Learning... Is of the...Market Place A Short History of the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management Rice University Melissa Kean 1911 address to the Lumbermen's Association ofTexas. The Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management rapidly becoming recognized is as one of the nation's premier graduate in261fWiffiM^from LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation 47/1 Km*- http://www.archive.org/details/shorthistoryofjeOOkean — becoming recognized as one of truly excellent graduate school the nation's premier graduate of management. A subsequent business schools and is a credit internal steering committee to this great university. With a concurred with the findings and population of 350 ethnically and formulated recommendations for geographically diverse students the school's revitilization, which in its full-time MBA program, included revising the curriculum, the school attracts applicants recruiting more studentsandfac- from across the nation and from ulty, and improving relationships many foreign countries. The with the corporate community. I MBA for Executives program realized that the critical juncture annually enrolls over one hun- in such a revitalization was to dred students from the business attract an experienced and effec- community, who have been tive leader to serve as dean. We earmarked for leadership posi- found that leader in Gilbert R. tions within their organizations. Whitaker, Jr., a Rice graduate The faculty, which now numbers who hadtransformed the Univer- overeighty, excels both in teach- sityof Michigan Business School ing and in pathbreaking research into one of the nation's best and on a wide range of management subsequently served as that topics. The innovative curriculum university's provost. At Rice, he serves not only to educate stu- elicited the enthusiastic support dents in the theory and practice of the university administration, ofmanagement, butalsothrough faculty, students, alumni, andthe its Action Learning Projects, business communityto craftthat gives them opportunities to put truly excellent school the exter- their knowledge to practical use nal review committee believed by solving problems in real-world Rice and the city of Houston In 1977, when the first class of situations. And the school's deserves management students matricu- new 167,000-square-foot home, The opening of the new building lated in the Jesse H. Jones which opened in August 2002, marks a significant milestone Graduate School ofAdministration, contains state-of-the-art technol- asitwasknownthen,thestudent ogy and resources designed innattiohnealJopnreosminScehnocoel.'sBrqiuceksstafnodr population totaled fifty-five to make learning and research a mortar of course do not produce twenty-three in the management pleasure. excellence, but the building rep- program and thirty-two in the Much of the growth and innova- resents the confidence the uni- accounting program. Most of the tion that has made the Jones versity, the Board of Trustees, students either had undergradu- School so successful occurred and the business community ate degrees from Rice or were in the last few years. In the place in the Jones School that it Houston residents with under- mid-1990s, soon after became can reach thatambitious goal set graduate degrees from other I president, the university initi- twenty-fiveyearsago. Texas universities. Ten full-time ated an external review process members and a few adjuncts to determine whether the Rice constituted the faculty, and the academic schools were realiz- 71/jU<^JU facilities for the young school ing the potential for excellence consisted of a few classrooms that is so critical to a world-class MALCOLM GILLIS and offices in Herman Brown university.TheJones School was PRESIDENT, RICEUNIVERSITY Hall. Despite-its small size, how- the first to undergo the process. ever, the school set for itself an In the judgment of the external ambitious goal: to become the review committee, it was a good leading school of administration school, but one that did not ful- inthe nation. fill its promise along a number A quarter of a century later, of dimensions. The committee, the Jesse H. Jones Graduate however, believed that Rice and School of Management is rapidly the city of Houston deserved a Rice University is in many ways an exceptional institution, one that continues to rest firmly on the foundation laid by its first president, mathematician edgar odell loyett. J-Jovett's ideas about the nature and purpose city's businesses to the success of the fledg- ofthe university, carefullyarrivedatthrough an ling university: "I rejoice in the commercial astute combination of principle and empirical prosperity of this community. I rejoice in the exploration, remain Rice's ultimate measure of growing industrial development of this great success to this day. Lovett's vision of a univer- city. Great merchants and captains ofindustry, sity ofthe highest order has become Rice's key whose interests extend far beyond their own — tradition the institution has carefully chosen immediate surroundings, are rendered by the its endeavors and set about performing them character of their work alert, open-minded, to the highest standards. The Jesse H. Jones hospitable to large ideas, accustomed to and GraduateSchoolofManagement, thoughestab- tolerant ofthe widest divergences ofview. For lished two decades after Lovett's death, bears this reason it is that great trading centers have his imprint and shares that vision. so often been also centers of vigorous . . . Along with his commitment to build- intellectual life." ing an academic institution that would rank Lovett's understanding of this rela- among the finest intheworld, Lovettpossessed tionship has been borne out over time. a clear-eyed understanding of the importance From the university's beginnings, its Board of business to Rice's educational enterprise. of Trustees has been composed primarily of Far from looking down on commerce, Lovett Houston's business leaders, some with and vieweda thriving business community as a pre- some without direct educational ties to the requisite to Rice's success. In his eyes, Hous- university. Their leadership and their for- ton'sdynamiccommercial leaderswere aprime tunes have been critically important in Rice's source of the interest, energy, and money that growth. Men and women such as George R. the new institution would need to prosper. In Brown, GusWortham. Oveta Culp Hobby, and May 1910, while still engaged in preparations many others gave generously to strengthen for Rice's opening, Lovett spoke to a group the institution, and many also contributed a of Houston real estate developers about this broad view of the world to what might have relationship, connecting the success of the become a provincial college. Germinating a Concept i\ot surprisingly, most of the civic and com- mercial leaders who served as Rice trustees shared a strong interest in the world of busi- ness and strongly