and the Joint Program; maintaining the position and reputation attained in global warming economics and emissions trading; developing similar stature for research on productivity improvement in the supply of energy: and initiating a new field of research in energy futures, forwards, and arbitrage.
A. Denny Ellerman
CENTER FOR INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH
Established in 1974, the Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) investigates critical issues concerning the management and use of information technology in complex and dynamic organizations. Faculty associated with the center have conducted pioneering research in such areas as decision support systems, critical success factors, database systems, strategic IS planning, end user computing, executive support systems, and coordination technology.
In 1996-97, CISR research at the center was summarized in four new working papers and a white paper by center staff, and two working papers by affiliated faculty. Four previous working papers were published in Sloan Management Review. Staff are focusing on two key issues in IT management: the governance of the IT unit and management of ubiquitous information.
In addition to teaching in several Sloan graduate and executive education programs, CISR staff conducted an executive education course, Managing the IT Infrastructure for Global Competitiveness, in May for 22 IT professionals. In June, CISR held its annual Summer Session for 130 information technology professionals from all over the world. During the year, CISR staff participated in management education programs for IT professionals at Johnson & Johnson, a sponsor company. CISR held three one-day workshops on IT management issues and cosponsored a workshop on groupware with Sloan's Center for Coordination Sciences in March.
CISR research staff visited sponsor companies to discuss current research and to learn about their IT management issues. CISR research staff completed two case studies at sponsor firms on IT management initiatives, and began collecting data at a third firm.
CISR research staff made presentations at the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) and at two chapter meetings of the Society for Information Management. They served as reviewers for Sloan Management Review, MIS Quarterly, Harvard Business Press, and ICIS.
INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON THE MANAGEMENT OF TECHNOLOGY
ICRMOT organizes a program of research on technology management, marketing, and production, as well as the interactions among these functions and their relationship to the global business strategies of member companies. The work is supported mainly by large technology-based companies that are facing the demands of complex and dispersed technology management, often on a global scale.
Current research topics include: using technology alliances to establish leadership in emerging technologies: understanding effective integration tools for dispersed development teams; metrics for valuing R&D; understanding and managing the episodic nature of innovation; recognizing cycles in commodity markets; and managing large-scale software projects.
The center has begun several new initiatives to increase the flow of knowledge to member corporations. Among other measures, we have begun to encourage members to serve as sites for MIT research projects (to ensure that the research is directly applicable to their concerns); we have started inviting members to small, interactive workshops at MIT and elsewhere; and we have encouraged members to participate in identifying companies that are world leaders in various aspects of technology and in holding workshops with representatives from these organizations.
William A. Lucas
INVENTING THE ORGANIZATIONS OF THE 21ST CENTURY
Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century is a three-year-old research and education initiative that works with innovative managers, leaders, and academicians to help them invent the organizations that will become common 10 to 20 years from now.
The initiative has nine sponsor companies: British Telecom, EDS/A.T. Kearney, Siemens Nixdorf, Siemens PN, Eli Lilly, LG Electronics, McKinsey & Co., and--starting in 1996-97--Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) and the Norwegian Business Consortium (Norsk Hydro, Norwegian Confederation of Business and Industry, Telenor, Norwegian School of Management).
In 1996-97, the initiative held two major meeting with sponsors. An executive meeting in June brought sponsor executives and liaisons together for an in-depth working session on the theme of radically decentralized organizations. An October research review presented sponsors with a broad range of research results.
Other activities included the development of a faculty steering committee for the initiative and the funding of a 21C Core Faculty Working Group, a cadre of faculty that has begun meeting to more fully develop a research approach and agenda.
In the year ahead, we plan to continue developing sponsorship. We are also redesigning the package of benefits for sponsors and possibly the structure of the initiative to allow more flexibility in working with companies and to securing funding for a broader range of faculty activities. We also plan to refine the thinking and interests of the 21C Core Faculty Working Group to create the intellectual underpinnings of our future work.
Tom Malone
LABORATORY FOR FINANCIAL ENGINEERING
The focus of the Laboratory for Financial Engineering is the quantitative analysis of financial markets using mathematical, statistical, and computational models. LFE's goals are not only to spur advances in financial engineering, but to develop better ways to teach students and executives how to apply financial technology in corporate settings.
