Spring Break
2008 - Retrospectives - The Centennial Year
Jimmy J. Tran (OJ) and MPA 2009, Associate Editor
Issue date: 12/8/08 Section: News
|
This year, HBS celebrated its 100th anniversary The festivities officially started on April 8th, 2008, 100 years to the day the Harvard Corporation voted to establish a business school on the patch of swampy land across the Charles River from Harvard University.
Today, the concept of a "business school" may not seem radical at all, but in 1908, the creation of a school dedicated to the practice of management was a controversial pursuit - controversial enough to earn the label "delicate experiment" by some.
In order to legitimize the founding of the school and place management as a profession alongside others such as law or medicine, the original founders sold management education to the Harvard Corporation as a means to improve society.
In his book From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession, for instance, Professor Rakesh Khurana argues that the founders of HBS and other top business schools originally viewed management education as a means to advance the needs of society, not narrow self interest.
With the idea of establishing management as a profession akin to medicine or law and the Panic of 1907 hot on its heels, Harvard Business School welcomed its first class of 59 male students in 1908.
Throughout its first 100 years, HBS has remained devoted to the case study method, although the concept of management education has evolved dramatically over time to include periods dedicated to imparting specific business knowledge, creating shareholder value, conducting quantitative analysis and most recently, exercising leadership.
With this historical baggage in tow, HBS kicked off a robust and ambitious lineup of Centennial activities this past year, starting with a school-wide celebration on April 8th, 2008. True to HBS fashion, students were asked to read and discuss a case on the 100th anniversary of HBS with Dean Jay Light as the case protagonist.
In addition to April 8th, a multitude of activities throughout 2008 marked HBS's Centennial, including a series of faculty-led colloquia on various management topics, global outreach activities to HBS alumni throughout the world, a Business Summit held on campus in mid-October, a Centennial website, etc.
HBS celebrated its Centennial in grandiose fashion, but where does all of this leave us?
Be the first to comment on this story