believed that the university should educate young people to work in that world. Here too EdgarOdell Lovett, whobegan Rice's scholarly enterprise with an emphasis on the practical disciplines of the sciences and engineering, saw a clear connection between education and the larger needs of the commu- nity. Again harkening back to the pastofhigher education, Lovett noted in a 1911 address to the Lumbermen'sAssociation ofTexas that "the Most of the civic and earliest medieval universities were professional and technical schools," and he contended that who imercial leaders served again today "learning ... is no longer an affair ofthe cloisterand the clinic alone; it is ofthe as Rice trustees shared a mill, the market place and the machine shop. . . . [The university's] business is to train effi- strong interest in the world of cient thinking men for the business of life." The expansion of Rice's educational business and strongly believed program to include specialized training for business careers thus seemed natural to many university should at Rice and inthe Houston community. In 1958, George R. Brown, then chairman of Rice's ing people to work board, suggested thatthe time might be right to start a business school at the university. Presi- IN THAT WOl dent William V. Houston, the physicist who had succeeded Lovett in 1946, agreed that Rice should "develop slowly and steadily toward first-class work forstudents going into business whether or not we designate it specifically as a business school." Rice's energies, however, soon turned elsewhere, and for an understand- able reason. University administrators set aside thoughts of a business school as Rice took on an important role in supporting the new NASA Manned Space Center in Clear Lake and after the early 1960s made a majoreffort to enhance the humanities and social sciences. The idea of expanding business, accounting, and management course offer- ings to create Rice's first graduate professional school did not remain dormant for long, how- ever. In the mid-1960s Rice's new president, — chemist Ken—neth S. Pitzer who took office July 1, 1961 mapped out a ten-year plan for moving Rice into the top rank ofAmericanaca- demic institutions. Largely because ofthe deep 1 EdgarOdellLovett 2 GeorgeR.Brown 3.Registrationdayfor thefirstRiceInstitute students,Sept.23,1912 4.Academicprocessionat thefirstcommencement, 1916 5.EdgarOdel!Lovett,left, withWilliamVermillion Houston OppositePage: Rice'sfirstfacultywith boardmembers.1912 interest of several Rice board members, most early efforts stalled, in April 1965 President particularly Gardiner Symonds (who was chair- Pitzernamedacommittee, chairedbyProfessor man ofTennecoat the time), Pitzerincluded an Ferdinand Levy of the department of econom- announcement ofRice's intention to establish a ics and business administration, to study how graduate school ofmanagement. such a school could best be integrated into This decision was spurred by Pitzer's Rice. From the beginning, everyone involved recognition of a new reality in the world of anticipated that any business school at Rice business and a new opportunity for Rice to would be different from the standard model. meet the needs of both the larger community The committee quickly developed a blueprint and its students. In the mid-1960s the pace of for a small, elite school with highly qualified social and economic transformation seemed to students (about one hundred entering annually accelerate dramatically. Rapid advances in sci- into a two-year program). The curriculum was ence and technology were increasing the size, designed to impart general managerial skills complexity, and sophistication of public and adaptable to all types of enterprises through private institutions and at the same time these coursework in the basic disciplines underly- institutions grew more closely intertwined. ing management and the use of quantitative — Rice's reputation for insularity its undeni- analytic tools. The new school was to be finan- able tendency to seem isolated "behind the cially self-supporting. — hedges" was a liability in this new environ- President Pitzer and the Rice board ment. Pitzer strove to change this perception addressed the issue of financial resources by by involving the university more actively in including a goal of an $8.5 million endow- the world beyond the campus, reaching out to ment for the new business school when Rice serve the needs ofthewidercommunity. Ofno launcheda$33millioncapitalcampaigninearly small concern was the marked improvement 1965. Although the $33 million campaign was in Texas's state universities and the growing ultimately successful, it did not raise enough to competition for the region's best students and start the graduate management school before faculty. Pitzer's resignation in 1967. Still, the ground- The decision to create a graduate work was well laid. In particular, an important business school at Rice was influenced by all gift came from the Houston Endowment, the these considerations. Pitzer and the Rice board foundation established by prominent Houston believed that the Houston community needed businessman and public servantJesse Holman first-rate training for business. They also Jones, which donated $500,000 to establish the I»'hi'\ed that it the\ did mii pn>\ide it, siime Jesse H.Jones Chair in Management. one else would. At the same time, the manage- After Pitzer's departure, there were rial function itself was steadily becoming both several years of rapid change in Rice's gover- more intellectually demanding and more criti- nance. The business school project was never — cal to the success of businesses, government, abandoned both the executive committee that and public organizations. As Houston and the administered Rice in 1968 and Acting President — Southwest attracted an increasing number of Frank Vandiver in 1969 supported it but con- large corporations, manyRicegraduates trained tinuing uncertainty at the top, coupled with in technical fields went on to serve as manag- severefinancial problems, preventedanyaction. ers within them, but they either did so without With the arrival ofchemist Norman Hackerman formal training or had to go elsewhere to get as Rice's new president in 1970, though, the it. Both they and the institutions that employed project began moving forward. The Graduate them would benefit from the presence of an SchoolofManagement PlanningCommittee, still elite management school in Houston. in existence and still chaired by Ferdinand Levy, Almost as soon as Pitzer arrived at approached the president about the project Rice, he began exploring, with the help offac- soonafterHackerman's arrivaloncampus. Find- ulty members Franz Brotzen in the department ing renewed interest among board members, of mechanical engineering and David Brothers Hackerman directed the committee to redraft in economics, the possibilities for structuring a the proposal for a management school. program to meet these needs. Although these