In the past year, we launched several new research projects. The new Artificial Markets Project examines the rich dynamics arising from interactions between human and artificial agents in a stochastic market environment in which agents learn from their interactions. In another new undertaking, the Trading Volume Project, we hope to expand our understanding of trading volume by developing well-articulated economic models of asset prices and volume, and empirically estimating them using recently available daily volume data for individual securities from 1962 to 1996.
During 1997, the LFE has produced 14 working papers and journal articles, on topics such as optimal control of execution costs, portfolio theory, and the stability of stock returns.
LFE's activities are supported through industry grants and private donations. This past year we received $200,000 from Merrill Lynch to establish two Merrill Lynch Fellowships through the Operations Research Center, a pledge of $500,000 from Gifford Fong to support the Track in Financial Engineering, and a donation of computer equipment from Sun Microsystems.
The Track in Financial Engineering, a part of the Sloan MBA curriculum, has also been supported by the LFE and has undergone a thorough review this year by the Sloan Dean's Office. The Dean's Office has promised more resources to support the track, and it will continue in its current form for at least another year.
The LFE continues to struggle with course development for the Trading Lab because of limited resources to fund this activity. I have developed several trading simulations for my investments course (15.433) and am developing research projects related to the Trading Lab (such as the Artificial Markets Project described above). The Trading Lab has considerably more potential from both research and teaching perspectives if resources can be raised to support it to the same extent that other universities support similar activities.
Andrew Lo
MIT ENTREPRENEURSHIP CENTER
The MIT Entrepreneurship Center (E-Center) seeks to inspire, educate, and understand entrepreneurs and the process of venture creation via a wide variety of entrepreneurial efforts throughout MIT and beyond. The E-Center is for those who would like to understand, match, or exceed this historic record of achievement by members of the MIT family.
The year 1996-97 has been a time of rapid growth for the E-Center. Student enrollment in entrepreneurship courses shot up 300 percent, to 327. We enjoyed record participation from MIT Engineering and Science students, and Entrepreneurship Lab course enrollment grew to 40-plus internships each semester.
We recruited four new faculty and practitioners, established a new core curriculum, and set up a five-year faculty and staff hiring plan. At the same time, the Entrepreneurship Center Advisory Board helped set our intellectual agenda for next 5 years. A key component of this agenda is the MIT Global Benchmarking Project, which started this year in Metz (France) and Plzen (Czech Republic). The project will compare and contrast policies affecting the growth and levels of entrepreneurship in 10 regions of the world.
The year has been fruitful on the financial side as well. Pledges of support from successful entrepreneurial alumni exceed $9 million.
In the coming year, we plan to hold a National Conference on Entrepreneurship (with support from the Lemelson Foundation), increase our support for student-led venture activities such as the $50K Business Plan competition, and recruit additional Entrepreneurs in Residence and other practitioners.
Kenneth Morse
MIT PROGRAM ON THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY
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 the global pharmaceutical industry--the firms and their suppliers, customers, and regulators. POPI seeks to improve the industry's performance and reduce the cost of health care by lowering product costs and decreasing the time required to bring new products to patients.
In 1996-97, faculty associated with POPI continued research on case histories of important drugs, the cost of new drug development, the use of combinatorial chemistry to systematize key aspects of drug discovery, and many other topics. A large conference held at MIT in November 1996 examined "The Competitive Advantage of a Healthy Workforce." Jointly organized with Pfizer, the meeting used some of the latest POPI research to stimulate a dialogue among invited corporate and health-services leaders.
Among other new collaborations, the directors of POPI have entered into preliminary discussion with the University of Leuven, Belgium, which plans to launch a study of the European pharmaceutical industry. Possible joint projects include cross-national comparative studies of drug development, project management, and outcomes assessment.
Stan N. Finkelstein
OPERATIONS RESEARCH CENTER
See the listing under Vice President for Research and Dean for Graduate
Education
SYSTEM DYNAMICS GROUP
The System Dynamics Group, founded in the early 1960s by Professor Jay W. Forrester, studies complex systems--often with the aid of computer simulation models--to learn how their structure influences their behavior.
