Celebrating 125 Years of Forging Bold Thinkers and Dynamic Leaders

Business Education Begins at the University of Chicago
In 1898, the University of Chicago made good on James Laurence Laughlin’s idea, establishing a school for professional business training called the College of Commerce and Politics, which would eventually become the Graduate School of Business, and then, in 2008, Chicago Booth. Today, Booth is the second-oldest business school in the United States, and it’s the only business school with permanent campuses on three continents, drawing students and faculty from around the globe.

The School Is Renamed the College of Commerce and Administration
The newly established College of Commerce and Politics had no separate faculty, administration, or curriculum of its own, but it was issued a budget of $5,800 to operate. That changed in 1902. On March 15, a university senate committee laid the groundwork for establishing the new division of the university, and the faculty of the new College of Commerce and Administration held their first meeting on April 26, 1902.

Henry R. Hatfield—Humanist, Scholar, and Accounting Educator—Is Named the First Dean
Hatfield is generally regarded as one of the foremost pioneers of academic accounting in the United States. Born in 1866 in Chicago, he earned a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago in 1897, having previously been affiliated with the municipal bond business. In 1902, he accepted an assistant professorship at the newly created College of Commerce and Administration and became the business school’s first dean, a position he held until 1904. He left to join the University of California at Berkeley, where he held many leadership positions, including dean of Berkeley’s College of Commerce. He was long regarded as “the dean of accounting teachers everywhere,” according to biographer Stephen A. Zeff, and his two books, Modern Accounting and Accounting, were among the most revered reference works in the first half of the 20th century.

American History Scholar Francis W. Shepardson Becomes the Second Dean
Shepardson became the second dean of the College of Commerce and Administration in 1904 and held the position until 1906. As a graduate student at Yale, Shepardson attracted the attention of William Rainey Harper, and the university’s first president was instrumental in bringing Shepardson to the University of Chicago. A scholar of American history and the author of several books, Shepardson worked for and taught at UChicago for 25 years. He is perhaps best known for his efforts on behalf of the fraternity system. He was a founder of the National Interfraternity Conference, now the North American Interfraternity Conference, and later served as its chairman.

Charles Edward Merriam—Advisor to Presidents—Becomes the Third Dean
Merriam led an extraordinary life. He was a renowned political scientist who was a prominent intellectual in the Progressive movement and advised US presidents. He was a politician who served as an alderman of Chicago’s Seventh Ward, where he developed a national reputation for rooting out corruption. He was a professor who educated students at UChicago for four decades from his own experience in the political process. And he was a soldier who, at 43, joined the US Army Signal Corps during World War I as a commissioned captain. Merriam retired from the University of Chicago in 1940.

A Visionary: Leon Carroll Marshall Becomes the Fourth Dean
Marshall became the fourth dean of the business school when he was just 30 years old, and he played a major role in laying the groundwork for what Chicago Booth is today. Marshall had a bold vision when he became dean: he imagined the school as a “‘community of scholars,” not one that simply offered vocational training, and he envisioned the business school as “a place for truly scientific work.” He worked hard to bring that vision to life. In his 15-year tenure as dean, Marshall succeeded in establishing the first business doctoral program, which saw the first PhD students graduate in 1922. He also helped lay the groundwork for the first scholarly journal of business, the Journal of Business.

School’s Name Changes, and It Receives an Unexpected Gift
In 1916, the college was renamed the School of Commerce and Administration, a name it kept until 1932. The year 1916 also brought significant and unexpected financial support to the school. Hobart W. Williams, a philanthropist who had no ties to the university but believed in the importance of business education, gave the university property at Wabash and Monroe in Chicago for the purposes of “instruction in commercial or business studies.” The gift was worth $2 million at the time.

World’s First PhD Program in Business Begins
The scientific study of business started here in 1920, with the creation of the nation’s first doctoral program in business. Back then, Booth was known as the College of Commerce and Administration. Today, there are more than 700 PhD alumni globally, many working as academic researchers and scholars at some of the world’s most elite institutions of higher learning.

