A daring experiment

Second in a series of exhibits organized by Baker Library Historical Collections to mark 2008 as the centennial of Harvard Business School. The focus of the exhibit is on the establishment of business education for women at Harvard, beginning in 1937 with a certificate program in personnel administration at Radcliffe College. The course eventually evolved into the Harvard–Radcliffe Program in Business Administration (HRPBA), jointly managed by Harvard Business School and Radcliffe College. As the curricula of the HRPBA and the MBA programs began to merge, the Harvard Business School faculty voted in 1959 to admit qualified graduates of the HRPBA to the second year of the MBA program. The first MBA degrees were awarded to women in 1960. In December 1962, Harvard Business School faculty voted to accept women into the full two-year MBA program and the HRPBA came to an end. By 1970, women were residents in HBS dormitories, and a new era in women’s education at Harvard was firmly under way. The web site includes audio and video oral history interviews from the Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration Oral History Project.