Panel Discussion: Where You Stand Depends on Where You Sit

Abstract

Lane: It seems to me that the organizational location of any particularfield in a university is a function of three kinds of developments: intellectual (within and among academic fields), organizational (within any particular academic institution), and real world (within any particular area of societal activity). Accordingly, our opening questions are: What is the mission of management education for nonprofit organizations? and Where within universities are these programs best located? Young: It seems to me that the mission of nonprofit management education is two-fold: first, to prepare those who currently are or intend to become leaders or managers of private, not-for-profit organizations; and second, to educate leaders and managers of public sector and business organizations to the nuances of nonprofits so that they can interact more effectively with nonprofits. These two aspects of the mission are premised on the understanding that nonprofits do not operate in isolation but are very much intertwined with, yet distinct from, business and government.