The mission of the MIT Sloan School of Management is to develop principled, innovative leaders who improve the world and to generate ideas that advance management practice.
To accomplish this, the School
The MIT Sloan School grew out of a curriculum in engineering administration—Course 15—that was first offered to MIT undergraduates in 1914. A program leading to a master's degree in management was established in 1925. The world's first university-based executive education program, the Sloan Fellows Program, had its beginnings at MIT in 1931 under the principal sponsorship of Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., the 1895 MIT graduate in electrical engineering who rose to the top of the General Motors Corporation. Sloan endowed the pioneering program in 1938. In 1952, a further grant from the Sloan Foundation made possible the creation of the MIT School of Industrial Management—charged with the education of "the ideal manager." The School was renamed in honor of Mr. Sloan in 1964.
MIT Sloan's array of top-ranked undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs are well known for drawing on the creative and collaborative approaches common to engineering, behavioral science, economics, and management science to give managers a competitive edge. In our diverse education and research programs, we work with industry to develop the basic knowledge, insights, tools, and techniques that are shaping the future of the practice of management.
Among MIT Sloan's key strengths are its exceptionally close ties with other world-class departments at MIT, especially in fields crucial to business, including economics, engineering, and science. One manifestation of this interdisciplinary approach is Leaders for Global Operations, an educational and research collaboration with the School of Engineering and industry partners that is transforming the practice of manufacturing and manufacturing education. Other examples include the medical innovations course, conducted in partnership with MIT Sloan, the School of Engineering, and doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital, and the new Biomedical Enterprises program.
With a focus on the future of management, MIT Sloan has been aggressive in developing leading edge research programs that have an impact on the emerging practice of business. The School has been a leader in developing the concepts of financial engineering that underlie today's financial markets, for example. The Master of Finance, a 12-month intensive degree program designed to prepare students for careers in the financial industry, has quickly established itself as a premiere and in-demand degree program.
MIT Sloan also recently launched the MIT Executive MBA. This is a rigorous 20-month executive schedule Master of Business Administration that builds on MIT Sloan's history of distinguished MBA progams and mid-career education.
Reflecting a world characterized by increasing economic globalization, MIT Sloan is itself an international community. Approximately one-third of the MBA class and close to half of all executive education participants come from outside the United States, and diverse research/educational collaborations have been developed with Europe, Mexico, and Asia. In addition, the School has a strong network of alumni in more than 100 countries.
As one of the world's preeminent management schools, MIT Sloan strives to prepare its students to be principled, innovative leaders in a rapidly changing world. In an increasingly competitive environment, MIT Sloan must continually listen to the marketplace, explore new directions, and use this knowledge to develop new products, services, and processes quickly and efficiently. To maintain its leadership, MIT Sloan continues to drive change and innovation in a number of areas:
Action Learning: MIT Sloan's signature experiential learning model immerses more students in more of the world's under-resourced locales to translate knowledge into useful solutions. Action learning builds resilient, thoughtful leaders capable of solving unstructured problems across business functions. Global Entrepreneurship Lab, Sustainability Lab, China Lab, and India Lab are just a few of the avenues through which students can apply classroom concepts and theory to real-world business scenarios.
Entrepreneurship. The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, housed at MIT Sloan, aims to inspire, train, and coach new generations of entrepreneurs to create successful high-tech ventures. The center's educational programs, especially New Enterprises, Entrepreneurship Lab, and Entrepreneurship Lab courses, are designed to give students the experience, skills, and network they need to turn their ideas into opportunities for new ventures and then to make those ventures successful. The center continues to work with leading practitioners and build its entrepreneurship faculty, who also conduct research on the dynamic process of high-tech venture development.
Global Initiatives. A top priority for MIT Sloan is to widen the international reach of its educational and research initiatives. MIT Sloan has international MBA programs in collaboration with China's Sun Yat-sen, Fudan, Tsinghua, Yunnan, and Lingnan universities. MIT Sloan also hosts Chinese university faculty to help them absorb and apply MIT Sloan's approach to management education. The School also works with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, the Epoch Foundation in Taiwan, and Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores in Mexico. In early 2009, MIT Sloan and the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO launched a series of joint programs aimed at strengthening the Russian school's capacity in business education at the international level while exposing MIT Sloan faculty and students to a new range of global developments and challenges. Most recently, MIT Sloan began a new partnership with Sabanci University in Turkey.
Sustainability Lab (S-Lab). Utilizing a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach to sustainability challenges, S-Lab is jointly taught by seven of the School's top faculty and features opportunities to work with a variety of companies as they confront environmental and social business challenges.
China Lab. MIT Sloan's partnership with four premier business schools in China was expanded to include an intensive, semester-long opportunity for students from both countries to learn and work together collaboratively. Involving Chinese international MBA students and MIT Sloan students, the inaugural China Lab incorporates elements of Project Team China and the popular E-Lab and G-Lab courses to give students hands-on work experience as part of a multinational business team.
MIT Sloan's interdisciplinary research centers include:
Center for Computational Research In Economics and Management Science
Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research
Center for Future Banking
Center for Information Systems Research
Institute for Work and Employment Research
Laboratory for Financial Engineering
Lean Advancement Initiative
Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship
MIT Center for Collective Intelligence
MIT Center for Digital Business
MIT Leadership Center
MIT Workplace Center
Operations Research Center
Virtual Customer Initiative
Information about these centers is available in the Interdisciplinary Research and Study section in Part 3 and on the MIT Sloan website, http://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/research/index.php.
MIT Sloan produces publications that enjoy robust readerships within the MIT community, across the country, and around the world. MIT Sloan Management Review is a quarterly subscription-based journal for professional managers. More information about the magazine is presented on the web at http://mitsloan.mit.edu/smr/.
The alumni magazine MIT Sloan aims to connect alumni to the School and to each other through compelling news features, faculty articles, student and alumni profiles, and class notes.
In addition, MIT Sloan maintains a dynamic website, http://mitsloan.mit.edu/, that provides access to a rich and detailed range of news and information about the School, its activities, and its resources.
David C. Schmittlein, PhD
John C Head III Dean
S. P. Kothari, PhD
Gordon Y Billard Professor of Management
Professor of Accounting
Deputy Dean
JoAnne Yates, PhD
Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management
Deputy Dean
Donna M. Behmer, MEd
Senior Associate Dean for Finance and Administration
Alan F. White, SM
Senior Associate Dean
Kristina Gulick Schaefer
Associate Dean of External Relations
Rochelle Weichman
Associate Dean for Executive Education