State of the GSB Is "Terrific"

“The state of the school is terrific,” dean Edward Snyder told alumni and students in the Hyde Park Center’s Rothman Winter Garden on October 5. “We feel comfortable about Chicago’s ability to address all of the major issues facing management education. At Chicago, students are not customers. Students are members of this community with responsibilities and set expectations.”

Snyder said that Chicago GSB had a clear mission not influenced by the latest fads. “We teach people about competition and how organizations work. And if we do these two things well, we prepare people so that they can go out and do what they want to do,” he said. “We can’t anticipate everything that our students will want to do, or what they will accomplish.”

Snyder assured the audience, who were on campus for Alumni Weekend, that the next generation of faculty “looks awesome to me.” He noted that Kevin Murphy, George J. Stigler Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, was awarded a 2005 MacArthur “genius” grant, and Marianne Bertrand, professor of economics and Neubauer Family Faculty Fellow, whose research is on labor discrimination, won the Elaine Bennett Research Prize for the top young female economist.

Alumni connectivity also is working well, Snyder said, and he is excited about the new GSB Community Directory, which will strengthen connections.

Snyder was joined by Stacy Kole, deputy dean for the full-time MBA program, who said the Hyde Park Center has radically changed the sense of community among the student body. She added that, thanks to a change in how the GSB approaches admissions, the class of 2007 is the strongest ever, with an average GMAT score over 700 and an average undergraduate GPA of 3.5.

“We are crystal clear about who we are, our GSB values, and what a transformational experience it is to get an MBA at Chicago,” she said.

—Jennifer Vanasco