Teele Hall

Teele Hall is named for Stanley Ferdinand Teele (MBA 1930, DCS 1933), the Dean of Harvard Business School from 1955 to 1962.

Located at 230 Western Avenue, Teele Hall is home to the School’s External Relations, Financial, and Human Resources departments, as well as some Executive Education administrative offices. Formally renamed Teele Hall in 2000 in honor of Dean Stanley F. Teele (1906–1967), the modern brick, concrete, and glass structure was designed by Goody & Clancy and constructed in 1985. The 49,000-square-foot building has five floors and large windows that afford striking views of Harvard Stadium and Cambridge to the north and the Boston skyline to the east. The facility previously housed offices for the Harvard Business Review and Harvard Business Publishing.

About the Name

Teele Hall is named for the late Stanley Ferdinand Teele (MBA 1930, DCS 1933), the Dean of Harvard Business School from 1955 to 1962. During Teele’s tenure, the School expanded its international influence, welcoming business teachers and scholars from around the world to study at HBS and establishing and staffing new business schools in other countries, including IMEDE in Lausanne, Switzerland, and INSEAD in Paris, as well as programs at the University of Istanbul in Turkey and Keio University in Japan. A great believer in broadening the reach of management education, Teele revitalized the Program for Management Development, the Trade Union Program, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration (HRPBA). During his tenure HRPBA graduates were admitted to the second year of the MBA Program, becoming the first women to receive MBAs (1960).

Teele, who received the second doctoral degree awarded by HBS in 1933, spent two years in business before joining the HBS faculty in 1935 as an assistant professor of marketing. He became a full professor in 1944. During World War II, he served as a consultant to the War Production Board and, later, was a member of the three-person team that developed the Industrial Mobilization Plan of 1947.

In 1946, Teele was appointed Associate Dean at HBS and worked closely with Dean Donald K. David before succeeding him in 1955. Keeping pace with the widespread scientific and social changes during his tenure, Teele added new talents to the faculty, especially in math and social sciences, in order to equip MBAs with the knowledge required to lead mid-20th-century businesses. He also launched a review of the MBA curriculum and reorganized and enlarged the doctoral program to help meet the need for teachers to serve expanding MBA enrollments. In addition, Teele presided over the School’s 50th anniversary celebration in 1958, which attracted more than 2,000 visitors, including then vice president Richard Nixon.

Of the changes enacted during his tenure, Teele once remarked, “Our problems at the School today turn on people, programs, and pennies. Each depends upon the others; to keep them all in balance in an organization is a delicate task. But if we cannot perform this feat under conditions of change and stress, we shall not be able to keep the School in the forefront of business education.”

Teele resigned as Dean in 1956 for health reasons and became vice chairman of the Putnam Management Company, where he had long been a trustee. At the time of his death in 1967 at the age of 61, Teele had returned to his undergraduate alma mater, Amherst College, to serve as treasurer.