The First PhD Students Graduate
The doctoral program saw its first PhD graduate students in 1922: Albert Claire Hodge and Waldo Mitchell. Mitchell, the son of a Civil War veteran, was an Indiana native who grew up on his family’s farm. He taught classes in industrial society and business administration at Booth while pursuing his doctorate. During the program, Hodge wrote Principles of Accounting (1920), coauthored with James O. McKinsey, AM ’19, the future founder of the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Then-dean Leon C. Marshall provided the editor’s preface, describing his vision for the text to become part of a unified and coherent business curriculum, which was lacking at the collegiate level at the time.

William Homer Spencer Becomes Dean, the Fifth of the School
Spencer became dean of the business school in 1924, inheriting from his predecessor a doctoral program and a strong group of faculty. He presided over a series of changes intended to “professionalize” the school. "The University of Chicago," Spencer said in 1931, “is interested in a distinctive program of training for business in which emphasis is placed upon [the] educational method.” Spencer taught courses in a number of subjects, including business law, political science, and Latin.

The First Woman to Earn a PhD in Business Does So Here
Ursula Batchelder Stone, PhD ’29, made history when she became the first woman to earn a PhD in business from an American university. A Bryn Mawr graduate, Stone focused her research on consumer economics and wrote her dissertation on the baking industry “with special reference to the bread-making industry in Chicago.” After graduating, she cofounded a consulting firm, fought for women’s rights, helped revitalize Hyde Park, and taught at George Williams College. Today, with this history in mind, Booth remains at the forefront of advancing women in business.

The World’s First Executive MBA Program Begins Here
The world’s first executive MBA program began at the University of Chicago in 1943, with a group of 52 students meeting two nights a week at 19 South Michigan Avenue. The program was “an immediate success story,” according to professor Walter David “Bud” Fackler, who would later become director of the program. “There was an important market niche to be served,” Fackler added, “and there was a good product presented by a small but excellent faculty.” Today, we bring The Chicago Approach to more than 240 Executive MBA Program students in Chicago, London, and Hong Kong.

Garfield V. Cox, PhD ’29, Becomes the Sixth Dean of Booth
A member of the faculty since 1920, Cox had served as acting dean beginning in October 1942. “The appointment of Mr. Cox as head of the School of Business comes in recognition of his long teaching career and his inspiring administration as acting dean,” said university president Robert Maynard Hutchins at the time. Cox achieved national recognition in 1930 with the publication of An Appraisal of American Business Forecasts and contributed scholarly work to a variety of business and finance journals throughout his career. Cox served as the 13th president of the American Finance Association and as an advisor to banks and other organizations. He served as dean until 1952 and retired from the school in 1958.

John E. Jeuck, AB ’37, MBA ’38, PhD ’49, Is Named the Seventh Dean of Booth
An award-winning teacher and scholar of business history and corporate strategy, Jeuck streamlined the school’s curriculum, focused on faculty recruitment, and opened a new downtown Chicago campus. A graduate of the University of Chicago, where he earned an AB, an MBA, and a PhD, Jeuck served in the Navy during World War II, including three years as an officer on a destroyer escort in the Pacific. He joined the business school faculty in 1946 and stayed there until 1988 except for three years (1955–58) when he taught at Harvard Business School. Jeuck’s 1950 book, Catalogues and Counters: A History of Sears, Roebuck & Company, coauthored with Boris Emmet, is widely considered to be one of the leading business histories of its era. Jeuck served as dean from 1952 to 1955 and was the founder of Booth’s Distinguished Fellows Program, which began in 2003 and provides five select incoming MBA students with a scholarship, leadership education, and the opportunity to build a community and support network that will last a lifetime.

W. Allen Wallis Becomes the Eighth Dean of Booth
Wallis, a professor in statistics at the business school, served as dean from 1956 to 1962. Together with associate dean James H. Lorie, PhD ’47 (Economics), Wallis upended business education with an educational philosophy that became The Chicago Approach, a groundbreaking framework that teaches the fundamental disciplines underlying business operations. “We changed the character of the Business School drastically in ways that other business schools have subsequently followed to some degree,” Wallis recalled in a 1991 interview with Statistical Science. “But at that time, it was considered either radical or screwball—or both.” Wallis left the University of Chicago in 1962 to become president of the University of Rochester. After that, he served in the Reagan administration as the under secretary of state for economic affairs.

