Similar in design to our Entrepreneurship Certificate Program, the MBA Certificate in Healthcare Management enables our MBA students to supplement their general MBA education with more in depth study and experience in healthcare policy and management.

Healthcare is the largest industry nationally and is a dominant employment sector in the Greater Boston area. Aging populations, advances in medical technology, increased complexity of integrated health systems, and the demands for quality healthcare are all driving growth in this sector. Seven out of 20 of the fastest growing occupations nation-wide are healthcare related. i At the same time, complexity has increased as patients are becoming more empowered and financing and delivery models are changing in the effort to control escalating costs. ii More than ever, strong knowledgeable leaders are needed to manage the unique and demanding requirements of this critical and rapidly evolving industry.

We designed the Certificate in Healthcare Management specifically to meet this pressing need. Our program is designed to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and networks necessary to accelerate their careers and become industry leaders. By augmenting the rigorous business skills of the MBA program with specialized knowledge gained from four courses in healthcare policy, strategy, economics, and best practice business models, the graduates of our Certificate program will be well equipped to tackle the opportunities and challenges that face managers today in non-profit, for profit, and governmental health care related organizations. Integral to the Certificate Program is a 10-week practicum at one of the area's many highly respected health care organizations.

This is a unique product offering and one that will continue to enhance the value of the Simmons MBA.

Best,

Dean Deborah Merrill-Sands

i. U.S. Department of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statistics. www.bls.gov
ii. M. Harrington, A. Bookman, L. Bailyn, and K. Kellogg (2001). "Workforce Issues in the Greater Boston Health Care Industry: Implications for Work and Family." Working Paper, #WPC0001, MIT Workplace Center.

A Fully Integrated Curriculum
The concept and practice of principled leadership is deeply integrated into our MBA curriculum. First introduced during Foundations, our 5-day orientation for new MBA students, ethical decision-making and social impact principles are woven into the full spectrum of core and elective courses.

In a recent survey addressing the percentage of relevant ethical, environmental and social impact content in our courses, faculty reported that 100% of core and 94% of elective courses address CSR-related topics. Moreover, one in three core and one in four elective courses contain 75-100% relevant content.

From accounting and finance to marketing and strategy, our general management curriculum offers numerous opportunities to explore issues such as the impact of investor incentives, the social impact of key economic concepts, differential accounting standards, negotiating responsibility for environmental "externalities," differential access to capital, social marketing, managing diversity, and the changing nature and role of shareholders. "Leadership, Governance, and Accountability," a required capstone course, pulls all facets of principled leadership together - ethics, accountability to multiple stakeholders, and responsibility for managing environmental and social impact. Advanced electives that focus specifically on principled leadership include triple bottom-line accounting, corporate social responsibility, and gender and leadership.

Thought Leaders Shaping the Field
Thirty-five percent of Simmons SOM full-time faculty is engaged in research with a CSR focus, directly informing our MBA curriculum.

The research of faculty affiliated with our internationally recognized Center for Gender in Organizations (CGO) ensures that our MBA teaching and curriculum are at the cutting-edge of addressing gender and broader diversity dynamics in organizations. Publications from the CGO and its faculty affiliates continue to shape the field and are widely cited and used by academics and practitioners worldwide.

Faculty in the fields of marketing, entrepreneurship, accounting, strategy, and economics also actively pursue research on aspects of social responsibility and social impact management. Topics include: the limits and possibilities of strategic CSR using insights from economic theory; models for incorporating the CSR function in Fortune 100 firms; intangible assets and CSR investment; comparison and reconciliation of triple bottom-line practice and traditional accounting theory; the impact of a brand's social initiatives on consumer relationships and purchasing behaviors; and social value creation and entrepreneurial motivation for women.

Nationally-Recognized Program in Entrepreneurship
The nationally-recognized Simmons entrepreneurship certificate program is notable for its integration of social ventures and social entrepreneurship, including discussions, guest speakers, and practicum opportunities. Ethical, social and environmental issues are addressed directly in each of the academic courses. In 2006, more than half of the certificate students did a practicum with a company where corporate social responsibility is central to the business model.

