Yale University

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Yale University
School of Management

135 Prospect Street
PO Box 208200
New Haven, CT 06520-8200
United States

In the school's own words...

The mission of the Yale School of Management is to educate leaders for business and society. For more than 30 years, Yale SOM has been known for its social and environmental commitments and its focus on ethical leadership.

Social, environmental, and ethical considerations are included in the overwhelming majority of courses in SOM’s innovative integrated MBA curriculum. In core classes, students have created proposals for redeveloping Governors Island near Manhattan, analyzed South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment program, and studied General Electric’s Ecomagination initiative. Advanced electives, both at SOM and elsewhere at Yale, allow in-depth study of social and environmental topics. A student-managed elective on Global Social Enterprise pairs student consulting teams with nonprofit organizations in the developing world. The International Social Entrepreneurship elective facilitates education and interaction between social entrepreneurs and SOM students both at Yale and in the entrepreneurs’ home countries.

Social and environmental scholarship is a hallmark of Yale SOM. Our faculty includes world-renowned experts in fields such as nonprofit management, development economics and microfinance, and environmental management. The school has also pioneered new multimedia “raw” cases, many of which include social and environmental considerations. One such case was created by SOM for use by the Aspen Institute Center for Business Education’s 2008 Business Leadership Case Competition. Yale SOM also partnered with the Aspen Institute in developing the “Giving Voice to Values” curriculum. Recent guest speakers at the school include Richard Sandor of the Chicago Climate Exchange and Laura Scher of Credo Mobile (formerly Working Assets).

The school’s Program on Social Enterprise supports scholars, students, alumni, and practitioners interested in exploring the ways in which business skills can be harnessed to achieve social objectives, facilitating work on nonprofit and public sector social entrepreneurship as well as initiatives in private sector social enterprise, including courses, research, publications and working with SOM students to sponsor conferences. The school’s Center for Business and the Environment at Yale, a partnership with the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, provides a focal point for research, education, and outreach to advance business solutions to global environmental problems. The Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance aims to be the leading research, teaching, and policy center for effective corporate governance, focusing on issues of corporate and shareholder accountability.

Students also pursue social aims through extracurricular and professional activities. Through SOM Outreach, students consult pro bono for nonprofit, public, and private organizations in the New Haven community. Yale SOM’s NetImpact Chapter was Chapter of the Year in 2005 and SOM students won the Philadelphia Green Economy Case Competition at the 2008 NetImpact conference. Every year, students undertake an educational carbon offsets fundraising initiative for the school’s required International Experience; this initiative won the NetImpact Green Challenge in 2007. The SOM Internship Fund unites the community in financial support for students who take summer internships with nonprofit organizations. In 1986, the school pioneered its Loan Forgiveness Program for graduates pursuing public or nonprofit careers, a model subsequently adopted by many business schools across the country.

School Demographic Information