Wharton School Plans S.F. Branch

Acknowledging a historic shift in economic and business power to California, the University of Pennsylvania will open a “Wharton West” MBA program in San Francisco next fall to cultivate its share of talent in the high-tech, media and entertainment industries.

The Wharton School, the nation’s oldest business school and one of the most prestigious, plans to offer continuing education courses next spring to students and business leaders.

It will allow its students in Philadelphia to spend a semester in San Francisco next year, and will launch a two-year executive master’s program in business administration for 100 students next fall.

“This is driven by the faculty’s interest in the economic activity in the West Coast,” said Patrick Harker, dean of the Wharton School. “We want to have a presence in the major economic hubs in the world. California is clearly one of those.”

The Wharton School, which has been losing more than two dozen MBA students every year to high-tech start-ups, is only the latest higher education institution to seek branch offices in or near the Silicon Valley.

Harvard, Caltech, Dartmouth, UC Berkeley and others have either set up shop or are working on plans to move into the Santa Clara Valley, the high-tech capital.

Sometimes the schools chase grad students who have defected for high-paying jobs. Other times, they’re following graduates who are getting into the fast-paced Internet business world and are more likely to hit the mother lode--and become potential big donors for their alma maters.

“When I was a student, we used to have East Coast field trips,” said Robert L. Joss, dean of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. “Now, East Coast schools are having West Coast field trips. That tells you a lot of what’s happening to our economy.”

Yet Wharton’s strategic move is also designed to attract students from Los Angeles, Harker said. He envisions students jetting up to San Francisco every other weekend to study in the executive MBA program, the same way that up-and-coming executives in New York and Washington now travel to Philadelphia to get master’s degrees.

“It’s not just the Silicon Valley,” Harker said. “We have a significant effort among faculty members to study and work with the media and entertainment industries.”

The Wharton School, founded in 1881, is one of the nation’s richest business schools--with an endowment of about $350 million--and one of the largest, with 4,300 undergraduate and graduate students. Business Week ranks Wharton as the nation’s No. 1 business school, and it is commonly in the top tier with Harvard and Stanford.

Jay Stowsky, associate dean of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, noted that Wharton is just the latest school to go after more of the regional action. “The major East Coast business schools feel like they have to be here physically, to get a piece of it,” he said.

Stowsky worries about the poaching of faculty members: “We expect Wharton will try to hire some of our faculty and Stanford’s faculty to teach in their programs. It is becoming a much more competitive marketplace for star faculty talent, as well as students.”

Bruce Willison, dean of the Anderson School of business at UCLA, said he will be watching Wharton closely as a new competitor. Moreover, he considers Wharton’s move a recognition of a fundamental shift in the nation’s economy.

“The industries that are drivers of the new economy are here on the West Coast,” Willison said, “as well the whole mentality of innovation and change.”