Stanford Business School Opens its Doors Wider
On April 29, 2011, Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business celebrated the opening of its new building, the Knight Management Center. Future applicants will be interested in how the 12.5-acre management complex reflects the business school’s new curriculum.
The designers aimed to create a structure that reflects the ideals of Stanford’s new curriculum. Dean Garth Saloner explains: “The really big problems in the world require teams of people from different perspectives.” Therefore, in 2007 the school transformed its curriculum to take into account the many connections between business and other disciplines, as well as between business functions. But in order to create bridges between business and the other disciplines the school needed more space.
As Dean Saloner points out, “The new facility fosters the innovative thinking and collaboration required of GSB students and serves as a launch pad for new courses and programs, as well as a platform from which our faculty will create cutting edge management knowledge in the years to come.”
The $345 million center will certainly be a pleasure to study in, with its 70 small breakout study rooms built to encourage group meetings. It will also house the 600-person CEMEX Auditorium and feature “movable, whiteboard room dividers where students can draw and map out potential new products.”
