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Students filled the Jacobs Center on Sept. 2 as Complete Immersion in Management (CIM) Week 2014 kicked off.

Photo by Eddie Quiñones
CIM Week 2014

CIM Week 2014

The newest MBA students meet Kellogg and each other

By Paul Dailing

9/2/2014 -
One of the people in the Jacobs Center on Tuesday morning was a major in the Indian Army.

Another was a regular contributor to South Korean television.

One created a nonprofit that builds and donates customized robotic hands to people with disabilities.

And one played in the Women’s Final Four Championship in 2008.

But whether they came from the military, the private sector, academia or professional European basketball, they all have one thing in common — they’re now part of the Kellogg community.

The jewel of Northwestern

On Tuesday, Complete Immersion in Management (CIM) Week 2014 kicked off, welcoming the incoming class of students to the Kellogg School of Management.

“It really is the jewel of the crown,” said Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro, who is also a professor of strategy at Kellogg. “I say that not just as a faculty member here, but because the Kellogg School of Management is a really iconic brand and it deserves to be.”

Dean Sally Blount ’92 said the new students should look at their education as a chance to grow both personally and professionally. She instructed the students to do this with an eye not solely toward profit, but toward using the power of business to make the world a better place.

“We’re here to make you these growth-minded leaders who can thrive in this era when change just keeps moving faster and faster, and when technology creates new capabilities,” she said. “We’re here to show you how to find new opportunities and not be daunted by it but be energized by it, be psyched by it, by the potential to change the world and how it works.”

Creating community

CIM, a Kellogg tradition since 1969, is a welcome to the rigors and spirit of Kellogg. A week of challenges and events test the new students’ skill set while introducing them to their new community.

Speaking after a video that featured alumni-faculty including professors Harry Kraemer ’79 and David Besanko ’82 and Assistant Dean and Director of Student Life Fran Langewisch ’95 sharing their own CIM memories, Schapiro told the new students to take advantage of the diversity in the room.

“As much as you’ll learn from the Harry Kraemers and the others on the screen, you’ll probably learn even more from each other,” Schapiro said.

Kellogg should be a chance for students to grow their knowledge, said Associate Dean of MBA Programs and Dean of Students Betsy Ziegler.

“I really want you to take advantage of the power of the pioneering thinking that’s going on here all the time,” Ziegler said. “This is your opportunity to learn from the world’s best, both from your professors but also from the people that are in this room.”

Blount said that, just as her own Kellogg career helped her find her calling, students should look on their education as a way to become who they want to be.

“You have no idea who’s sitting next to you and what they’re going to become,” Blount said. “There are many of you sitting in this room today who are going to be CEOs within 20 years from now. And if not that, a number of you are going to be in the C-suite or doing your own startups.

“A lot of where you land is going to be because of the choices you make about what you want to do with this amazing education, about the person you want to become."
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