Extra Curricular Opportunities
Extra curricular activities complement our teaching and scholarship, and the School prioritizes corporate social responsibility leaders as partners and presenters. In 2005-06, we hosted representatives from BP, Eileen Fisher, HP, Whole Foods Market, Bright Horizons and Green Fuel Technologies. Among its many year-round activities, Simmons Net Impact (a chapter of a national organization for MBA students committed to integrating social responsibility into business strategy and practice) organizes an annual panel of CSR officers at the School. The SOM also provides financial support to students and faculty attending conferences touching on these issues. The Simmons School of Management was ranked # 2 nationally for its attention to social responsibility by Net Impact in 2006.

Building Principled Leadership Careers
As a business school located in Boston, home to some of the nation's leading not-for-profit institutions, Simmons is uniquely poised to meet the needs of its many students whose post-MBA plans are to advance in or switch to careers in the non-profit sector. The Career Services Office (CSO) builds recruiting relationships with private companies and non-profit organizations who partner with the school on CSR initiatives. CSO also provides a powerful career connection to the extensive network of successful SOM alumnae - many serving in independent sector organizations or companies recognized for their commitment to social and environmental concerns.

Our New Green Home
Our commitment to social responsibility and principled leadership is embodied in the green design of our new School of Management building scheduled to open in early 2009. We have committed to attaining LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification at the Silver level, involving vigilant attention to energy and water conservation, use of recycled materials, and aggressive waste recycling.

Once we venture forth, we see a world that is changing radically and rapidly. Centers of power are shifting as lenders become debtors, imitators become innovators, and industry leaders become industry laggards. Many of us are still grappling with the magnitude of this change.

The 1990s unidirectional vision of viewing emerging markets in terms of outsourcing and new consumer markets no longer suffices. Today, we need a multi-dimensional vision that encompasses emerging markets as the home of new, world class, multinationals that are restructuring global industries and changing global competition. Indicative of this trend, the head of investment banking at UBS in India reported that five years ago they focused on advising western multinationals on their entry strategy to India. Today, their largest business is advising Indian companies on going global. The tide has turned.

Boston Consulting Group recently identified 100 multinationals based in developing nations that are poised to “radically transform industries and markets around the world.” The 100 combined multinationals had $715 billion in revenues in 2005, $145 billion in operating profits, and $500 trillion in assets. With direct access to some of the world’s fastest growing markets, combined with access to global intellectual talent and financial markets, these companies have grown at 24 percent annually over the past four years. This is a mega-trend that cannot be ignored.

• It is now Indian software companies – such as Infosys, Tata Consulting Services, and Wipro – that are global leaders shaping the $650 technology services industry.
• In pharmaceuticals, it is India’s Ranbaxy that is the top supplier in much of Europe, and the market leader in large population countries such as Nigeria and Brazil.
• Mexico’s America Movil, with its innovative “pay-as-you-go” cellular service, is emerging as the world’s largest international cellular provider, with over 100 million Latin American subscribers.
• Huawei Technologies in China, which employs 7,000 engineers and invested half a billion in R&D last year, is the global leader on voiceover- Internet protocol service.

Given this context, it is imperative that the School of Management strengthens its global expertise and engagement. We need to ensure that we are educating our students to lead and manage effectively in this rapidly changing global environment.

As a small school stepping onto the global landscape, our challenges are significant. But with our core competency of educating women for power and leadership, our opportunities are significant as well.

As you will see in this issue of NETWORK, we have made great progress this past year. We identified India as a priority country for developing strategic partnerships. Professor Gupta and I visited India in March 2006. Now, Professors Blake-Beard and Kolb will teach a course on Gender in Leadership at the prestigious Indian School of Business in the winter term; undergraduate management students will visit India on our first study abroad course in the spring; several of our faculty have been invited as keynote speakers to Indian university business conferences; and we have recruited several excellent Indian MBA students to our program. At our Alumnae Reunion Day held in October, we organized sessions on business trends and opportunities in both India and China.

