Thanks!

sakky · July 19, 2008, 8:49am

Uh, no, actually, your causation link is incorrect. The Sloan School (or, more specifically, what eventually became the Sloan School) had an undergraduate program before it had the master’s program. Granted, it was a quite different undergrad program than today’s. Nevertheless, the point is, people were earning bachelor’s degrees in Course XV well before any master’s degrees were granted. The first MIT management bachelor’s were granted in 1917, yet the master’s program (which later became the MBA program) wasn’t even established until 1925. So, if anything, in the beginning, it was the undergrad program that was actually funding the master’s program, not the other way around.

Having said that, I agree with you that the current MBA program is clearly a major cash cow and right now probably is carrying the undergrad program. But that just gives Caltech a path that it could follow. See below.

But like I said, this is precisely what MIT had to face in the beginning with its management program; the undergrad was established first, and then later came the master’s program, and furthermore, the Sloan School didn’t even become its own School until 1952, which is decades after it granted its first bachelor’s degrees.

Hence, MIT had to face the same ‘bootstrapping problem’ that Caltech does. You say that it’s hard for Caltech to attract people who are willing to teach business management courses to undergrads. Yet that’s precisely the problem that MIT faced, yet MIT figured out how to solve it. If MIT could do it, why can’t Caltech?

I profoundly disagree, and I think you have misunderstood what business academia is all about. Let me tell you a dirty little secret: very few business school professors actually hold MBA’s (ironic, but true). Furthermore, many (probably most) of them have actually have significant non-academic work experience. They’re academics.

Don’t believe me. Since we’re using Sloan as the example, go to the Sloan website and click around and see just how many of the Sloan professors actually hold MBA’s and/or actually have significant non-academic work experience. A few do, but most do not.

Heck, I’ll help you out. Let’s talk about some of the superstars at Sloan. Kristin Forbes was the youngest ever member of the CEA, and just recently won tenure at Sloan. Yet she doesn’t have an MBA. And her non-academic work experience is basically limited to 1 year in investment banking and 1 year at the World Bank.

<a href=“Kristin J. Forbes - MIT Personal Faculty”>Kristin J. Forbes - MIT Personal Faculty;

Rebecca Henderson has written some of the most groundbreaking papers on technology innovation. Yet she doesn’t hold an MBA, and her professional work experience consists of just 2 years at McKinsey.

<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/rhenders/www/rhenderson_cv.pdf[/url]”>http://web.mit.edu/rhenders/www/rhenderson_cv.pdf</a>

Chris Wheat does some highly interesting work on the impact of social networks on corporate strategy. Yet he doesn’t hold an MBA, and his pro work experience consists of 2 years as an engineer.

<a href=“http://scripts.mit.edu/~cwheat/cv.pdf[/url]”>http://scripts.mit.edu/~cwheat/cv.pdf</a>

Erik Brynjolfsson is one of the leading minds on the impact of information technology on modern business. But again, no MBA, and he has never been outside of academia.

<a href=“Homepage - MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy”>Homepage - MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy;

But don’t take my word for it. If you think I’m cherry-picking, poke around the MIT Sloan website. Heck, poke around the websites of any of the leading business schools - Harvard Business School, Stanford GSB, Kellogg, Wharton, etc. - and you will see for yourself that most business school profs don’t actually hold MBA’s and have limited pro work experience. {Now, you might think it’s truly bizarre for business schools to be hiring people to teach MBA’s who themselves don’t hold MBA’s, and I think it’s bizarre too. But hey, what can I say? I didn’t make the rules.}

Hence, your question of “why would you turn down a well-paying career in business to teach a few courses here in Pasadena?” has two responses:

<h1>1 - Many of them are not turning down a well-paying career. Like I said, many of these new professors are those with PhD’s in economics, sociology, psychology, organizational behavior etc. but who have never actually held a real job before in their lives. They don’t really have that option of turning down a high-paying job.</h1>

<h1>2- Lots of newly minted Phd’s, even coming out of the business schools, are looking for academic positions and can’t get one, or get only mediocre ones. I am quite sure that many of them would have preferred to have placed at Caltech, because it’s better than what they got, despite the fact that Caltech doesn’t have a business school (yet).</h1>

For example, consider the new PhD grads from the UCLA Anderson School who became assistant professors (hence scroll down in the link). Not all of them placed at great schools. I suspect that the guy who ended up going to Iowa State or the University of Central Florida might have preferred to go to Caltech instead.

[UCLA</a> Anderson School of Management | Marketing | Ph.D. Placement](<a href=“http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x4362.xml]UCLA”>http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x4362.xml)

Heck, here are the doctoral placements from Harvard Business School. Not all of them got great academic placements. Those who ended up at San Diego State or San Jose State might have preferred Caltech instead.

The point is, you can get some of these guys. Sure, you probably can’t get the very best guys. They’re obviously going to want to place at HBS, Sloan, Wharton, Kellogg, Stanford GSB, and places like that. But not everybody gets that. In fact, only a small minority do. The Caltech brand name is well respected, and so I’m sure that a lot of new academics who ended up placing at no-name schools would have preferred Caltech even though Caltech doesn’t (yet) have a business school. For example, given the choice between working being an assistant professor at the business school at the San Diego State business school and at Caltech (but no business school), I think I would take the latter.

But that last sentence right there is suspicious. Funding priorities? That implies that you actually have budget problems. Yet, like I said, Caltech actually has a higher endowment per capita than MIT does. So I don’t see why Caltech can’t afford to spend more if it wanted to. It clearly has the money.

Of course, the real question is, does it actually want to spend the money…

Well, not everybody in the country is going to get into a PHD program. Indeed, probably only 1% of all college graduates nationwide do.

I don’t think we should worry so much about preparing humanities students for PhD programs, so much as worrying about just giving them a reasonable option to get the education they want without having to transfer away, so that they can get that all-important bachelor’s degree. Let’s face it. Like it or not, in this world, you basically need a bachelor’s degree if you want to get a decent job. Other than certain exceptions like entrepreneurship or professional sports or entertainment, you basically need a degree. It doesn’t even really matter what the degree is in, it just have to be in something. Many companies won’t even interview you if you don’t have a degree.

Thanks!

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