Strong Leadership Continues Through Change

On October 1, 2012, I will be assuming a new position as Dean of the College of Business at Florida International University—a large state research university in Miami.   On that same day, Dr. Eric Jack will assume the responsibilities as Interim Dean of the UAB School of Business.  Often a decision to make a career change is driven by significant professional opportunities or by important family/personal options.  My decision to join FIU was a factor of both incentives.   FIU is a highly respected, rapidly growing place of world-class and global-based education and research.  On the personal side, my granddaughter and her parents live in Florida, and I look forward to being closer to them.  However, I have sadness in leaving UAB, as this is an exceptional place of research, teaching and community service.  The UAB School of Business is fully engaged in the many special missions of UAB, especially in the missions of cross-discipline academic programs/research and the commercialization of the life-changing intellectual property generated by the great minds of UAB. 

My joy is the knowledge that the continuing leadership of UAB and its School of Business will continue to lift the School to even greater productivity in student learning/career options and entrepreneurial activities impacting the economic growth of the region.  I am especially proud of the talent, focus, and kindness of Dr. Eric Jack and Dr. Karen Kennedy, the associate deans of the School for the last 4 ½ years.  They have been true partners in leadership.  They have been critical participants in our growth and transition to campus-wide and community engagement. Their efforts in student growth have been essential in generating the funding to support the hiring of 28 new world-class, teacher-scholars and to expand our support for cross-discipline research and programs.  I also have joy in the quality of the three department chairs – Drs. Molly Wasko, Bob Robicheaux, and Lary Cowart – as each can take pride in the growth of quality programs in their departments, driven by ongoing support of faculty and staff and the hiring of new teacher-scholars.  And most critically, the more than 65 faculty and staff members are mission-focused professionals who individually and collectively are servant leaders of student learning, and contributors to the life-changing discovery/research that defines UAB. 

Thanks to the continuous, outpouring support from alumni and community leaders, and the many exceptional accomplishments of our faculty, students and alumni, I depart from UAB knowing that the School of Business is thriving and excelling to new heights of recognition for high-quality business education!

The Impact of Faculty Recruiting in the Accounting Discipline

In just the past few years we have recruited 10 new faculty members in accounting---three  full professors with exceptional long-term records as teacher-scholars , one associate professor, four assistant professors with new degrees from world-class PhD  programs, and two instructors with long and  prominent industry careers . All ten of these new faculty members bring exceptional academic backgrounds, and all have worked in industry positions which have enhanced their classroom skills. See full biographical info on each new faculty member here. But, let me highlight a couple of them to give you a flavor of the high quality and student focus of this new group of faculty. 

Joining the faculty this fall are two senior faculty members from quality academic programs in California. Dr Arline Savage comes to UAB from the Orfalea College of Business at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, California—where she was the Deloitte Faculty Fellow. She holds a PhD from the University of Port Elizabeth, South Africa and has taught accounting in South Africa, Canada, and the US. She is the recipient of major awards in both teaching and in research. She has also been an active consultant to several private equity firms.  Dr. Savage is an example of a  faculty member who brings all the key skills and experiences to be both exceptional in the classroom and as a researcher who fits the model of an outstanding investigator common at UAB---a scholar respected by international peers. Also coming from California is Dr Terry Grant. Terry was a visiting Professor this past spring from the Mihaylo College of Business at Cal State Fullerton (the largest accounting program in California). He joins us fulltime this fall.   Terry earned a PhD at Florida State and a BS with high honors from the University of Alabama. Dr Grant brings many years teaching experience as the accounting area coordinator at the US Air Force Academy. Like Dr Savage, Dr Grant also has a record of excellence in research—with both awards for best papers and funded support from KPMG (audit, tax and advisory firm).

Instructor Eddie Nabors joined our faculty in fall 2011 and has been a true blessing to our students—as he brings several decades of high level real-world experience to our classrooms. I have stopped counting the number of times students have stopped me in the hallway to say how much they appreciate the opportunity to be mentored by Eddie Nabors. Eddie holds a BS and a Masters in accounting and has served as the CFO of a public company and as the CEO of a private entrepreneurial company.  But the most impressive thing about Eddie is his very intense commitment to mentoring our students. His genuine passion for pushing students to achieve their best is a wonder to see. And the students know it is real and respond by stepping up their game.  

Much has changed in the last few years in the Accounting area at UAB. But one thing is clear –we have in place top-tier faculty demonstrating excellence in both teaching and research. However, we will not rest. Under the direction of Interim Chair Dr Lary Cowart, we will be recruiting more new respected faculty members in the coming year.  In addition to introducing new faculty members, I am also very pleased to report that Professor Ollie Powers will be taking a sabbatical from retirement to teach a financial accounting class this fall.    

