Preparing Our Students For The New "Normal"

Business graduates today are facing a whole new playing field where many past assumptions are being challenged. A new “normal” is evolving. How do we prepare our students with the skills needed to succeed in this rapidly changing environment?

The academy will debate the specificity of those needed skills---technical skills, critical thinking skills, communication skills, and interpersonal skills. Faculty members will exercise their appropriate academic freedom and their dedication to student learning in many diverse ways and with many diverse themes of needed skills. The breadth of diversification of faculty responses and perspectives concerning change will benefit our students as they will need to be broadly equipped for the challenges.

My role as dean will be to stimulate the discussion of changes needed (such as in curriculum and advising of our students)---by persuasion and dialogue I need to keep us all focused on being a business school that is open to diversity of opinions on how best to prepare our students for a new normal. Change is hard work and can generate material conflict. We must be open to that process of conflict and open to compromise –and open to fixing our mistakes. And change is never done—just when you think you have it right, the environment changes and we need to adjust.

We all have our perceptions (even some firm beliefs) on what is the answer. Our success, however, will be driven by many observations from your complex real experiences. I welcome and value posts regarding your insights and guidance on your perceptions of the new normal and the skills needed by our students.

UAB Brings Life Changing Research to the Marketplace of Healthcare

Two months ago, I met with a prominent UAB endowed professor and had the privilege to hear the story of his biotechnology research and its potential to have a significant impact on the treatment of a major life threatening disease. The issue on the table was the need to raise capital to fund the next stage of a start-up company that would be a part of conducting the critical “phase III” testing of his IP—and hopefully move to commercializing the IP. His company up to this point has been funded by friends and family.

As part of the commitment by the School of Business to expand our scholarship in the many fields of healthcare that connect to the research disciplines of the school, Drs. Molly Wasko, Eric Jack, and Karen Kennedy are joining me in this exciting project. Our goals are in three parts: facilitate raising the next level of seed capital, assist in designing a next-stage business plan, and directly participate in plan implementation (including the ultimate raising of significant investment capital). With regard to capital needs, the school (with university assistance) is in the process of conducting due diligence which may lead us to make a direct investment in this company---an investment that is admittedly high risk even if all due diligence is positive (given the historical probabilities of success associated with most phase III IP). However, we are making a commitment to true involvement by the school in the intense and high risk process of commercializing healthcare IP. Such involvement is one part of the strategic plan of the school, as we work to facilitate translation of IP to the marketplace and to help exceptional scholars create great companies here in Birmingham and in Alabama. I look forward to providing periodic updates, as we move forward on this exciting project.

Recruitment Continues for Exceptional Teacher Scholars

With the announcement of our continued recruitment for six new teacher-scholars, I am especially pleased to report that they will be joining excellent school-wide faculty members who continue to materially “raise their game”. We have fully met and exceeded the requirement for reaccreditation by AACSB that our faculty as a whole is 90% academically qualified or professionally qualified. In the coming months, I will post copies of the excellent published research by our many fine faculty members. As you will see, the scholarship of our faculty is a balanced blend of theoretical, practical, and educational research that is relevant to both the academy and to the professions we serve.

We are fortunate to be actively seeking additional teacher-scholars to join our outstanding team of faculty, as many peer universities, struggling with diminished funding, are inactive in recruiting. The entrepreneurial environment of UAB, matched with a material increase in school student enrollment (over 2,000 students in School of Business this fall) and the continuing support of alumni and friends, has created a financial profile that allows us to continue to grow by seeking additional exceptional scholars—while still maintaining a positive annual contribution to our investable reserves. Please know that the faculty and staff of the UAB School of Business have been exceptional stewards of our funding—as we have intensely focused our financial and business insight on very mission driven activities and investments.

Adding Value Through University Recruitment

Companies are now taking a very strategic look at university recruitment, with a growing focus on identifying and aligning with a few select “key schools”. Being designated as a “key school” enhances the level of attention the school will receive from a corporation and its leaders. This includes recruitment of full-time hires and interns, partnerships with faculty in their research and teaching efforts, and corporate philanthropy directed toward programs, faculty, and students.

I am pleased to report that one of the large distribution industry firms we recently visited designated us as their key school for hiring in the southeast. The School of Business and UAB clearly have an opportunity to add real value in the evolving hiring practices related to well educated business students, as major public and private corporations begin to move toward modest hiring and related intern/training programs.

Meeting with industry leaders is a key part of our increased focus on communicating with our alumni and external stakeholders. The School’s External Relations staff and I are meeting face-to-face with alumni and key employers around the country. They are telling us they can help facilitate potential recruitment opportunities for our students as their companies begin to consider recent graduate hiring. In continuing this outreach, I want to know how your company is dealing with the economic recovery---i.e. do you see signs within your organization of an improving outlook, is your organization hiring, are you bullish or bearish on the economy? Post your response here and I look forward to continuing the dialogue with you.

