Business School's Prestige Grows As David Enters 10th Year as Dean

Today in 1951, as Donald Kirk David rounds out his tenth year as dean, the Harvard School of Business Administration finds itself simultaneously at the peak of its nation-wide prestige and at the height of its financial wealth.

For 43 years the school has been turning out distinguished, prosperous business leaders: but Harvard's undisputed number one rating in this line has emerged only recently. And even more striking is that the amazing growth of the school's financial resources has taken place within just the two past years.

By far the most spectacular of the ten-year accomplishments of Dean David was his ability to raise over $12,000,000 during 1949 and 1950 for the school's future expansion. The impetus for this most intensive bit of fund-raising in recent Harvard history was, of course, the $5,000,000 given in June, 1919 by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. on the condition that it be matched by an equal amount within a year.

In making the pledge, Rockefeller not only gave the school one of the best testimonials it has ever received, but he also hinted where Dean David might look as he sought to match the gift. "I am convinced." Rockefeller said, "that the Harvard Business School is making the most significant contribution of which I know toward the strengthening and perpetuation of enterprise based on individual initiative."

A complete breakdown of all the gifts received during the fund drive has never been revealed; but there is little doubt that Dean David raised much of the money by "selling" the Business School to business firms and foundations as a bulwark of "free enterprise."

Over 45 corporations are known to have voted Harvard as much as $300,000 and more: among them were General Electric, Filene's, and Bulova. And two weeks after Rockefeller's $5,000,000 had been matched, the Kresge Foundation added still another 2,000,000 to the school's coffers.

Why Do They Like Harvard?

Naturally there are important reasons for big business's great interest in Harvard. The two year diet of case system outfits Business School graduates with the skills and point of view of top management that usually make them prize catches in any job market. Only five other business schools in the country approach giving the same sort of program.

These six schools (Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell, and, since 1949, Carnegie Tech) have been cited as the only pure "graduate professional" schools of business in the United States. There are upwards of 150 other undergraduate and graduate business schools, but most of these specialize either in the teaching of immediately salable technical skills or of abstract economic theory. This leaves only six schools which are really concerned with the broader program of developing general administrative skills and producing "leaders."

And yet, even among these six schools, company "ivory-hunters" are said to think Harvard turns out the best prospective young executives. Perhaps the feeling is based on the fact that Harvard is the pioneer and that most of the others have modelled their programs along Harvard lines. Or perhaps the feeling is simply that the school's broad curriculum, together with its advanced case system, create in the Harvard graduate a second nature of making executive decisions.

Whatever the various reasons, past results show that the expensive Harvard education, with its $800 tuition, can meet the increasing competition of be-paid-as-you-learn corporation training programs.

Of course, Harvard's logic of teaching young men to be executives before their time can lead to trouble. "We often find a good bright boy, say from Middlebury, more satisfactory," a company personnel man once reported. "These Harvard men walk in here on their first jobs and expect a desk twice as long as mine and with half a dozen push buttons."

Firms Can't Offer Enough

The "push button" case, is the exception and not the rule. Placement figures have always been high; and if anyone regrets the existence of the Business School, Fortune Magazine commented recently, it's probably the firms that can't offer enough to attract Harvard men into their organizations. Many banks and accounting firms can't easily afford starting salaries much over $250 a month; but the average firm operating through the school's Placement Office these days is bidding around $300 in starting salary.

Over 80 per cent of the Class of 1950 had landed jobs within three months after graduation. Only about a third of these positions were secured through the Placement Office, but 215 different firms were seeking men through the office.

When reasoning why the Harvard man is so sought after, there is one factor that the merits of the school's educational program should not be allowed to overshadow: the student is supposedly an able man even before he begins his two years on the Charles. For one thing the Admissions Office often prefers older men, who have already had actual work experience. Statistics show that the Class of 1952 averaged between 23 to 24 years of age and included 62% veterans. Although the veteran percentages are fast dipping, the entering Class of 1953 which numbers over 620 students, still has 234 veterans in it.

Scrutiny at Admissions Time

There aren't any formal standards that help the Admissions Office spot the "well equipped" man. Since the idea business man is no introvert, the school is definitely not hunting just for grinds with good marks. (The chief college grad area represented in the Class of 1952 is "B minus.") Instead the school pains takingly studies a man's entire past performance, and, with four applicants for every available place, the Admissions Office has a wide selection to pick from.

All this care in admissions leads to a school whose students suffer remarkable few academic failures, considering the heavy work load. Moreover, the "gregarious, extovert" label pinned on Business School men shows itself in the lively activity program maintained by the Student Association. Attracting University-wide attention have been the fall football intramurals, which some sections have taken so seriously as to organize two-platoon systems.

Hardly Like 1908

All these things, from the case method to the two-platoon system, have gone toward making today's Business School far cry from 1908, the year of the opening.

The whole idea of business at Harvard originated at the turn of the century when the University started taking sharp notice of the rapid expansion of business in the country. First came an experimental course in accounting, and then, in 1907, President Eliot announced that the Corporation had voted to set up a School for Public Service and Commerce.