Improving Student Learning Outcomes During Challenging Times

State funding in most all states, including Alabama, has declined by more than 30%, while enrollments have increased. Like many in industry, we in the academy are being asked to provide higher levels of outcomes (in our case economic stimulating education and research) in an environment of reduced basic funding. And like many in industry, UAB and the UAB School of Business have found creative and innovative ways to expand the quality of outcomes.  How has this occurred, and what are the expectations for the future?   And more importantly, how will we continue to improve the learning outcomes for our students?

We see three keys to our success in the last few years and to our continued success in student learning and quality research: 

(1)   We are becoming more intensely focused in our selective missions. Our focus is simple and twofold but always a challenge to implement: 

(a)   Provide students with market-driven skills that prepare them to be immediately productive while having the problem solving insights to be future leaders. To that end, we are moving to an even greater focus on experiential learning based on internships and service learning.   

(b)   Engage in research that touches “big problems.” Our faculty are taking on challenges of discovery that are cross-discipline and dealing with real concerns facing our society and community. And they are “pulling” and mentoring students into this process of research and discovery. This form of “learn by doing” nurtures students to be directly involved in problem defining and problem solving, requiring the mastering of key discipline-based skills.

(2)   We are stressing innovation in how we achieve our key focused missions.  

Technology is quickly altering the process of student learning. Our faculty members have embraced technology, as a way to enhance and expand their critical role of mentoring and assisting students.  I am very pleased to report that our faculty members and staff have made many sacrifices of time to master the art and science of using 21^st Century learning technologies blended with old fashioned effective one-on-one personal mentoring. I am proud of their ongoing efforts to appropriately bring technology into the learning process.  I am also proud of the efforts of our faculty to engage in research which touches on key social/community and industry problems. Our faculty members are being invited daily by many parts of the UAB community (e.g. medicine, nursing, engineering, computer science, and public health) to participate in funded research and the commercialization of creative new ventures flowing from UAB Intellectual Property.  We have plans to engage more of our students in these entrepreneurial efforts - more of that focused “learn-by-doing.” 

(3)   We are being very entrepreneurial in how we seek, obtain, and wisely use new sources of revenue. 

While state funding supporting the School of Business has declined by over 30% in the past four years, our total “revenue” from all sources in the same timeframe is up over 20%. The net increase in revenue has come from a rise in credit hours taught, a significant increase in private donor support (and we say thank you for your support!), and added cross disciple  support for our participation in sponsored research grants.  To meet our focused goals, we have used our added resources to hire 29 new teacher-scholars in the last four years (a net gain of 13 faculty members, net of retirements or departures) and to add to the school’s funding dedicated to student scholarships.  

In summary, the UAB School of Business is thriving in challenging times.  I see evidence of the successful efforts by faculty and staff, and I am filled with pride as graduates step into their next phase of life prepared with real and valuable growth.     

In Loving Memory of Professor Mickey Gee

My perspective on Mickey may be different from the normal business or academic relationship, as I was blessed to attend Canterbury United Methodist Church with Mickey and his wife Harriet. I was able to see Mickey not just as a kind and caring teacher-mentor. I saw Mickey as a man of servant leadership, and I saw where he got his life basics. Mickey’s ability to see the needs of a wide variety of folks and to be that rare soul who immediately reached out to help was based in his real faith and a driving need to practice that faith. His life basics were built in knowing the love of his Christ, and knowing the need to pass that love on to others by his deeds.  And all was done with smiles that filled a room with the light of wisdom, based on whom he followed. 

So what are the key lessons we can pass on to future students and peers who will not know Professor Mickey Gee? 

First, we all need to remember our basics. While we may or may not share Mickey’s faith, we can share his basic belief in being a servant to those in need. We can all start each day remembering it is not about us, but about a far greater mission to touch the lives of others. I plan to focus on having more “Mickey moments” in my life, those times when I stop whatever I am doing to deal with a human need placed in my path. 

Second, we in the academy can remember every day that teaching and mentoring students is the key reason for our being here. Sometimes in the hectic pace of pursuing many other important UAB and personal goals we can lose focus on the impact our attitude and aptitude has on the next generation. While service to our many communities and research are important to the academy, our lifting up of students is critical to building successful communities and future researchers. As Mickey demonstrated, our mentoring of students can include engaging them in our service and research commitments. His work with students on service learning (especially the Wilcox County project) was a clear example of his integration of mentoring and serving.  

Third, we can all follow Mickey’s lead as a supporting and encouraging friend. On many a ride with Mickey to Kiwanis meetings on Tuesdays, he would always ask “how are you doing?”  This was not casual talk, but a genuine caring question. The ride downtown and back would also usually include a story of some student issue or concern. He wanted me to know student issues and sought my guidance and insights. His level of caring could be a lesson to us all. 

Mickey was a valued mentor to us all and he will be missed.  I promise that his memory will live on in “Mickey moments.”