In addition, we have expanded our research with an international focus. Examples include research on women and microfinance in Russia; a global study on women and family enterprise; and a major study on the status of women in business in Latin America. We have increased the number of international faculty and faculty with international expertise. We have adjusted our MBA and undergraduate programs to ensure that we have opportunities to recruit more international students.

As we continue to develop our global initiative, I invite your ideas, connections, and support. This is an exciting initiative at the SOM; one that I hope will benefit our students and our alumnae.

We were honored to recognize Founding Dean Anne Jardim. Anne joined us for the Reunion closing reception with more than 100 alumnae gathered. It was a wonderful evening with Anne reconnecting with former students and sharing stories of the founding of the School. Anne and Margaret were visionary social entrepreneurs whose legacy we continue to draw upon and shape as we build the SOM and lead our lives as leaders in our organizations and in our communities.

I was also delighted to honor Roslyn Solomon Jaffe '50UG, Co-founder of the Dress Barn, Inc, as our 2007 Entrepreneur-in-Residence. Ros is an alumna of our Prince Program in Retail Management. In the changing world of the 60's, when women were just beginning to enter the world of work and discounting was just beginning to enter the world of retail, Ros saw a "niche to be filled" -- providing fashionable apparel for working women at moderate prices. She and her husband, Elliot Jaffe began with a single store in Stamford, CT and built a highly successful public company operating on a global scale. Today, the Dress Barn has its own label and operates over 1400 stores in 46 states nationwide. It has 14,000 employees and realized annual sales of over $1.4 billion in 2007 - achieving a 10% increase in annual sales and its best year ever.

Linking our legacy with our future, Ros's story, as well as that of Lois Silverman, inspired our three contestants in the 2nd Silverman Business Plan Competition to imagine their future businesses. Winnowed from a field of 17 semi-finalists, our three finalists were: Jennifer Christian-Murtie '07; Beth Doherty Evers '07; and Kimberly Morse '04. All presented business plans for consulting businesses.

Jennifer Christian-Murtie '07, one of our current MBA Certificate in Entrepreneurship students, was the winner. Her company, Yadumu, will provide comprehensive environmental, economic, and sustainable development advice to hotels, lodges, and camps in the ecotourism industry in Africa. Yadumu aligns sustainability, social responsibility and profitability in its business strategy - concepts and practices that are deeply integrated into our MBA curriculum today.

A panel of four judges evaluated the business plans and presentations: Sheryl Marshall '76, Vice President Credit Suisse and venture capitalist; Indira Patel '83, President & CEO, New England Office Supply, Inc; Neal Yanofsky, President Panera Bread and adjunct professor at the SOM; and Carol Vallone, Founder WebCT. The judges were impressed by the creativity and timely nature of Jennifer's idea, tapping into a major new trend; her passion for ecotourism; the quality of the business plan; her knowledge of the African market; and her realistic vision and financial goals. Jennifer won $10,000 in cash plus in-kind prizes valued at over $10,000, including legal services, logo design, brand consulting and training programs.

The Business Plan Competition is funded through generous gifts from Lois Silverman and the Class of 2002. Over 70 alumnae and friends of the School were involved in supporting the 17 contestants to develop their business plans. This is one of the most rewarding ways in which the SOM and our alumnae network support fellow alumnae to realize their entrepreneurial dreams. To learn more about the Business Plan Competition, visit http://simmonscollege.01o.com/ajtk/servlet/JJ?H=315r80&R=571372378. Bringing together our legacy and our future, this is one of the most exciting and energizing events sponsored by the SOM.

I am proud to announce that our accomplishments have been recognized in two national rankings in the past month.

Yesterday, our Simmons MBA program was recognized as a leader in integrating social and environmental issues into its MBA program according to the prestigious Aspen Institute's 2007-2008 edition of Beyond Grey Pinstripes, a biennial survey and alternative ranking of business schools. Simmons was ranked 32 on a list of the Global Top 100 Schools. The SOM is ranked next to top business schools such as Stanford, University of Michigan, UC Berkeley, Columbia, Cornell, and Yale, all of which were in the top 10 on the list.

