Harvard Business School

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HBS, as seen from across the Charles River. In the background is the steeple of Baker Library.

Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School, officially named the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration: George F. Baker Foundation, and also known as HBS, is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University.

The school was founded in 1908 with an initial class of 59 students. Its first location was in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In the 1920s, the class size reached 500 students. In 1927, the School moved across the Charles River to its present location in Allston (part of Boston) - hence the custom of faculty and students of referring to the rest of Harvard University as "across the river." Women were first admitted to its regular two-year Master of Business Administration program with the Class of 1965. The Dean of HBS is Jay O. Light, who was appointed by then Harvard President Lawrence Summers on April 24, 2006.

The school offers a full-time MBA program, a Doctoral program and many executive education programs, but does not offer an 'Executive MBA'. The School owns Harvard Business School Publishing (www.hbsp.harvard.edu), which publishes business books, online management tools, teaching cases and the monthly Harvard Business Review.

1 Organizational relationships
2 Reputation
3 MBA Program
4 Academic honors
5 Owner/President and Advanced Management Program
6 Student Life
7 Campus
8 Academic Units
9 Notable Harvard Business School people
- 9.1 Alumni (MBA and executive programs)
10 See also
11 References
12 External links

[edit] Organizational relationships

Harvard Business School has a number of relationships with other leading business schools. It offers its students cross-registration at the MIT Sloan School of Management, one of the few leading pairs of business schools to offer such an arrangement. It also offers a number of Executive Education programs jointly with the Wharton School of Business and Stanford Graduate School of Business. It collaborated with the Indian Institute of Management in the mid-60s in setting up its reputed post-graduate program in management. Faculty and research associates author a large portion of the case studies used at many other business schools around the world.

[edit] Reputation

Harvard is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world. In 2000, The New York Times wrote that Harvard "has won a place ... as one of the two best business schools in the country, most students agree, a notch above the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School"^[1]

[edit] MBA Program

Harvard Business School offers a two-year full time MBA program, which consists of one year of mandatory courses (Required Curriculum) and one year of unrestricted course selection (Elective Curriculum). Admission to the MBA program is one of the most selective graduate programs in the world. The student body is highly international and diverse and come from a variety of different backgrounds.

The required curriculum consists of two semesters. The first semester focuses primarily on the internal aspects of the company and includes the courses Technology and Operations Management, Marketing, Financial Reporting and Control, Leadership and Organizational Behaviour, and Finance I. The second semester focuses on the external aspects and includes the courses Business, Government, and the International Economy, Strategy, The Entrepreneurial Manager, Negotiations, Finance II, and Leadership and Corporate Accountability.

The elective curriculum can be chosen from more than 50 courses. The students assign each course a priority and the courses are filled based on student priority and class availability.

Current MBA classes have a size of approximately 911 students, divided into ten sections (A-J). Each section takes classes together the first year, with the intention of forming deep social bonds. Graduation rates are approximately 98%. Teaching is almost exclusively (95%) done through case teaching (also referred to as the Socratic method), where the students prepare teaching cases and discuss them in class, with a professor as moderator and facilitator.

[edit] Academic honors

The top academic honor at Harvard Business School is the Baker Scholar designation (High Distinction), given to the top 5% of the graduating MBA class. Students receiving honors (top 20%) in both their first and second years are awarded the MBA degree with Distinction.

The student (or students) receiving a full complement of top grades in their first-year classes is designated Ford Scholar(s).

[edit] Owner/President and Advanced Management Program

In addition to Master's and Doctoral degrees, the Harvard Business School (HBS) offers three non-degree executive programs which confer alumni status to graduates: the Owner/President Management Program (OPM), a part-time, multi-year program for self-employed entrepreneurs; the Advanced Management Program (AMP), an eight-week intensive course for senior managers; and the General Management Program (GMP), which combines campus and distance learning and is intended for middle managers. Other Executive Education programs at HBS also award certificates to attendees, but do not confer alumni status (an exception is the Leadership Development Program, which also confers HBS alumni status if 10 extra days (2 weeks of HBS executive education) are completed).

[edit] Student Life

Students can join one or more of the more than 50 clubs on campus. The clubs invite speakers to campus, organize trips, social events, and help forming bonds between students of similar interests. The Student Association is the main interface between the MBA student body and the faculty/administration. It is led by a four-person Executive Committee (2 co-presidents, CFO and COO). The decision power rests with the Senate, which is composed of one senator from each section (a total of 10), the Executive Committee, and various committees made up of section officers.

[edit] Campus

Hawes Hall at Harvard Business School.

The Harvard Business School campus is located in Allston, across the Charles River from the main Harvard campus in Cambridge. Many of the buildings have red-brick exteriors, as do many buildings in Harvard Yard. HBS maintains a number of facilities, including a sports center and The Class of 1959 Chapel, that are dedicated for the exclusive use of its community. A series of underground tunnels connects the basements of nearly every building on the campus. Spangler Hall is widely considered HBS' main building with student lounges, administration, cafeteria, and grille. Most classrooms are located in Aldrich and Hawes, most of which are 100-student "amphi-theatre" rooms with approximately five rows in a half circle. This design facilitates the teaching of the case method. Baker Library was reopened in 2005 after several years of renovation. The new building features student study spaces as well as faculty offices. The fitness center is located in Shad Hall, across from Morgan Hall, which houses the majority of the faculty. Shad Hall is also the location of the Computer Lab for Experimental Research (CLER) where many business research studies are conducted. Closest to Charles River are the Executive Education halls as well as student dormitories.

[edit] Academic Units

The school's faculty are divided into ten academic units: Accounting and Management; Business, Government and the International Economy; Entrepreneurial Management; Finance; General Management; Marketing; Negotiation, Organizations & Markets; Organizational Behavior; Strategy; and Technology and Operations Management.

[edit] Notable Harvard Business School people

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See also: Harvard University people