George P. Shultz Is Named the Ninth Dean of Booth
When Shultz joined the UChicago faculty in 1957, he had already started a distinguished political career by serving as a senior staff economist on president Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisers. He would go on to work in the Nixon administration and help president Ronald Reagan resolve the Cold War as the US secretary of state. At Booth, he established the first scholarship for Black students at a major business school, created the International Business Exchange Program, launched several research centers, and built the Selected Papers Series, which advanced the school’s reputation by making faculty research readily accessible to the business world. Shultz served as dean from 1962 to 1969.

Sidney Davidson Becomes the 10th Dean of Booth
A nationally recognized scholar of accounting whose research changed practices in boardrooms and on Wall Street, Davidson taught at Booth for 41 years. As dean from 1969 to 1974, he led efforts to improve the school’s facilities and increase the number of endowed professorships. Davidson was among the first advocates of focusing accounting on the value of information, ideas, and fair values that do not appear on the balance sheet. As a result of developments stemming from his work, companies now use some of these factors, including many controversial fair values, when presenting their accounts. In a 1971 article about the influence of the University of Chicago, the New York Times noted that Davidson was “sometimes called the nation’s No. 1 accountant.”

The National Black MBA Association Is Established
In an effort to build community and promote inclusion at a time when most business schools lacked diversity, a group of Black students at Booth put together a two-day conference of their peers from nearly 30 MBA programs across the country. “All of a sudden, we weren’t isolated,” said Alexander Gabbin, ’70, one of the founders, in a 2020 interview. “We explored what we could do, and what we should do, to promote Black inclusion in business.” The group was incorporated in 1972 and grew into the National Black MBA Association, the leading business organization for Black professionals in the United States.

Richard N. Rosett Is Named the 11th Dean of Booth
A passionate advocate of free markets, property rights, and limited government, Rosett joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1974 as dean and professor of business economics. He served as dean until 1982. He also served as a director of the National Bureau of Economic Research, as a board member of several industrial and financial firms, and as founder and president of the US Business School in Prague. In 1982, he received the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal from the Yale Graduate School Alumni Association. Rosett passed away in 2009. In his obituary, his family noted Rosett was “endlessly curious about all things both great and small, and seized every chance to share that curiosity.”

George P. Shultz Is Appointed the 60th US Secretary of State
Shultz, who joined the Booth faculty in 1957 and was dean from 1962 to 1969, served on president Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisers and held three cabinet-level posts in the Nixon administration. As secretary of state, he played a key role in the Reagan administration’s efforts to promote peace between Israel and its neighbors and resolve the Cold War. In January 1989, Shultz was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

John P. Gould, MBA ’63, PhD, ’66, Becomes the 12th Dean of Booth
Gould became dean after 18 years on the Chicago Booth faculty and a stint as special assistant to US secretary of state and former Booth dean himself, George Shultz. Under his leadership at Booth, the school began construction on what would become Gleacher Center—a $44 million facility in downtown Chicago to house the school’s Evening, Weekend, and Executive MBA Programs. The school also rose to No. 2 in Businessweek’s annual ranking of business schools. Currently the Steven G. Rothmeier Distinguished Service Professor of Economics Emeritus, Gould has been called to testify in many court cases, and his research has been widely published. Gould served as dean from 1983 to 1993.

Booth Pioneers Experiential Leadership Education
In 1989, a group of enterprising students with an appetite for experimentation created LEAD, one of the first experiential leadership development programs at a major business school. Today, LEAD is central to the Booth experience in our Full-Time, Part-Time, and Executive MBA Programs. The program allows students to forge lifelong friendships and gain the tools that they need to enhance their self-awareness and interpersonal effectiveness.

Robert S. Hamada Is Named the 13th Dean of Booth
Hamada, who served as dean from 1993 to 2001, played a critical role in expanding Booth’s global reach, establishing campuses in Barcelona and Singapore, and launching an international MBA program at the Hyde Park campus. He also built the foundation for a strong alumni network and raised $111 million toward the school’s capital campaign, which included financing for a new campus in Hyde Park. An internationally known authority on finance, Hamada joined the faculty in 1966 and is now the Edward Eagle Brown Distinguished Service Professor of Finance Emeritus. In addition to serving as dean of Booth, Hamada was the deputy dean for the faculty from 1985 to 1990, and the director of the Center of Research for Security Prices (CRSP) from 1980 to 1985.

