Booth School of Business - History

History

Chicago Booth traces its roots back to 1898 when university faculty member James Laurence Laughlin chartered the College of Commerce and Politics, which was intended to be an extension of the school's founding principles of "scientific guidance and investigation of great economic and social matters of everyday importance." The program originally served as a solely undergraduate institution until 1916, when academically oriented research masters and later doctoral-level degrees were introduced.

In 1916, the school was renamed the School of Commerce and Administration. Soon after in 1922, the first doctorate program was offered at the school. In 1932, the school was rechristened as the School of Business. The School of Business offered its first Master of Business Administration (MBA) in 1935. A landmark decision was taken by the school at about this time to concentrate its resources solely on graduate programs, and accordingly, the undergraduate program was phased out in 1942. In 1943, the school launched the first ever Executive MBA program. The school was renamed to Graduate School of Business (or more popularly, the GSB) in 1959, a name that it held till 2008.

During the later half of the twentieth century, the business school was instrumental in the development of the Chicago School, an economic philosophy focused on free-market, minimal government involvement, due to faculty and student interaction with members of the university's influential Department of Economics. Other innovations by Chicago Booth include initiating the first PhD program in business (1920), founding the first academic business journal (1928), offering the first Executive MBA (EMBA) program (1943), and for offering the first weekend MBA program (1986). Students at the school founded the National Black MBA Association (1972), and Chicago Booth is the only U.S. business school with permanent campuses on three continents: Asia (2000), Europe (1994), and North America (1898).