Leaders of business schools and other educational institutions have enjoyed decades of stability. Today, we confront a set of systemic global challenges, including a pandemic, severe economic weakness, heightened inequality, racial injustice, and a climate emergency. Taken together, these challenges redefine the environment in which we operate—and offer us an opportunity to reimagine our organizations. We can learn about how to deal with this level of upheaval by studying how leading U.S. business schools responded to World War II. All shrank as students and faculty were drafted, most innovated in fairly traditional ways while still maintaining existing activities alongside of war-time innovations, and some pushed forward long-standing institutional change. One school choose a different path, shutting all peacetime programs as it fully committed not only to helping win a global war but, just as importantly, to forging a lasting peace—the long-term economic prosperity that followed the war. The lessons we can draw from academic leaders from nearly eighty years ago are apt today.

商学院和其他教育机构的领导者享有数十年的稳定。今天，我们面临一系列系统性的全球挑战，包括大流行，严重的经济疲软，不平等加剧，种族不公正以及气候紧急情况。总而言之，这些挑战重新定义了我们的运营环境，并为我们提供了重新构想我们的组织的机会。通过研究领先的美国商学院对第二次世界大战的反应，我们可以了解如何应对这种剧变。在起草学生和教职员工的过程中，所有人都萎缩了，大多数人以相当传统的方式进行了创新，同时仍保留了现有的活动以及战时创新，还有一些人推动了长期的体制变革。一所学校选择不同的道路，终止所有和平时期的计划，因为它完全致力于帮助打赢一场全球战争，而且同样重要的是，它致力于实现持久和平-战争之后的长期经济繁荣。我们可以借鉴近八十年前的学术领导者的经验教训。