In 1996-97, our National Science Foundation grant was approved for a third year. The National Model Project continued research on how the U.S. economy works. Participants in the System Dynamics in Education Project continued writing Road Maps, a series of self-study guides that use modeling exercises and selected literature to teach the methods and principles of system dynamics. Eight chapters are now available on the World Wide Web at http://sysdyn.mit.edu/road-maps/home.html
More information on the System Dynamics Group can be found on the World Wide Web: http://sysdyn.mit.edu/sd-group/home.html and http://web.mit.edu/sdg/www/
John Sterman, Nan S. Lux
ADMISSIONS OFFICE
This has been another highly successful year for Sloan Admissions. The new class is made up of 350 students, including the 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 4.6 years of employment before matriculating. The average age was 27.4 years. Average GMAT score has risen to 674.
The number of applications to Sloan again rose, to 3,394, reflecting a continued strong interest in the MBA professional degree, bolstered by a strong economy and job market. As business becomes more complex and reaches into sectors that were previously less business-oriented--such as health care--we have seen a diversification of applicants to include doctors, lawyers, architects, and other professionals who find themselves in need of sophisticated management skills to complement their professional expertise.
Sloan continues to be a diverse population on all dimensions. The incoming class is 37 percent international, 28 percent women, and 12 percent underrepresented minority students. In addition, students have come from all over the United States, from backgrounds in engineering, mathematics, and the sciences, as well as from history, journalism, social science, economics, and business.
Plans for the coming recruitment season include renewed recruiting efforts in Europe as well as a continuation of our presence in Asia, South America, and across the U.S. and Canada. The voluntary participation of current students and alumni/ae in these efforts gives evidence of the satisfaction with our program.
Meg Manderson
ALUMNI RELATIONS OFFICE
The Alumni Relations Office aims to keep Sloan's 16,000 alumni connected with each other and the School, and to foster goodwill toward Sloan. Specific challenges for FY97 were to expand visibility of the programs and services available; to deliver on-line continuing education to alums; and to implement a new on-line alumni directory with a staff of three people.
FY97 saw the Sloan Alumni Relations program recognized by Business Week as one of the top five business school alumni networks; expansion of alumni clubs to 22 worldwide (a 30 percent increase); the School's first Web-based alumni course (Negotiation), which drew more than 30 alumni from six countries; expanded Web-based career services (on-line jobs listings); a new services brochure and alumni membership card; and the launching of a new Sloan memorabilia program to help promote the school.
In FY97, overall alumni activity and involvement was high. More than 150 alumni club events were held around the world, involving 2,000-plus alumni. More than 2,000 alumni volunteered to assist Sloan in recruiting, student mentoring, and admissions. Some 1,300 alumni purchased the new 1996 Alumni Directory. And the Sloan Alumni Interactive received more than 11,000 visits. Nearly 200 alumni took advantage of the personalized career counseling service. Reunion '97 attracted nearly 200 participants, including 48 percent of the class of '92.
Collaboration with MIT's Alumni Network Services will continue to play a critical role for Sloan alumni. Nearly 1,000 Sloan alumni have registered for the on-line directory and other networking services offered through ANS. In addition, more than 50 percent of the 1997 graduating class registered for the ANS services before they graduated.
Key challenges for FY98 will be to increase the visibility of the many programs and services available to alumni, including expanded value-added services such as alumni continuing education and distance learning. FY98 will also see a comprehensive survey of alumni on the value of their Sloan education.
More information on the Alumni Relations Office can be found on the World Wide Web: http://web.mit.edu/sloanalum/
Carmon Cunningham
CAREER DEVELOPMENT OFFICE
The demand for Sloan graduates remained strong this year, though the competition is intense among the top schools for positions with prestigious firms. The two major challenges the Career Development faced this year were to manage the new fall recruiting schedule with minimum disruption to the academic mission of the school, and to increase the number of on-campus recruiters to keep pace with the larger student body.
Preliminary placement figures indicate mixed results, though they are brought on more by changes in student preferences than changes in overall demand. The median base salary dropped slightly, from $78,000 to $75,000, caused by a 5 percent increase in the number of students choosing careers in finance, accompanied by a four-point drop in consulting. The average number of job offers remained surprisingly flat at 3.2 (vs. 3.4 last year), considering that the class size had increased by nearly 20 percent in the same period.
