The University of Chicago Magazine
December 1997
In its inaugural century, the GSB has been home to a number of "firsts" in business education.
Taking business education to new heights, in 1920 the GSB initiated the nation's first doctoral program in the subject, granting the first business Ph.D.s in 1922. The first two recipients were Waldo F. Mitchell and Albert Clare Hodge. While a student, Mitchell taught classes in industrial society and business administration.
In 1929, Ursula Batchelder Stone became the first woman in the country to earn a business Ph.D., going on to run a research firm and to help establish the South East Chicago Commission.
The Journal of Business, the first scholarly business journal in the country, began at the GSB in 1928. Nearly 70 years later, the quarterly journal-edited by Douglas W. Diamond, the Theodore O. Yntema professor of finance-continues to publish research and analysis on topics from marketing to industrial organization.
In 1934, the GSB founded the nation's first graduate program in hospital administration. The program merged with the Health Information Foundation, a private nonprofit research center, to create the Center for Health Administration Studies in 1962. The graduate program affiliated with it is now in health administration and policy, and includes U of C students from the GSB, the School of Social Service Administration, and the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies.
Establishing the world's first executive M.B.A. program in 1943, the GSB had the world's only executive M.B.A. program for the next 21 years. Intended to respond to the demand created by World War II for trained administrators and analysts, the program was designed for individuals already at middle- and upper-management levels. Three years ago, the GSB added an international executive M.B.A. program in Barcelona. Students from the two programs share four weeks of intensive summer study, two in Chicago and two in Spain.-K.S.
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