New Online Degree Programs Expand Access to High-Quality Education

With a focus on providing access to a high-quality, accredited learning experience, we now have an exciting new way to facilitate interactive learning and expand access to quality teaching.  Through our new fully online accounting degree programs, both at the undergraduate and graduate level, students from all of Alabama, the region and the global community can access fully accredited (by AACSB) accounting programs. 

Like all forms of student learning experiences, quality does matter.  These programs are a result of over two years of market research and intensive preparation to assure that the quality of these online offerings match the recognized high quality of our traditional programs.  The classes are developed by and will be taught by the same respected UAB teacher-scholars who currently teach in traditional (and blended) classroom formats.  In the process of preparing for these programs, I have been amazed at how the technological tools available today can and do facilitate faculty-to-student interaction and mentoring, as well as very effective student-to-student and group interactions on projects and group discussions. 

Applications are being accepted now for the undergraduate online program that begins this summer and the graduate online program beginning in the fall 2012. We are also providing a bridge program that will allow students with a degree not in accounting to “bridge’ to our Masters of Accounting program—just as we do with our traditional programs in accounting.   

The same market research we did in Accounting has been completed for our Information System and Industrial Distribution programs. We are seeing many positive results from our research and are continuing to explore these options.   

In addition to new online programs, our teacher-scholars are bringing new tools to traditional classrooms—allowing students to customize their individual pace of learning via online tutorials and learning tools. Such tools allow faculty more time to engage with individual students and to facilitate, not restrict, their critical role as life-changing mentors. 

Key Thematic Goals For The Next Five Years

The leadership of the School spent fall term reviewing the book The Innovative University by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, a recognized expert in innovation in times of difficult transitions. The theme of the book is that two key changes have caused a dramatic and permanent change in higher education: (1) The persistent and deep financial crisis of the recession; and (2) The disruptive technology of the internet and viable online education tools. He concludes that each University must be more focused on niches of excellence, with selective and limited key thematic goals. 

I am pleased to report that the UAB School of Business has been and will be very responsive to the strategies of focus urged by Professor Christensen. For the last several years, in preparation for our AACSB visitation, we engaged the faculty and staff in a process of intense strategic planning. Beyond a successful accreditation visit, we have achieved a new and stimulating culture of change in which faculty (including both our many long-term faculty members and our 27 new faculty members)  are together : (1) exploring and implementing creative, technologically-driven,  and high quality ways to meet the rapidly changing learning needs of students; and (2) moving deep into a process of research and discovery related to the commercialization of the great  intellectual property created by UAB’s respected  scientists and medical investigators. As a result of the necessity of change and the crisis of economic uncertainty, we are creating new sources of revenue and pride in helping to solve big, meaningful problems. And we are pulling our students into this process of change and discovery so they learn first-hand that change can mean opportunity and growth.

Helping Solve Big Problems Through Translational Mentoring and Research

In the past several years we have focused our School on two key themes: (1) Creating an environment of support and mentoring that enhances student learning and (2) Applying our faculty’s exceptional skills of discovery/research to take on big, meaningful problems.

Our students and their families expect us to be creative and dedicated in focusing on their success as students and their success in a lifetime of evolving careers. I am proud to say that the UAB School of Business faculty and staff are daily focused on the real needs of students. We measure our progress on this critical School theme by the use of well developed “Assurance of Learning” (AOL) tools—we inspect what we expect, and then take steps to make improvements where needed. Our accrediting organization (AACSB) calls this key last step “completing the loop” of AOL.  Nationally, thought leaders and key educational observers are concerned that a big, meaningful problem for this economy is not having enough well educated employees with the technical, behavioral, and management skills needed for growth in the 21^st century.  We are completing the loop of AOL with new/revised and rigorous classes that add to our students’ skills in quantitative analysis, communication, rapidly changing technical areas, and critical thinking. We understand the importance of these efforts to the economic success of the many communities we serve. We call this translational mentoring and learning as we transition our students from great potential to productive leaders of commerce and society.

Our second key School theme is a dedication to participating with the many areas of research excellence at UAB—to address big, meaningful social, economic, commercial and health problems.  Cross-disciple research at UAB is imbedded in the DNA of this exceptional institution of discovery. The solutions to Big Problems need many skills. The skill we in the School of Business bring to the process is more concentrated in what is today called translational research—how to materially move great discoveries/research findings far more rapidly into the communities of need.  In the world of commerce, we study and implement creative ways to speed up the movement of awesome intellectual property created by UAB’s many exceptional scientists and engineers—move it from the “bench” of a lab into the communities we serve. We are also focused on commercializing these great discoveries and improved processes. We are building a team of teacher-scholars with real world experiences in creating and growing new companies—new companies that will create high paying jobs  and tax revenue in Birmingham and the region. And we will soon be telling you more of our plans to create a multi-million dollar philanthropic private equity fund to be jointly managed by the Schools of Business and Medicine. This fund will provide proof of concept capital to aspiring UAB entrepreneurs.