Welcome Dr. Grant Savage

Dr Grant Savage will be joining us from The University of Missouri, School of Medicine where he serves as Health Management and Informatics Alumni Distinguished Professor. Prior to that, he served as the HealthSouth Chair in Health Care Management at the University of Alabama, Culverhouse College of Commerce.

Dr Savage received a PhD from The Ohio State University. For 26 years, he has been an exceptional teacher-scholar in healthcare management. He held appointments at Texas Tech, Alabama, and Missouri, as well as visiting faculty appointments at Heinrich Heine University (Germany) and Helsinki University of Technology (Finland). He is the author of 59 peer-reviewed journal articles and 3 books, along with hundreds of published technical reports, monographs, manuals, and practitioner articles.

Grant will be joining a group of faculty in the School of Business that is following in the exceptional legacy of Dr. Jack Duncan, retired Professor of Management and University Scholar, becoming active in healthcare research. Examples of our recent healthcare research activities include:

(1) Dr Eric Jack has been an active participant in the research grant entitled “Prescription Drug Care Coordination for United Mine Workers of America”,

(2) Drs Jack Howard and Barbara Wech are working with faculty in the School of Nursing on research related to several key Human Resource Management issues of working nurses,

(3) Dr Molly Wasko has been asked by several university-wide interdisciplinary research centers to assist in their strategic planning process,

(4) Our two new hires in Quantitative Analysis (Drs Xu and Huang), with extensive skills in quantitative modeling and data mining, have been invited to participate in the efforts of several highly respected UAB cross-discipline healthcare research centers, and

(5) Several School faculty members and the dean, with student participants, have been assisting in the designing of a business plan for a potential new medical practice entrepreneurial venture.

Dr. Savage will join us as Professor in the Department of Management, Information Systems, and Quantitative Methods (MISQ), Co-Director of the UAB HealthCare Leadership Academy, and hold secondary appointments in the School of Medicine and the School of Public Health. We anticipate that Dr. Savage (with vast healthcare management experience) will also be highly engaged in these research collaborations after he arrives in January.

Exposing Myths about Business Education

One of our goals as business educators is to help students master the tools for determining and resolving personal/business challenges---including ethical issues. Views that business education is “vocational” or fails to provide critical life skills to students are based on myths about the content and depth of requirements in contemporary business school curricula. The analytical skills requisite to interpret Shakespeare, Plato, or Milton are not superior to those needed to interpret economist Friedman, financial theorist Modigliani, decision scientist Kahneman, or management scientist Simon—all winners of the Nobel Prize. In fact, as you will soon learn, business students in AACSB accredited programs are also required to study the great minds such as Milton or Plato.


Myth 1: Colleges of Arts and Sciences hold a monopoly on the production of liberally educated (however defined) students. This position often focuses on excessive specialization and holds that specialization is synonymous with professional education.
Fact: Specialization is present within the curriculum of every school in a university. Course programs in music, communications, journalism, or math can be as narrowly focused (or not) as classes in strength of materials or business policy.


Myth 2: Business students are not liberally educated.
Fact: All AACSB accredited schools of business require that their students earn at least 40% of their total credit hours from outside the school of business. As an accredited business school, our students are essentially involved in extensive studies of the arts, humanities, math, and the sciences during their first two years of study. Some business majors (e.g. industrial distribution) also take engineering and/or pre-med classes. Furthermore, the analytical and behavioral content of the next two years of study is extensive as they apply quantitative and behavior lessons learned in the arts and sciences to business issues. They also must master communication skills as they work through group presentations/case analysis--- and the rigorous process of defending defined solutions to complex problems. Business education produces a combined liberal-professional background.

Myth 3: Management education produces no new or socially beneficial knowledge.
Fact: While often criticized (and not perfect), our nations business structure is the envy of the globe. Like it or not, the free enterprise commerce system makes our country go and management education and research deals with the ever changing complex technical, behavioral, and ethical issues of commerce.

Instead of debating the merits of professional vs. a liberal education, let us celebrate the role of both and work for balance. To that end, a growing number of business schools are hiring PhDs from math and the behavioral sciences---and providing post doctorate one-year bridge programs---followed by active careers as teacher-scholars in business leadership education. Just this year, our school hired two new faculty members with PhDs in quantitative/math disciplines (along with graduate work in business) and significant high quality published research on business issues. The combination of cross-discipline training will accelerate as students see career opportunities in the not-for-profit or public policy arena aided by business school matriculation.

A Valued Partnership!

