By now, long-time readers of OR/MS Today are used to the question: If operations research is so good at solving so many critical business problems, why aren't more O.R. professionals on CEOs' speed dials?

Depending on whom you talk to, two basic theories emerge: 1. "Operations research" is a lousy name, and decision-makers in the real world don't know what the heck it is; and 2. O.R. practitioners are lousy salesmen because they never learned the fine art of communication while busy honing their technical chops.

This "Back-to-School Special Issue" offers a third theory that hardly anyone in the O.R. community wants to acknowledge, let alone discuss: Many of those who teach O.R. courses in business schools are doing a "lousy" job in terms of converting MBAs into future consumers of operations research.

As Tom Grossman points out in "O.R. in Biz Schools: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (page 28): "We've been teaching O.R. to business students since the 1960s. This means that a large proportion of today's senior executives took the O.R. course that was mandatory in MBA and BBA programs until 1991, and common thereafter. We had a captive audience to whom we could sell O.R. This was a golden opportunity to develop O.R. Champions throughout the economy."

And yet, says Grossman, the O.R. message has yet to resonate with the future leaders of the business world. While we could no doubt burn up a few more decades debating what went wrong, it would be far more useful to offer potential solutions.

For his part, Grossman, who teaches business students at the University of San Francisco and is a leader with the INFORMS Forum on Education, claims the time has come "for rigorous empirical research on business analytics to identify commonalities, opportunities, problems and solutions."

Peter Bell of the University of Western Ontario, a longtime champion of O.R.-based courses and case studies in business schools, offers another solution in "O.R. for Everyone, Including Poets" (page 22). Bell presents "seven really useful O.R. concepts that can be effectively employed by anyone." Sometimes the most obvious answers are the best.

Of course, the bottom line for most students interested in landing a job outside academia is finding a position that provides prestige, a challenge and a nice living. So what does industry want from O.R. grads in return? That is the question Mohan Sodhi and Byung-Gak Son ask in their contribution to this back-to-school special issue (page 32). Think of it as reverse engineering the teaching problem. For answers, they analyzed hundreds of "operations research" classified ads posted on the online version of OR/MS Today and Monster.com. Their research provides interesting reading not only for students, but for teachers and employers as well.

Speaking of O.R. education, has anyone had a greater impact on the profession than the late George B. Dantzig? A handful of his former students and colleagues share their stories of the Great GBD starting on page 40. Anyone familiar with O.R. is well aware of Professor Dantzig's monumental contributions to the field. Based on the comments from his former students and colleagues, Professor Dantzig made an even greater contribution to humanity.

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