Olin expands its footprint at Brookings

For more than a century, the histories of WashU business education and the Brookings Institution in Washington DC have been intertwined. Robert S. Brookings, the St. Louis businessman, philanthropist, and WashU board president who built the Danforth campus and elevated the university to the world stage, was also passionate about the intersection of business and government policy education.

That passion, in fact, led to the establishment in 1916 of the precursor to today’s Brookings Institution, which was for a time a part of Washington University.

President John F. Kennedy recognized the need to bridge policy and business when, in 1962, he greeted Brookings attendees to the White House: “My experience has been that those businessmen who have worked in Washington, who have held positions of responsibility, who know something about the public responsibilities of those who hold executive office, are a good deal more understanding and a good deal more successful in their business work later on.”

Today, we begin the process of taking the Brookings-WashU partnership to another level. Construction begins this month to expand Olin’s space at Brookings from 2,000 to 12,000 square feet—a significant undertaking with implications for what we can offer. The new space bears the iconic street address of 1776 Massachusetts Avenue NW, overlooking the main Brookings building across the street.

Space is tough to come by in Washington and a larger footprint means we can serve more students who are waitlisted for our master of science in leadership, our certificate programmes in public leadership and policy strategy, and our executive education courses.

In fact, if this space had been available last year, every waitlisted student would have been able to participate in a Brookings programme, according to Ian Dubin, assistant dean and director for Brookings Executive Education. And while that will help us expand our offerings to DC-based students, it will also bring us closer to another goal of mine: making sure every Olin student has a Brookings experience.

“This space is going to allow us to really grow what is the real advantage we have, which is this opportunity for immersion,” Ian said recently. “The global MBA program will soon begin, Olin’s Mumbai students will be coming, BSBA students will be coming.”

In addition to the construction work, I’ve also recently elevated the role that Lamar Pierce, Olin professor of organization and strategy, plays at Brookings. He now adds Associate Dean for the Brookings-WashU partnership.

“We believe this new space better reflects the important and lasting partnership between Brookings and Washington University,” Lamar said recently. “The new classrooms, which look out over Brookings and Dupont Circle, will provide state of the art instructional spaces for both our executive education and for the many Olin programs with Washington residencies.”

Optimistically, we expect to complete the expansion around late April or early May, but definitely in time for the arrival of more than 115 full-time MBA students in July, when they begin their round-the-world global immersion in Olin’s revamped two-year programme.

As we approach Robert S. Brookings’ 169th birthday on January 22, it’s fitting that we take note of this important milestone in the partnership between Olin and his namesake institution, the world’s premier think tank in arguably the world’s most important global capital.