News analysis | Shock, confusion among faculty as dean departs
Students asked their professors what was going on: Blackberries and laptops were pinging with the news of School of Management Dean Joel Podolny’s resignation. But the faculty had no idea, either.
Leading up to Wednesday, there were no hints, no indications and no whispers that the school’s popular dean was leaving for Apple — except that Podolny switched from a Blackberry to an iPhone a few weeks ago. Even that made sense only in retrospect.
Utter shock gripped the School of Management on Wednesday morning as the announcement left the community surprised, hurt and...
Yale SOM has a long long way to go before it can be mentioned in the same sentence with other top schools of business.
Not that anyone at Yale SOM ever listens ...
Yale SOM insists on being very different from top business schools, precisely why it can never be a top school. The long-standing SOM bureaucracy refuses to accept the fact that its anti-traditional business school approach is its biggest impediment to success.
Former dean Podolny chose modernist architect Norman Foster to design SOM's new building, meaning it will be an ugly modernist house of glass. This is SOM's negative reaction to the wonderful traditional architecture on Yale's campus. Now that Podolny is gone, Yale University should quickly terminate the Foster design, go back to the drawing board, and hire a more traditional architect before it's too late.
Yale SOM has one last chance to right itself. It should switch to a traditional business school model and stop insulting the immensely successful HSW's of the world. Get rid of its ridiculous emphasis on public sector and sector-blending which scare away a huge number of top business school applicants and top business faculty prospects.
Podolny's legacy? Recently, BusinessWeek ranked Yale SOM #24, a few weeks after he stepped down. That's worse than when he arrived. His brief tenure was like a hit-and-run.
What in the world is wrong with being a traditional business school? In the past, Yale SOM had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to merely change its degree name from the bizarre MPPM to the traditional MBA. Its very low ranking is a total embarrassment to Yale University. It's now time for Yale SOM to finally remake itself into a traditional business school with a new building designed in the Yale campus tradition.
If these actions don't take place, Yale SOM will continue banging its collective head against the wall, annually whining about why its awful rankings are totally unjustified.
Why else do the top Yale College grads apply to HSW but not to Yale SOM? The answer should be clear.
“[But] everyone here is dedicated to making this place live up to the name Yale.” --Andrew Metrick
So you're saying we don't live up to the brand name now?
thanks that makes me fell better about just spending 120k