"In the Beyond Grey Pinstripes survey, success is measured by how well prepared [MBA graduates] are to guide a company through the complex relationship of business and society, where issues relating to the environment or the well-being of a community can impact a company's performance and reputation," said Judith Samuelson, Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program. Visit www.BeyondGreyPinstripes.org to learn more about this rigorous ranking and what business schools are doing to explicitly address the role business can play in improving social and environmental conditions. Click here to view the rankings, and here to read in more detail about what these rankings mean for the SOM.

A second external ranking in this area is the annual guide for students published by the national organization Net Impact. Net Impact's mission is to "make a positive impact on society by growing and strengthening a community of new leaders who use business to improve the world." Net Impact has more than 150 chapters in graduate business schools, including top business schools such as Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, and Yale. Simmons SOM has had an active Net Impact chapter for several years.

Annually, Net Impact surveys its chapters to get students' opinions on how well their schools integrate a commitment to corporate social responsibility. In September, the "Business as Unusual: 2007 Net Impact Student Guide to Graduate Business Programs" was released. I am delighted that the SOM MBA program was ranked among the top 10 schools in 15 out of the 20 categories assessed and in the top 5 in 8 of the categories. The full report, profiling all 60 ranked schools, is available at netimpact.org.

I am very proud of these rankings. I am proud of: how innovative our faculty have been in addressing this priority; how much our students have valued our emphasis on principled leadership; and how our small school can compete effectively to offer thought and practice leadership in an area that I believe will define business strategy and performance in the next decade.

These rankings provide great visibility for our school and inspire us to keep developing our work and reputation in this area. Our research shows that women, in particular, care about the issues embodied in principled leadership. As a management school specifically designed for women, we need to remain on the cutting-edge in this field. These recent rankings confirm that indeed we are!

As we welcomed our newest class of alumnae, we also shone the spotlight on the achievements of two Simmons alumnae who have built powerful careers, shaped their organizations, and stand out as wonderful role models for our recent graduates as well as for all of us.

Elizabeth (Beth) Mora '89 received the prestigious Phyllis Rappaport Alumnae Achievement Award. The award, established in honor of Phyllis Rappaport '75, honors an alumna "whose significant deeds and accomplishments have helped to further the School's tradition of creating broader opportunities for women."

Beth Mora was recently appointed as Vice President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer for Harvard University, working directly with Harvard's new President, Dr. Drew Faust. Beth was a retail analyst before joining Simmons. She leveraged her MBA to move into public accounting with PricewaterhouseCoopers, where over eight years she developed a new consulting practice focused on higher education. She then went to Harvard University where she oversaw research grants administration and then continued to expand her responsibilities within financial management. Today she is responsible for all of the University's financial operations, research administration, internal audit, treasury, debt management, financial systems, and budget functions. She also serves on the elite Board of the University's Harvard Management Company. In her acceptance speech, she called out three lessons she has learned from her career:
* Sign up for the hard assignments
* Listen a lot before offering opinions
* Learn and use the "soft" skills of management as you develop yourself technically.

We are honored to have Beth Mora as an SOM alumna and as our most recent Rappaport Alumnae Award winner.

We were also privileged to have Ann Fudge '73 UG as our SOM Commencement Speaker. Ann is an alumna of the undergraduate management program and former student of founding Dean Margaret Hennig. Ann recently retired from her positions as CEO and Chairman of Young and Rubicam Brands and Chairman and CEO of its largest division, Y&R Advertising. Prior to Young & Rubicam, she served as President of the Beverages, Desserts and Post Division-a $5 billion unit of Kraft Foods. Ann has been widely recognized for her leadership and business accomplishments. She has been named among the 50 most powerful women by Fortune magazine, as one of the Top Global Business Influencers by Time, and as one of the Top 20 Women in American Industry by the New York Times. Ann is a powerful role model for our undergraduate and MBA graduates, modeling strong leadership, integrity, business acumen, and her commitment to "giving back."

