Yale School of Management Inaugurates Edward P. Evans Hall

The Yale School of Management officially inaugurated Edward P. Evans Hall, its new campus, with a ceremony on January 9 featuring past and present leaders of the school and university.

The ceremony opened Business + Society: Leadership in an Increasingly Complex World, a three-day conference celebrating the new campus. Yale SOM Dean Edward A. Snyder delivered remarks, along with four other speakers: Yale University president Peter Salovey PhD ’86; former Yale SOM dean and current faculty member Sharon M. Oster; founding Yale SOM dean William Donaldson YC ’53; and William Beinecke YC ’36, a philanthropist and longtime supporter of the school.

Edward P. Evans Hall, Snyder said, will help Yale SOM fulfill its founding mission to educate leaders for business and society and its aspirations to become a truly global business school and one closely connected to its home university.

“We find ourselves now in this unified space,” Snyder said. “This space with extended lines of sight, with energy, with cohesion, with the ability to connect across campus, and with the ability to connect globally.”

A great and inspiring place for further excellence at the Yale School of Management.

Introducing Beinecke, Snyder described him as one of the founders of Yale SOM. Beinecke advocated for the school’s creation when he served as a member of the Yale Corporation from 1971 to 1982 and has supported the school throughout its history.

“SOM holds a special place in my heart,” Beinecke said. He noted that he was among a group of Yale alumni who “believed it was important for Yale to have a school of management to fulfill the university’s responsibilities as a national institution.”

“Today is not only a day of dedication but a day of celebration,” Beinecke said. “SOM has arrived at the threshold of the journey that lies ahead.”

Donaldson, whom Beinecke said was named founding dean because he was a “man of extraordinary entrepreneurial skills,” said the school’s mission to educate leaders across sectors—corporate, nonprofit, and governmental—has given it a distinction attested to by the accomplishments of its now more than 6,000 graduates.

In this era of unprecedented global and national challenges, strong leadership across sectors is critical, Donaldson said. “Yale SOM has never been more out front,” he said, adding that the new campus is a “spectacular launching pad for what the next 40 years and beyond will bring.”

In particular, the new campus gives faculty “the space that enables the kind of teaching they want to do,” Oster said. Faculty members are proud, she added, to be “part of this beautiful space, part of a signature building” at Yale. With state-of the-art classrooms and meeting spaces, there will be opportunity for greater interaction and collaboration among students and faculty, Oster said.

Salovey noted that of the 1,400 Yale graduates who donated to the creation of Evans Hall, 1,300 are Yale SOM alumni. “It’s really hard to imagine a more loyal group than the alumni of SOM,” he said. Evans Hall, he said, will help Snyder bring to life his vision for SOM. He described the new campus as “a great and inspiring place for further excellence at the Yale School of Management.”