Though head count in the Career Development Office has remained essentially flat (6 full-time plus 1.2 full-time equivalents), there has been significant expansion in all three of our main areas of business:
The recruiting season extended from late November into March this year, with 214 companies participating in on-campus recruiting and two career fairs taking place during the spring semester. Our marketing activities over the previous summer yielded 62 new recruiting companies, with the majority in the manufacturing sector. The CDO significantly expanded the use of technology to streamline recruiting operations, moving interview bidding/sign-ups, salary data collection, and job postings to the Web.
The CDO outsourced some of the career counseling activities this year, enabling us to offer a greater number and wider variety of seminars and workshops. Highlights included several seminars co-led with faculty and increased training in the use of Web-based job search services.
The CDO hired a new full-time librarian in January to manage the Career Resource Center and focus on job postings and on-line services. Our Web site has been expanded, and several new Web-based commercial databases are now available to students. We continually expand our collection and provide students with regular on-site training in use of electronic and hardcopy resources.
Our goals for the coming year are closely aligned with this year's goals. We plan to continue to increase the number and variety of on-campus recruiting companies, with special emphasis on international firms. We will also expand our counseling services, drawing on talented independent career counselors in Boston and New York. Most important, we will partner more extensively with Sloan's management tracks and individual faculty to integrate career seminars and information resources with the academic curriculum.
More information on the CDO can be found on the World Wide Web: http://web.mit.edu/cdo/www
Ilse Evans
CLIENT PARTNERSHIP AND RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
FY97 was one of the best fundraising years in the School's history. The FY97 total of $18,500,000 in gifts and new pledges represents a 27 percent increase over FY96. The Sloan Development Team (SDT) helped generate about $12,000,000 in cash and more than $6,500,000 in new pledges to support the School during FY97. The Sloan Annual Fund raised almost $1,000,000, a 41 percent increase over the previous year, while an additional $275,000 was raised to support the School's new Minority Fellowships program.
The SDT made 34 percent more sales calls than last year (937 versus 700), despite receiving no significant increase in its budget. Sloan's per-capita fundraising productivity is among the highest of the top tier business schools.
For FY98, the SDT has established a $25,000,000 overall fundraising goal, including a goal of $1,200,000 for the Sloan Annual Fund. The team will also redouble its efforts to close a $25,000,000 gift by working even more closely with President Vest and the MIT Resource Development Office.
Ronald Thomann
EDUCATIONAL SERVICES
Educational Services continued this year to broaden its services supporting students and faculty, an especially important role as the population soared to an all-time high of nearly 1,100 Sloan students, with another 1,000 MIT students enrolled in Course 15 subjects. More than 160 course sections are now offered each semester, a massive scheduling task for this unit.
Increased communication was key this year: "Work in Process," a column for keeping students abreast of major decision processes at Sloan, was added to the weekly internal newsletter (News@Sloan). Educational Services manages and continuously improves a password-protected student intranet, which concentrates in one location a vast range of necessary information resources. An on-line schoolwide calendar is being created. Management of on-line course materials is one of the new initiatives planned for next year, as a service to both faculty and students. Students arriving in the fall will find individual home pages created for them, complete with their photo (this will also help faculty to identify students).
In the area of enrollment management, the on-line course prioritization system was enhanced to meet a number of student and program needs: variable unit caps by program (enabling each academic program to determine the maximum number of units its students may take), extended bidding schedules for executive education students entering in the summer, system-produced materials such as class e-mail lists to provide new information for faculty, and, as always, a focus on faster response and more reliable electronic systems.
The newly formed Educational Services Advisory Group, which draws members from across Sloan's academic programs, has provided valuable direction for such projects as the refurbishment of the Sloan Lobby and desired renovation of other spaces.
In the 1997-98 academic year, Educational Services will play a vital role in distance learning, and plans to offer enhanced services in enrollment management. A comprehensive information system encompassing all aspects of a student's engagement with Sloan--from potential interest through enrollment through life-long alumni connection--looms on the horizon.
More information about Educational Services can be found on the World Wide Web at the following URL: http://web.mit.edu/sloan/www/Services/Edservices/EDS.html
Lucinda Hill
LEMELSON-MIT AWARDS PROGRAM
The Lemelson-MIT Awards Program is a major national educational initiative designed to promote invention and innovation through prizes, spokespeople, and ongoing public education activities. In 1997, the goal of the program was to raise visibility of the awards and public awareness of the contributions of innovators in science, engineering, medicine, technology, and entrepreneurship.