The "panic of 1907" made the Corporation promptly decide that "public servants" might prove too hard to place. So on October, 1908, the Business School alone opened its doors, and 33 student started courses as candidates for the newly-minted degree of Master of Business Administration.

From the beginning the school emphasized "learning to do by doing" rather than memorizing of facts and routines. But at the start, this was no case system; it was, at best, a modest problem method.

Under its first dean, Edwin F. Gay, the fledging School heard lectures by outside business men and grew from 33 man class in 1910 to a 156-man class in 1917. But the first world war dispersed both faculty and students, and in 1919 only 68 men were around to receive M.B.A.'s.

That year Dean Gay resigned to become president of the New York Evening Post, and Wallace B. Donham left his Old Colony Trust Company vice-presidency to become the Business School's second dean. In his first report Dean Donham hailed his predecessor's ten years of work in launching the school, but he lashed out:

'Conditions Intolerable'

"The present condition of the Business School is intolerable except as a temporary makeshift. We need funds at once for the construction of buildings to house a school of 1,000 and to develop laboratory facilities."

Since its birth the School had been located entirely north of the Charles, sharing "every nook and cranny"--as Dean David puts it today--with the rest of the University. The library occupied part of the top floor of Widener in the Yard, and classes and offices were sprinkled in the Yard buildings.

It wasn't until March 20, 1924 that the fund drive Dean Donham called for got underway. However, under the chairmanship of the late William Lawrence. Bishop of Massachusetts, the campaign was unexpectedly concluded in little more than a month when the late George F. Baker, chairman of the First National Bank of New York, wrote the University offering $5,000,000 if he could "have the privilege of building the whole school."

$6,000,000 Single Gift

Alone Baker gave the School grounds as excellent as those of any other graduate school in the country; his funds bought every permanent building that now stands across the river, including Baker Library. In 1925 he added an extra $1,000,000 to his gift when it appeared the original $5,000,000 was going to run out, and in 1948 an additional $500,000 was received from Baker's estate to keep facilities up to date. Still another sum was given by the Baker family last year in connection with the drive to match the Rockefeller $5,000,000.

Not waiting for the completion of the buildings, Dean Donham had meanwhile been working on the second goal, that of "expanding laboratory facilities." By 1927, the grounds were dedicated, eight intensive years of visiting business plants had blossomed into almost 6,000 case studies. School researchers since then have kept the case stocks "active."

During this period of the 'twenties and 'thirties, meanwhile, Dean Donham was putting into play many of the ideas that observers today credit with establishing business as a true "profession" rather than a mere set of specialized skills. Donham advanced the notion of business education as a broad "education for leadership," and under him, Harvard took steps to integrate and balance the program taken by every student.

By the start of World War II, degrees awarded (starting with the 33 given out in 1910) had reached the total of 7,757. Donham remained the dean until 1942, when, at the advise of his physician, he turned the position over to Dean David, then the president of American Maize.

During the war, the school cut out all degree awards in order to serve as a training center for Navy supply and Air Force statistics personnel. In addition, 500 business men further crowded the school for War Industry Training and Advanced Management programs. The latter innovation is the same program that continues twice a year today, and another current program, the Trade Union Fellowships, also take its root from this wartime period.

After the war, the school curriculum was again reshaped; simultaneously the topics of Dean David's annual reports began to indicate that the "Donham doctrine" of education for leadership had posed several unanswered questions basic to the school.

David's Ten Years

David discussed such points as how can schools train successful administrators; train successful enterprisers; teach human relations; and relate business teaching to the existing social and economic climate? As an indication that Harvard is still not sure of the answers, the school only this spring tightened the second year program by requiring more coordinating or "institutional" courses.

Another main problem facing Dean David today is the school's $20,000,000 future expansion blueprint. Thanks to the unexpected receipt of $12,000,000 in so short a time, much of the "long-range" nature of the program has vanished. And if School officials can now realize their hopes of raising $200,000 yearly from the alumni, the school will go beyond its new classroom building and activities center and will soon also have enough funds to increase scholarships and provide an adequate endowment for research and instruction.

Dean David hopes to build a $3,000,000 scholarship fund that will guarantee "instruction to the county's best-qualified young men without being limited to those fortunate enough to have been born into high-income families."

One final worry of Dean David today is, of course, the war situation. Any full-scale mobilization of the nation would probably mean the resumption of large wartime training programs at the School for the armed forces. Already the school has entered the national defense effort by establishing a center for war mobilization research and assigning 15 members of its faculty to the project. The school is further contributing its facilities this fall by accepting a group of 50 military officers for study here.

'Faculty Could Be Dissipated'

But "business as usual" must at the moment remain the school's main concern, Dean David told a mass meeting of the student body last December, David said he himself had declined a government post and added that there is an increasing demand on the part of Washington agencies for Business School personnel. "Within months or weeks, the faculty could be dissipated," he warned.

For the present, however, the dean emphasized, "Everything warrants our carrying on." He said school officials had conferred with the State, Defense, and Commerce departments, and the result of the talks was the impression everywhere in Washington: "It is important that the Business School keep going."Rockefeller's First Visit DEAN DONALD DAVID (left) greets JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. on his first visit to the Business School, shortly after Rockefeller had offered the school a conditional gift of $5,000,000.