Yale SOM Celebrates Amy Wrzesniewski’s Appointment as Michael H. Jordan Professor of Management
Wrzesniewski’s colleagues, family, and friends gathered for a reception in her honor on February 28 at the Yale School of Management.
Colleagues, family, and friends gathered on February 28 at the Yale School of Management for a reception celebrating Amy Wrzesniewski’s appointment as Michael H. Jordan Professor of Management.
Wrzesniewski’s research focuses on how people make meaning of their work in different challenging contexts, and on the experience of work as a job, career, or calling. Her current research focuses on job crafting.
James Baron, William S. Beinecke Professor of Management, who arrived at Yale SOM alongside Wrzesniewski in 2006, called his colleague “an amazingly impressive and broadly talented individual.” He said that she has embodied the very concepts she studies: “Anybody who knows Amy knows that she exemplifies what it means to have a calling orientation to her work. She displays passion and a higher purpose in what she does, a degree of selflessness that is characteristic of people who have a calling, and an occupational identity that is impossible to separate from her individual identity.”
Dean Edward A. Snyder said, “This is a joyful day for the school. Amy’s work is on the meaning of work, and she’s certainly made our work more meaningful… She’s so well respected by faculty colleagues across disciplines, and around the university. She’s respected by students, respected by alumni, and respected by staff.”
Camino de Paz, director of global programs, called Wrzesniewski “a role model” and “a rock” for all members of the Yale SOM community.
Wrzesniewski said that she is “honored to be in a chair named for someone who successfully turned a number of organizations around across industries and decades.”
She also expressed her gratitude to the Yale SOM community: “This has really reinforced, for me, how supported and appreciated and seen I feel here… I am very much aware on a daily basis that my ability to make contributions at all largely depends on who I’m working with. So, to the staff of the school—on whom my research, writing, teaching, and service depends—I owe you a great thanks.”
Wrzesniewski also thanked her children and her husband for their support, highlighting the importance of equitable partnership to success: “In my wildest dreams I never could have imagined what is possible when you get to build your life with a partner who is truly and actually a partner in all things.”
