Dean Garth Saloner of Stanford GSB: "Business schools have an obligation to expand their impact beyond the corporate milieu & into mainstream society"

Business schools have an obligation to expand their impact beyond the corporate milieu & into mainstream society - stnfd.biz/e4J7D

— Garth Saloner (@saloner) September 30, 2012

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www.gsb.stanford.edu/about/fromthedean.html

State of the School, Fall 2012

Dear Friends,

I feel privileged to connect with the Stanford Graduate School of Business community to highlight the achievements and opportunities I see for advancing the school’s core mission. I am proud of the school’s direction and of the progress we’ve made this year to enrich the Stanford GSB experience and to prepare students to lead lives of impact and meaning.

There has been a growing view among GSB community members, corporate leaders, and global decision-makers that business schools have a new opportunity, and perhaps an obligation, to expand their impact beyond the corporate milieu and into mainstream society. Many skills, sharpened by students through coursework in critical analytical thinking, leadership labs, and design thinking, can and should be applied to systemic global problems like health care delivery, public education, and sustainable development, to name a few. We believe these are management challenges at their core and can be solved by applying the business and management principles we teach at the GSB.

Applying management education concepts to a broader set of global problems was the subject of a speech I made last May to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business annual conference, attended by 1,200 deans and senior administrators from 54 countries...