Schools Get Down to the Valley Katie Dean Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,19972,00.html Top business schools are establishing permanent research outposts in Silicon Valley, the epicenter of the e-business trend. "From all our constituents we got the message that this was a place we should be," said Mike Roberts, senior lecturer and executive director of entrepreneurial studies at Harvard Business School. Harvard Business School was the first to have a West Coast satellite when it opened its California Research Center in 1997. The Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth followed in March of this year. Both the University of Michigan Business School and the Haas School of Business at University of California at Berkeley are also considering the idea. In the past few years, Roberts said, there's been "a definite uptick" in student interest in Silicon Valley. He estimates that between a quarter and one-third of Harvard Business School students want Silicon Valley jobs. Harvard's new center will create courses to help them prepare for those jobs. The Harvard faculty use the research facility to study businesses and write case studies based on companies in Silicon Valley. Students study the cases and devise solutions. Since the center opened, "[Students and faculty] feel as though they are in better touch with what's going on out there," Roberts said. "You have to be there in the mix in order to really detect the new business models and new ideas before they become fossilized ... or you can find it out six months later on a Web site." The Tuck outpost, a West Coast branch of the school's Foster Center for Private Equity, provides an office for visiting students and faculty. Eventually, Tuck hopes to have one or two faculty members based there permanently. "Students that want to get into technology don't have the network [that] a Stanford MBA does," said Tuck first-year student Matt Pope. "To establish a center out there is critical for us. [It's important] to gain access to the Silicon Valley culture and entrepreneurial environment." A home base in the Valley also brings students closer to the companies they'd like to work for. "Students can't conduct a Silicon Valley job search out of New Hampshire," said Anderson, who predicted that all of the top business schools will have facilities in the Valley within 18 months. "I think it's going to become a wave." Students and companies have prompted the University of Michigan Business School to consider establishing a permanent presence in Silicon Valley, said Keith Decie, the assistant to the dean of the school, which as yet has no definite plans. Ironically, one of the schools nearest to Silicon Valley still doesn't feel close enough to the action. UC Berkeley plans to open an office in the next six to nine months to make access to Silicon Valley even more convenient for students and faculty. The outpost will be similar to Harvard's satellite, said Richard Kurovsky, executive director of marketing at the Haas School of Business. "Having a place with our name on it will increase our presence in the Valley," he said. Mitchel Harad, a recent graduate from the Haas school, is finding his Silicon Valley connections invaluable as he starts his own Internet company. "I decided I wanted to come to Silicon Valley, and I knew zero people. Graduate school let me meet some smart people and build a really strong network out here." To have a meeting place in the Valley would be handy, Harad said, because "sometimes it takes some persuading to get someone up [to Berkeley] from Mountain View." Professor Donna Hoffman, director of the Project 2000 e-commerce MBA program at Vanderbilt University, said establishing an outpost in Silicon Valley "makes no sense for us." Vanderbilt students already maintain contact with California companies via email and participate in student internships there. "E-commerce opportunities are everywhere now," said Hoffman, and students are going to many cities to pursue them. Eric Clemons, professor of information strategy systems and economics at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, acknowledged that "there is some real advantage in geographic proximity." But, like Hoffman, he doesn't see Silicon Valley as the best destination for Wharton grads. "I don't want to sound arrogant, but the vast majority of our students could go anywhere," Clemons said. Still, Wharton will do all it can to ensure its graduates are well placed, Clemons said. "I know that the school is prepared to put roots where it needs to." At least one school plans to move east rather than west. The new Institute for eCommerce at Carnegie Mellon plans a satellite operation in New York, possibly by fall. The New York branch will offer a combination of classes taught by Carnegie Mellon faculty and classes accessed through the Web, said director Tridas Mukhopadhyay. For those who choose to go west, Stanford clearly has the edge. "Certainly it's a drawing card to be located in Silicon Valley," said Janet Zich, associate news director of the business school. Forty of its 365 students are already drawing up plans to start their own companies immediately after graduation, and Zich expects the trend to continue. "Why do you think so many schools are opening outposts here?" she asked. "It's obviously the hot thing." "Stanford MBAs will continue to dominate, [but] you don't want a company where everyone has the same educational background," he said. "That's a recipe for disaster."