Ann delivered an inspiring message to our graduates, including her daughter-in-law Cheryl Fudge, a member of the 2007 graduating class. Drawing on examples from her own career, she encouraged our graduates to recognize and use their personal power both to advance their careers as well as to do the right thing for their businesses, their employees, and for society more broadly. I have quoted Ann's views on personal power in earlier graduation speeches: "My power is based on my ability to connect with people. My power is manifested [not within me] but outside of myself in what I am able to create in developing people and developing businesses." This is a powerful message for our graduates and for each of us within the SOM community.

Click to listen to the Dean's interview

• accelerate the execution of our strategy to enhance our competitive position regionally and as a niche player, focused on women's leadership, nationally and internationally;

• broaden and deepen our faculty by hiring ten additional faculty with expertise in marketing, technology and operations management, finance, gender and leadership, and business ethics and corporate social responsibility what I call "principled leadership";

• optimize our success in securing AACSB accreditation in 2009 by ensuring continuous improvement in research and publishing, assessment of learning outcomes, and building stronger linkages within the business community;

• enhance our contribution to strengthening the brand, reputation, and fiscal health of Simmons College as a whole.

The investment will result in a permanent adjustment of $2.2 million in the School's operating budget, an augmentation of 40%. The plan projects a growth of 60% in total student credit hours by 2016. Significant growth in enrollments will result from earning AACSB accreditation - an imprimatur of excellence, moving to the new "green" building with state-of-the-art teaching facilities (and parking!), increased offerings made possible by the expansion of our faculty, and expanded marketing. We project that the investment will be repaid by 2015.

President Scrimshaw's and the Board's decision to invest additional resources in the School of Management reflects their commitment to our vision of a thriving SOM - a school of management that is recognized widely as a leading authority on women, leadership, and management, and as a unique provider of a quality management education designed specifically for women at all phases of their careers. Their confidence is based on the innovations and successes we have achieved together in recent years and the strong commitment that our School garners from our students, faculty, staff, and alumnae.

The Conference offered a wonderful mix of business content, leadership stories and experiences, analysis of complex political and social issues, and skill development workshops. Leadership Conference Executive Director Joyce Kolligian's ('89) creative programming brought together a widely successful entrepreneur from China (Yue-Sai Kan), an inspiring international correspondent (Christiane Amanpour), business leaders who are integrating profitability and corporate social responsibility (Ann Moore of Time Inc. and Barbara Krumsiek of Calvert Group), international social and political activists (Jehan Sadat and Marta Sahagun de Fox), a leading cultural linguist (Deborah Tannen), and self-made entertainment star and business woman (Queen Latifah). Click here to see the whole program. The message at the bottom of the page from one of my invited corporate guests captures the impact of the day.

I am pleased to recognize our corporate sponsors from world class companies and organizations, including Platinum sponsor HP; Gold sponsors Pfizer and Philips; Bronze sponsor Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA, and others including Deloitte, Ford, Goldman Sachs, Novartis, Pink magazine, Shattered magazine, State Street, and the US Postal Service.

We had about 150 alumnae in attendance. I want to extend special appreciation to all of the alumnae who contributed to the Conference's success, serving as escorts, introducers, and volunteers. SOM alumnae conceptualized and established this important event 28 years ago. It is heartening to see so many from the SOM community remain involved today.

On Saturday, our Conference truly earned its reputation as the premier women's leadership conference in the country, if not the globe. It is a world class event that enhances the SOM's brand and reputation. I could not have been more proud.

Feedback from corporate guest from Ernst and Young: "Thank you so much for including me in the 'Ways Women Lead' conference on Saturday. It was such an incredible event. I was flattered to be there. It was an unbelievable collection of speakers and I especially liked the fact that the focus was so external and so global. Ann (Moore) and Barbara (Krumsiek)...were amazing as were Christiane (Amanpour) and Madame Sadat, and on and on. Again, thank you very much for hosting me."