Peter Drucker said that innovation is a combination of change and continuity.  And that innovation drives progress.

By that definition, we are making lots of progress at the Drucker School!

There’s a palpable sense of excitement and new beginnings at Drucker.  The energy is in the air.  But it’s also grounded on a firm foundation.

Last month we learned that the Drucker School is ranked #2 in the world by an organization of Japanese MBA students and graduates.  Earlier this fall, Princeton Review ranked us as a “Top Ten Business School” in terms of the classroom experience and the quality of our faculty.  Quality faculty and a commitment to the teaching and the classroom have always been distinguishing characteristics of the Drucker School.  Now, others around the world are beginning to learn of those strengths.

We are also excited to announce the Doris Drucker Women Leaders Fellowship Program. When Doris Drucker and I were in Japan recently, Masatoshi Ito surprised us with a magnificent $1 million endowment gift to launch this exciting new program for talented future women leaders.  Prof. Jean Lipman-Blumen will chair a special selection committee and Jean and Prof. Jenny Darroch will serve as faculty advisors/mentors for these Doris Drucker Leadership Fellows who will arrive next fall.  This is certainly a wonderful new beginning for the Drucker School. One that it is built upon the incredible life of Doris Drucker, her continuing example and inspiration to us all, and her ongoing active commitment to the Drucker School and the Drucker Institute.

Another good example of change and continuity: our fabulous faculty is branching out in with new research and new courses that continue the academic and intellectual excellence and purpose-driven approach to management education with which the Drucker School was founded.  All of us on the core faculty taught together this fall in a unique new gateway course, “The Drucker Difference,” and we are offering it again this spring.  The course spotlights Peter Drucker’s work on a broad range of topics and gives students a chance to experience the full range of disciplines represented here at the Drucker School.  New faculty, like Visiting Prof. Cornelis Los, are making important intellectual contributions to understanding current issues, while existing faculty remain highly prolific.  Among others, Professors Jenny Darroch, Craig Pearce, Jim Wallace, Hideki Yamawaki, Richard Smith, Kees de Kluyver, Vijay Sathe, Jean Lipman-Blumen, Ken Ferris, Roberto Pedace, Jay Prag and Murat Binay all have peer-reviewed journal papers or manuscripts in process or recently published.   Prof. Joe Maciariello has revised Peter Drucker’s classic, Management, which will be published by HarperCollins this April.

We are also ushering in a new chapter of the Drucker Institute with our Drucker Fellows in Residence Program.  Our first fellows include Prof. Jiro Nonaka, an internationally recognized expert of innovation, and Charles Handy, often called the “Peter Drucker of Europe.”  Charles is teaching, with Elizabeth Handy, a special executive seminar on personal and organizational identity, called “The Odyssey.”  We are so deeply honored to have Jiro Nonaka and Charles Handy here to build upon and extend in new ways knowledge that reflects Peter’s principles and philosophy of a “functioning” and balanced society.

On his first day here as a Drucker Fellow, Charles delivered a brilliant and inspiring talk about his “portfolio life” and his social philosophy about meaning, discovery and a purposeful life.  He challenged his audience to “make visible the things we don’t see” as we climb up and down the proverbial staircase of success.  He concluded his conversation with Aristotle’s question of what constitutes a good life?  Charles’ interpretation of Aristotle’s answer: “to do the best at what we’re best at for the good of others.”  And, in the context of organizations and businesses, to strive to create and sustain a community with a common purpose.

We continue to educate executives and managers from Edward Jones and Panda Restaurants.  These two great “Drucker-like” companies have now sent more than 700 managers each through our customized executive sessions. Additionally, we are gearing up new programs for Fujitsu, and for other Japanese executives in what is called “The Knowledge Forum,” jointly with Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo.

Our international reach is constantly changing as new Drucker Societies open around the world, while others continue to expand their reach.  The Drucker Workshop in Japan just launched a new journal of Peter’s management philosophy, titled “Civilization and Management.”  The Drucker School has also become an academic member of the UN Global Compact, the world’s largest voluntary association committed to advancing corporate social responsibility, and we are one of the first business schools in the world to formally adopt the “Principles of Responsible Management Education” that have been sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

You can imagine my pride in serving as dean of the Drucker School.  If you haven’t yet experienced the progress we are making – the change and the continuity – I welcome you to share the pride and to participate in the active, vital life of the Drucker School.  Stop by and sit in the back of a class.  Attend a public lecture.  Talk to our students.  Come by and give me a suggestion on how we can do even better.  Send us some talented prospects or perhaps offer an internship to one of our students.  For a visit without leaving your desk, please check out our new electronic video magazine, at www.cgu.webvideovision.com, and scroll through the special features, including back issues.

And for those who haven’t been here before: it will be 65 degrees and sunny here in Claremont tomorrow and I’m looking up at beautiful snow-capped mountains that frame our pretty little city of trees and PhDs. So join us sometime here in our little piece of paradise where we are making progress by respecting traditions and by charting new beginnings.