Yale SOM Gets $100 Million for Public Education Leadership Programs

Yale School of Management has received a whopping $100 million gift that will go toward establishing education and research programs related to public education leadership.

The gift, which is the largest in the school’s history, comes from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. That Foundation has supplied hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to various organizations since 1999 with the goal of providing wider access to learning opportunities.

With the $100 million donation, Yale SOM will establish the Broad Center, focused on training public school leaders and conducting research on public school leadership.

One of the center’s initiatives will be a new one-year Master’s in Education Management for leaders in public education who are beginning their careers. For those further along in their careers, the center will provide a range of tuition-free executive education programs.

The center also plans to have a strong research component, which will include collecting extensive data on public education and developing policy insights. According to Yale SOM, these research efforts will benefit from collaboration with other Yale programs.

Yale SOM is already preparing to recruit faculty and staff for the new Broad Center, with the first executive education cohort starting in 2020. The first master’s cohort will arrive on campus in summer of 2021.

Kerwin Charles, Yale’s dean, framed these projects as building on Yale SOM’s historical emphasis on leadership with a social impact.

As he puts it: “Those outside our community may be surprised to see a business school dedicate a major program to public education, but this is exactly the type of issue our school has always cared about—one where leadership informed by systemic thinking, rigorous analysis, and compassion can make a real difference for communities.”

Joel Getz, senior associate dean for development and alumni relations, echoed this point. Getz noted that “the largest gift in SOM’s history is being devoted to a non-traditional topic for a business school,” which he said is “telling about the school’s values.”

In this vein, the new programs Yale SOM is creating highlight how the leadership skills that business schools develop are relevant to a range of career paths beyond the industries B-school alums are stereotypically associated with.

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