Curriculum Shift Stuns Yale; Students, Alumni Fight Change

Unanticipated changes at Yale University's School of Organization and Management (SOM) have spurred protests from students and alumni who fear a dramatic shift in the school's teaching philosophy.

Two days of student demonstrations and letters from alumni threatening to cease support of the school have followed Yale President Benno C. Schmidt Jr.'s announcement last week that he would reduce the SOM's faculty in organizational behavior and eliminate its doctoral program in the field.

In the same October 26 announcement, Schmidt named a new SOM dean and shifted the school's operations research faculty to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

"It sounds corny to say it but most people really love SOM," said second-year student Thomas Amenta. "[The change] is an insult to our vision of management." Nationally, Yale's 12-year-old equivalent to business school is known as much for its experimental emphasis on behavior as its private business curriculum.

"They're trying to make SOM more like conventional business schools," said first-year student Amena Ali. "We have an open, innovative approach to management. I don't know what kind of signals we're sending out by changing it."

On Monday, about 300 SOM students did not attend classes and participated in a day-long rally. Ali said that about 80 percent of the 360-member student population is "unhappy to furious" with the changes.

"It was thuggish," Amenta said. "It was an exercise of blind, naked authority, so far from any modern method of management as to be absurd."

Students, following procedures learned in their present management curriculum, met in small groups throughout the day to discuss how to react to the news.

"There were 10 or 15 people sitting on my floor right outside my office," said Joan Ryan, director of public relations at SOM.

"We are concerned about the fate of humanitarian management," said Ali. "The dean says the school's approach will not change, but I'm afraid the way of teaching will."

"This is a radical changing of two major departments in the school," she said.

Amenta said that the reduction in faculty teaching organizational behavior from eight to two will reduce the number of Individual and Group Behavior courses. He said the courses are a hallmark of the school and are essential to its experimental nature and personal focus.

According to Ali, approximately 250 SOM students also marched on Wednesday to Beinecke Plaza to protest the changes. She said students are now writing letters and contacting alumni to gain support.

"The alumni have been outraged," Amenta said. "A group of Boston alumni have said they will discourage students from applying, and they have withdrawn their names and pictures from promotionary school material."

Students expressed particular resentment at the hidden procedures that led to the changes.

"Schmidt admitted that the process had to be done secretly," said Amenta.

The appointment of Yale faculty member and former president of New York Air Michael E. Levine as SOM dean was made "out of nowhere" without consulting the existing faculty search committee, Ali said.

Schmidt was advised in his curricular decisions from a variety of sources, particularly the Verity Report, said Amenta. That report was filed by a committee headed by Commerce Secretary William C. Verity and including former United States Attorney General Edwin C. Meese III.

"I've heard that people do find Levine a good teacher," said Amenta, "but he said he is uncomfortable doing anything in a communal setting. That is not how we work at SOM."

Students said they hoped their protests would reverse the university's decision.

But Ryan said that newly appointed SOM Dean Michael E. Levine said he would not make any changes in the curriculum decisions due to the protest.