As the tenth dean of the Harvard Business School, Nitin Nohria, PhD ’88, often spoke at an annual event recognizing the people and organizations that funded student fellowships.
“I would say to them, ‘I never knew how to personally thank the individual who may have made my fellowship possible, so I just imagine it’s one of you,’” recalls Nohria.
A chemical engineer by training, Nohria applied to ten graduate schools, including the MIT Sloan School of Management. All the programs aligned with his interests. But only one—MIT Sloan—offered a fellowship that made his education in the United States possible.
He never learned who funded that fellowship, but he remains forever grateful for the opportunity it gave him.
“MIT Sloan truly opened the doorway for me to have the life that I’ve had,” says Nohria. “It changed the arc of my life. That’s why it’s so meaningful for me to help create that opportunity for someone else.”
The capacity to learn
Other than his familiarity with mathematics, Nohria had never taken a graduate-level course in economics or management prior to his arrival in Cambridge. So, while the opportunity was exhilarating, it was also daunting.
“It just blew me away that MIT was willing to make a bet on pure, raw talent,” says Nohria. “I was utterly thrilled to encounter ideas I’d never been exposed to before. But I was also terrified, ‘Could I survive the first year and not just survive but thrive?’” he recalls asking himself.
MIT Sloan truly opened the doorway for me to have the life that I’ve had. It changed the arc of my life. That’s why it’s so meaningful for me to help create that opportunity for someone else.
He dove in headfirst and—as is often said of students at the Institute—began drinking from the firehose. Nohria would often sleep on a couch in Dewey Library between classes, to maximize the time spent studying and completing problem sets.
The MIT Sloan and MIT Department of Economics faculty fueled his enthusiasm. Nohria, who had never met a Nobel laureate before, now found himself learning from them directly.
During a seminar with Bengt Holmström (Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics, Emeritus), who went on to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2016, Nohria found himself silently questioning the professor’s paper. When he later shared his thoughts with another faculty member, he was met with a challenge, “Why didn’t you ask your questions?”
When Nohria admitted he could not see himself asking “one of the truly great economists” his questions, the faculty member gently encouraged, “Then why are you here? We’re all equals. You have a mind that thinks independently. If you don’t test your thoughts in demanding settings, how will you learn?”
“It was a pivotal moment for me,” says Nohria. “I went from growing up in India, where I felt that the role of a student was to be respectful to teachers and to never challenge what they said, to being in an American academic institution where free debate, independent thinking, and the capacity to develop your own ideas are the norm.”
Intellectual entrepreneurship
At the end of his second year, Nohria’s advisor, Michael Piore (David W. Skinner Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus) pulled him aside. Piore knew that Nohria wanted to be an entrepreneur instead of an academic, but he offered a different perspective.
“He said that being an academic in the U.S. is like being an intellectual entrepreneur who comes up with their own ideas,” Nohria recalls. “I had never thought of it that way.”
That reframing made a lasting impression. It gave Nohria a powerful vision for the remainder of his doctoral studies at MIT Sloan and shaped the career and life he would go on to pursue.
It also informs his and his family’s philanthropy.
If we want to attract the very best students—from all over the world and all backgrounds—then we need fellowships so we can support them while they're here.
At Harvard, Nohria established a fellowship named in honor of his parents, whose sacrifices gave him the foundation to apply to MIT. Now, through planned giving at MIT Sloan, Nohria wants to support future generations of leaders—including former engineers like him who dream of becoming entrepreneurs.
“If we want to attract the very best students—from all over the world and all backgrounds—then we need fellowships so we can support them while they're here,” says Richard Locke, PhD ’89, John C Head III Dean at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
To that end, Nohria has established a charitable remainder unitrust (CRUT)—a giving vehicle that allows donors to support beneficiaries until the end of the trust’s term, at which point the remainder is made available to MIT Sloan. Nohria’s CRUT will initially support his daughter as she pursues a career in medicine to help others. It will then, in perpetuity, provide fellowships to incoming students.
“Every person comes here with their own dreams and aspirations,” says Nohria. “I just hope that MIT enables them to have their life unfold as magically as mine has.”
For more information on planned giving at MIT Sloan, please email Emily Gurry at egurry@mit.edu.
