MIT Sloan School of Management

The MIT Sloan School of Management, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of the world’s leading business schools — conducting cutting-edge research and providing management education to top students from more than 60 countries. The School is part of MIT’s rich intellectual tradition of education and research.

MIT Sloan began in 1914 as engineering administration curriculum in the MIT Department of Economics and Statistics. The scope and depth of this educational focus have grown steadily in response to advances in the theory and practice of management to today’s broad-based management school.

A program offering a master’s degree in management was established in 1925. The world’s first university-based executive education program — the MIT Sloan Fellows — was created in 1931 under the sponsorship of Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., an 1895 MIT graduate who was then chairman of General Motors. An MIT Sloan Foundation grant established the MIT School of Industrial Management in 1952 with a charge of educating the “ideal manager.”

Mission

The mission of the MIT Sloan School of Management is to develop principled, innovative leaders who improve the world and to generate ideas that advance management practice.

To accomplish this, we:

Offer premier programs for shaping leaders who will create, redefine, and build cutting-edge products, services, markets, and organizations;

Collaborate across MIT to capitalize on and contribute to the Institute’s distinctive intellectual excellence and entrepreneurial culture;

Attract, develop, and retain outstanding faculty and staff who lead the world in management education and research;

Enroll students with integrity, strong leadership potential, high aspirations, and exceptional intellectual ability; and

Foster a cooperative and adventurous learning community that includes alumni and business partners, works on important problems, and is based on mutual respect, rigorous analysis, and high ethical standards.

History

The Alfred P. Sloan School of Management began in 1914 as Course XV, Engineering Administration, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At that time, the concept of providing business training in the academic environment was gaining popularity, thus MIT created a program “specially designed to train men to be competent managers of businesses that have much to do with engineering problems.”

As demand for business courses increased, so did the number of Course XV offerings. In 1925 a program leading to a master’s degree in management was established. In 1926 the undergraduate courses included marketing, finance, accounting, and the study of economic trends. That same year a new subject that focused on the organization and operation of a small business was introduced. In keeping with the MIT methodology of closely relating subjects to practical industrial problems, successful businessmen were encouraged to present lectures to the classes and arrange for students to consult with business executives to examine their administrative methods.