Booth Expands Its Academic Offerings to Europe
Today, the Robert Rothman, ’77, London Campus in the heart of London’s business district serves as a hub to build on Booth’s commitment to facilitate world-class business education, leadership insights, and partnerships in London and throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. But our official presence in the region can be traced to 1993 when, in June of that year, Booth and Argentaria, a banking and financial services company in Spain, announced the launch of the International Executive MBA Program, which was based in Barcelona. One year later, the first cohort of international Executive MBA Program students began classes at the new campus in Barcelona. The school relocated to London in 2005.

The Downtown Chicago Campus Opens
Nearly 100 years ago, the site of what is today called Gleacher Center looked entirely different. It was a warehouse that served as a storage facility for Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett, and Co. At the time, the 14-story, 900,000-square-foot structure was the country’s largest warehouse that stored hardware only. That building is gone, replaced by a state-of-the-art facility that houses our Evening MBA and Weekend MBA Programs, as well as Executive Education offerings, administrative offices, and events. The building opened in 1994. Two years later, a generous gift from Eric Gleacher, ’67, led to the facility being renamed Gleacher Center.

The Business Accelerator Program Begins
The Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago began serving the Booth community in 1998. Now serving the entire UChicago entrepreneurship ecosystem, the Polsky Center provides a wide array of resources around innovation, and it supports the commercialization of groundbreaking research at UChicago. Its top-ranked business accelerator program, the New Venture Challenge, has supported more than 330 startups, which have achieved more than $7.5 billion in mergers and exits.

Booth Expands into Southeast Asia
When Booth established a presence in Singapore in 2000, it became the world’s first business school with permanent campuses on three continents: North America, Europe, and Asia. Our campus was located in the historic House of Tan Yeok Nee. Renovations began in 1999 to restore and modernize the then 115-year-old mansion. Jack Wadsworth, ’63, then chairman of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Asia Limited and chairman of the W.L.S. Spencer Foundation, and his wife, Bette Sue Pendery-Wadsworth, helped defray the cost. The school moved its Executive MBA Program from Singapore to Hong Kong in 2014, and the lease on the House of Tan Yeok Nee expired in 2015.

Edward A. "Ted" Snyder Becomes the 14th Dean of Booth
Under Snyder’s leadership, the school’s global footprint grew significantly, with a planned campus expansion in Singapore, a new campus in London, and a key role in UChicago’s Center in China. He also oversaw the opening of the Charles M. Harper Center in Hyde Park, recruited key leading faculty, and nearly doubled the number of endowed professorships. During Snyder’s tenure, David Booth, ’71, made an unprecedented gift valued at $300 million, and the school was renamed in his honor.

The Charles M. Harper Center in Chicago Opens
Booth’s global headquarters is a one-of-a-kind building that offers an unmatched level of amenities and resources. Designed by world-renowned architect Rafael Vinõly, Harper Center is located in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood in the heart of the University of Chicago campus. The design of the 415,000-square-foot building is inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s famed Robie House and the university’s iconic Rockefeller Chapel, each across the street from Harper Center. The soaring atrium in the middle of the building is a favorite gathering space, and the building is home to an outstanding contemporary art collection with works by more than 120 artists.

Booth Opens First Campus in London
Booth expanded its global footprint to Europe in 1993 by launching the Executive MBA Program in Barcelona, but it wasn’t until 2005 that the European program relocated to London. “The GSB belongs in Europe’s business center,” said Edward Snyder, AM ’78, PhD ’84 (Economics), who was dean of the school at the time. “London is home to 86 corporate headquarters, and it’s no accident that business leaders rank London as the top European city in which to conduct business.” The state-of-the-art campus was located at Woolgate Exchange in the heart of the city’s financial district, making Booth the first American business school with a permanent campus in the City of London.

The Business School Receives an Unprecedented Gift from David Booth, ’71. The School Is Renamed.
When David Booth gave a gift valued at $300 million to the business school in 2008, it was the largest gift in the history of the University of Chicago. It was also the largest gift ever given to any business school in the world. An extraordinary expression of support, the gift has been transformative in building and sustaining Chicago Booth’s position as the leading academic business school in the nation. At the time of the gift announcement, Booth said it was a gesture of gratitude for what the school had given him. In recognition of Booth’s historic gift, the school was renamed the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Sunil Kumar Is Named the 15th Dean of Booth
Kumar joined Booth from Stanford’s business school, where he was senior associate dean for academic affairs. Under his leadership, the school expanded student scholarships and focused on recruiting faculty with diverse areas of expertise. He also established the Social Enterprise Initiative (now the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation) and the Harry L. Davis Center for Leadership and expanded the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He left Booth in 2016 to serve as provost of Johns Hopkins University.

