When Edward Snyder takes the reins at the Yale University School of Management next year, some say the celebrated business-school dean will be taking on a challenge bigger than any of his past positions.

Mr. Snyder will be tasked with lifting a solid, but lesser-known business school with fewer brand-name faculty that lacks the history and size of many elite programs. He'll face the challenge of attracting higher caliber recruiters to campus and finding donors to fund new projects at the school, without the benefit of many big-name or deep-pocketed alumni.

Mr. Snyder entered his previous deanships -- at University of Virginia's Darden School of Business and University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, respectively -- with similar laundry lists and emerged as a turnaround specialist who could woo stakeholders and donors, win the admiration of faculty and energize students and alums.

At Virginia, he was credited with boosting diversity in the student body, improving facultyresearch and landing a $60 million donation from a single donor. At Chicago, Mr. Snyder set out to change the school's staid and contentious culture, improve relations between the business school and the university and capitalize on Chicago's famous economics bent. During his stint, the school landed a $300 million gift from financier David Booth -- the largest donation ever to a business school.

In an unusual move, Mr. Snyder won't start at Yale until next July, after a one-year sabbatical, during which he says he will research and write. 'When he asked for the year off, we initially pushed back,' says Yale president Rick Levin. 'We decided he was definitely worth the wait.'

The 56-year-old Mr. Snyder had considered returning to the faculty at Chicago after his 10-year limit as dean drew near, but says the challenge of building another business school within a prominent university drew him to Yale.

'I like building; it's the aspiration, but also the competition,' says Mr. Snyder, adding that a deanship at a business school with fewer challenges wouldn't have suited him; there wouldn't have been room to make changes.

The M.B.A. program Mr. Snyder inherits at Yale pales in size and scope to many other elite business schools. The school has been around for less than 40 years and has just 6,000 or so living alums; each M.B.A. class has around 200 students. By comparison, Harvard Business School and Columbia Business School have been in operation for almost a century or more, boast tens of thousands of alumni and class size between 600 and 900.

Size is a challenge Mr. Snyder says he hasn't figured out how to address. He and university officials say there's a clear trade-off between the benefits of a larger class -- notoriety, better recruiters, ability to add faculty, and more alumni -- and the close-knit community that comes with a small school.

Diana Middleton

• management [´mænidʒmənt] n.管理；处理；经营 (初中英语单词)
• celebrated [´selibreitid] a.著名的 (初中英语单词)
• challenge [´tʃælindʒ] n.&vt.向....挑战；怀疑 (初中英语单词)
• faculty [´fækəlti] n.才干；天赋；院，系 (初中英语单词)
• campus [´kæmpəs] n.大学校园；学校场地 (初中英语单词)
• previous [´pri:viəs] a.先，前，以前的 (初中英语单词)
• admiration [,ædmə´reiʃən] n.赞赏，钦佩 (初中英语单词)
• virginia [və´dʒinjə] n.佛吉尼亚(州) (初中英语单词)
• research [ri´sə:tʃ] n.&vi.调查；探究；研究 (初中英语单词)
• culture [´kʌltʃə] n.修养；文化；饲养 (初中英语单词)
• unusual [ʌn´ju:ʒuəl] a.不平常的；异常的 (初中英语单词)
• definitely [´definitli] ad.明确地；绝对 (初中英语单词)
• prominent [´prɔminənt] a.突起的；凸出的 (初中英语单词)
• program [´prəugræm] n.说明v.为...安排节目 (初中英语单词)
• comparison [kəm´pærisən] n.比较；对照；比喻 (初中英语单词)
• columbia [kə´lʌmbiə] n.哥伦比亚 (初中英语单词)
• ability [ə´biliti] n.(办事)能力；才干 (初中英语单词)
• finding [´faindiŋ] n.发现物；判断；结果 (高中英语单词)
• decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
• harvard [´hɑ:vəd] n.哈佛大学 (高中英语单词)
• community [kə´mju:niti] n.团体；社区；公众 (高中英语单词)
• respectively [ri´spektivli] ad.各自地；分别地 (英语四级单词)
• laundry [´lɔ:ndri] n.洗衣店；待洗的衣服 (英语四级单词)
• specialist [´speʃəlist] n.专家 (英语四级单词)
• chicago [ʃi´kɑ:gəu] n.芝加哥 (英语四级单词)
• economics [i:kə´nɔmiks, i:,-] n.经济学 (英语四级单词)
• aspiration [,æspə´reiʃən] n.渴望；志向；抱负 (英语四级单词)
• taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
• diversity [dai´və:siti] n.差异；多样性 (英语六级单词)
• landing [´lændiŋ] n.登陆；降落；楼梯平台 (英语六级单词)
• financier [fi´nænsiə] n.财政家，金融家 (英语六级单词)
• alumni [ə´lʌmnai] n.alumnus的复数 (英语六级单词)