Following are highlights of the program's success in achieving this goal: ongoing citation of the program and its public education activities in a wide range of outlets, including ABC World News Tonight; CNN's Newsday, and CNN's Money Matters; the Tonight Show; The Wall St. Journal, BusinessWeek, Time Digital, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Wired On-Line, and Yahoo! News; public endorsement of the program from national leaders, including Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, and Joseph Bordogna, acting deputy director of the National Science Foundation; increased international recognition of the awards, including coverage in Le Monde (front page), the International Herald Tribune, the London Daily Telegraph, and Japan's Science and Technology Television Network; expanded reach to primary school audiences, including ongoing presentations by spokespeople at the Smithsonian Institution and selected schools nationwide; fulfillment of national and international requests to incorporate program resources, such as the weekly inventor profiles, into multimedia educational materials; indefinite extension of a program-sponsored interactive kiosk at Disney's Epcot Center; and citations by primary and middle school educational organizations such as Discover Magazine's School Science Program, The Exploratorium's Cool Sites for Kids, and several regional parent's publications.
Douglas Engelbart, inventor of collaborative computing, hypertext, and community network systems and the computer mouse, was awarded the half-million dollar Lemelson-MIT Prize. Gertrude Elion, creator of numerous lifesaving drugs, including two to combat acute leukemia and one to facilitate organ transplantation between nonrelated donors, was honored with the Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award. Nathan Kane, an MIT Mechanical Engineering graduate student and inventor of several industrial design innovations, was awarded the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize.
The goal of the program this coming year is to strengthen existing relationships, such as with the Smithsonian Institution; to build alliances with relevant internal programs, such as the new Center for Innovation in Product Development; and to cultivate external collaborations with nonprofit and corporate initiatives supporting science and engineering outreach programs. In addition, activities to increase visibility will be targeted to a more select group of publications and media outlets.
More information about the Lemelson-MIT Awards Program can be found on the World Wide Web at the following URL: http://web.mit.edu/invent/
Annemarie Amparo
OFFICE OF COMMUNICATION
The Office of Communication aims to clarify, coordinate, and broadcast key messages that demonstrate the Sloan School's preeminence in management education and research.
In FY97 the office underwent considerable reengineering and reorganizing to make the most efficient use of resources while increasing the visibility of the School. We put in place a system for better managing relations with the news media, coaching faculty and administrators on how to enhance Sloan's image in their contacts with the press. We initiated an effort to improve coordination among Sloan's many program brochures. We conducted a major reevaluation of the School's news magazine, MIT Sloan R.O.I. And we began a much needed overhaul of the Sloan Web site.
Goals for FY98 include:
More information about the Office of Communication can be found on the World Wide Web at the following URL: http://web.mit.edu/sloan/resources/comm.html
Mary Schaefer, David Brittan
SLOAN TECHNOLOGY SERVICES
Sloan Technology Services (STS) works to create partnerships among faculty, staff, students, and corporations dedicated to the support of teaching and the best uses of IT, innovation and implementation of new technologies, lifelong learning, and changing infrastructure within an electronic community.
STS undertook a number of new initiatives during FY97:
Plans for FY98 include: the building of an electronic learning community (and its related infrastructure) for prospective students, current students, faculty, staff, alums, and partner companies through the use of technologies such as videoconferencing, audioconferencing, and the Web; improved teaching and learning through the use of technology; more standardization of faculty, staff, and students' hardware and software (including a phase-out of support for Macs); increased faculty research support; and improved administrative systems.
SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW
Sloan Management Review is a peer-reviewed management journal that disseminates research from the top business schools, with the dual purpose of affecting management practice and publicizing the Sloan School. SMR has had a good year. Revenues, profits, circulation size, and citation levels exceeded expectations and were at an all-time high.
In the coming year, we plan to redesign the journal, add another new editorial department, update our electronic offerings, and continue to increase revenues from permissions, reprints, and advertising. Revenues, profits, and circulation numbers are projected to go up modestly.
Sarah Cliffe
MIT Reports to the President 1996-97