The Asia Campus Relocates from Singapore to Hong Kong
After 13 years in Singapore, Booth moved its Executive MBA Program Asia to Hong Kong in an effort to expand and strengthen the school’s presence across the region. “Thanks to the success of our Asia program, Chicago Booth has built great momentum in Southeast Asia and developed a strong alumni base in the region,” said Sunil Kumar, who was the school’s dean at the time. “Expanding into Hong Kong allows us to have impact on future leaders in business and build new corporate relationships in North Asia as well, complementing our activities.” The government allocated land for the new Booth campus in historic Mount Davis, but for the first several years classes were held in a temporary location.

Booth Launches the Civic Scholars Program
Supported in part by the Neubauer Family Foundation, the Civic Scholars Program offers scholarships to Booth MBA students who work in the government or nonprofit sectors. The program, which seeks to bring broader perspectives to the classroom and community, was initially designed for students seeking to enroll in the Weekend MBA Program. Today, the expanding program also supports students in the Full-Time MBA and Evening MBA Programs.

Madhav V. Rajan Becomes the 16th Dean of Booth
A renowned scholar in management accounting, Rajan has deepened Booth’s relationship with the University of Chicago, launching the popular Business Economics track at the College and an accelerated JD/MBA with the Law School, and growing the MBA/MPCS with the Department of Computer Science. Under Rajan’s leadership since 2017, the school has expanded its global footprint across Asia and EMEA, completing the Hong Kong campus and opening a modern new campus in London. Also during this period, the school has broadened investment in newer areas of research with the launch of the Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence and the Healthcare Initiative. In addition, Booth has doubled MBA scholarship funding and extended it across all MBA programs.

The New Hong Kong Campus Opens
In 2018, Booth moved its Asia programs to The Hong Kong Jockey Club University of Chicago Academic Complex | The University of Chicago Francis and Rose Yuen Campus in Hong Kong. Built on a historically important site at Mount Davis, the stunning campus combines modern functionality with a deep respect for the site’s heritage. The Hong Kong campus provides a home for the Executive MBA Program Asia, and for Executive Education non-degree courses for local professionals. It also houses The Hong Kong Jockey Club Programme on Social Innovation, which is operated by Chicago Booth with support from the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation, as well as programming efforts operated by the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

The New London Campus Opens
The Robert Rothman, ’77, London Campus serves as a hub for innovative thinkers from across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa to forge new connections and take on the world’s most complex problems. In the heart of the city’s financial district, the modern new building sits on the doorstep of the historic Smithfield Market. Featuring expanded space for interactive courses and events, this state-of-the-art building houses our Executive MBA Program Europe and Executive Education classes. It also houses our London Conference Centre, which offers an array of exceptional facilities for corporate conferences and events.

Booth Partners with the University and Creates the University of Chicago Obama Foundation Scholars Program
Designed for promising civic leaders from around the world, the University of Chicago Obama Foundation Scholars Program empowers students with the education, skills, relationships, and perspectives needed to address societal challenges facing communities across the globe. The one-year co-curricular program is open to graduate students at Booth, the Harris School of Public Policy, and the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. “The University of Chicago has always meant a lot to Michelle and me, and we are excited to work with them to help lift up a new generation of leaders,” said former president Barack Obama in announcing the partnership. “Our hope is to inspire our Scholars to take the lessons they learn here back to their own communities and keep making a difference.”

Our Global Presence Today Is as Strong as It's Ever Been
With thriving campuses in North America, Asia, and Europe, Chicago Booth takes a truly global approach to business education and leadership. We bring The Chicago Approach to a global audience of accomplished students and executives who represent nearly 50 nationalities. Our faculty’s research has a worldwide impact on policy, business, and society, and our vibrant, 57,000-strong alumni community extends to more than 120 countries. Our new facilities in Asia and Europe are helping position our school, faculty, alumni, and students to succeed in a global economy, and to have even greater impact in all regions of the world.