A key tool in this expansion of our teaching mission and to our commitment to ethical behavior is the use of “service learning” projects. I am pleased to note that the UAB School of Business has established a separate Program in Service Learning—led by a senior faculty member. The lead project of this “program” is assisting a local high school that serves the needs of poor students of diversity—students who are “at risk” without the significant structure and intern/work positions created by the school and its many communities of support. Our commitment to “service learning” goes beyond any one key project—into all our majors and into many specific classes.

Mission growth is driven by frequent inquiries from not-for-profit organizations for training in key management/leadership skills---such as financial analysis/forecasting/budgeting in times of declining revenue and/or high variability/risk of cash flows. Four of our faculty members (in finance and quantitative analysis) recently worked pro-bono for the City of Birmingham to facilitate more accuracy in the forecasting of monthly city revenues—not an easy task in these challenging times. As this project continues, our undergraduate students will assume more of an ongoing role in maintaining the forecasts.

The partnership that we enjoy with the Birmingham business community provides our students with an opportunity to gain real-world training and a chance to experience giving back to the community. Our students not only learn from experienced, award winning faculty but also from leaders in the local business community. I am grateful for the partnership and the leaders who share our commitment to improve the lives of our students and our community.

In the coming weeks and months, you will be learning more of a major ethics initiative by the UAB School of Business. In the meantime, I would love to hear your ideas as to what we can do as a School to become a positive force in these times of ethical and economic concerns?

Our Key Mission – Transforming Lives!

Our students come to UAB seeking a door to economic and social success in a rapidly changing world. They are often worried about how to compete in a tough world with high unemployment and increasing demands by employers for relevant skills. Our exceptional faculty use their well refined academic skills and genuine desire for the success of each student to help transform these folks into confident professionals– confident in their technical skills, confident in their critical thinking skills, confident in their communication skills, and confident in their ability to compete with graduates of any other university. They also gain assurance that the leadership skills learned and practiced in business classes can be directly applied to the leadership needs of not-for-profit organizations and government entities.

Our main focus is on experiential learning or “learn by doing” and gives students hands-on experience through paid internships, service-learning projects, simulation projects, international travel involving class projects, and direct class involvement by exceptional business and community leaders. Not only does experiential learning provide students with experience to build their resumes, but also allows them a first-hand look at what their future career may entail. We have industry focused advisory boards that provide critical input to our curriculum and to our unique experiential learning opportunities.

At the School level, I have appointed a “Council of Directors” to serve like a board of directors to the School. As a former CEO of a public company, I find it very constructive to have accomplished business and community leaders who can look the dean in the eye and tell me what I need to hear. We are blessed to have exceptional volunteers serving on the School’s Council of Directors to help keep us on track with our mission. See Council of Directors

Growing Our Expertise in Statistical and Quantitative Modeling Skills

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Nuo Xu and Dr. Xuan Huang will be joining the School of Business team this summer. Their expertise will help us meet the growing demand for skills in sophisticated data mining tools that are invaluable to both our students and to the research efforts of our faculty.

Dr Xu joins UAB as an assistant professor. He is coming from Discover Financial Services Inc---where he served as a senior associate. He attended the University of Cincinnati and received a PhD in Industrial Engineering in 2007 ---with an emphasis on econometrics and statistical modeling, data modeling and knowledge discovery from large databases, linear/nonlinear optimization, stochastic modeling, and artificial intelligence. He has applied his skills to real-world problems in finance, marketing/consumer behavior, risk modeling, and medical data---leading to numerous peer-reviewed publications.

Dr Huang joins UAB as an assistant professor. She attended The Isenberg School of Management at The University of Massachusetts, earning a PhD in Management Science with a minor in Finance, February 2010. Her training and expertise is in statistical modeling, operations management, process improvement, and econometrics of financial markets. She has published in respected peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of Quality Technology and Control and Decision.

Both Drs Huang and Xu have demonstrated excellent teaching skills. Their exceptional pedagogical skills will be important to helping both our undergraduate and our graduate students to appreciate and use the newest statistical and mathematical tools of business analysis.

Another Exceptional Addition to the Team!

Dr. Jenice Prather-Kinsey, CPA will be joining the School of Business on June 1, 2010 as the new Chair of the Department of Accounting and Finance. Dr. Prather –Kinsey is moving from the University of Missouri College of Business, where she has served on the faculty since 1990. She holds an MS in accounting from the University of Illinois and a PhD in Accounting from the University of Alabama.

Dr. Prather-Kinsey is an exceptional teacher scholar and is very active in the accounting academy and in the accounting profession. She is the author of 21 peer-reviewed articles in respected journals as well as the author of three books – the most recent being Financial Reporting in Developing Countries (forthcoming later this year) and Cost Accounting: Foundations and Evolution (2005).

From 1994 to the present, Dr. Prather-Kinsey has been the KPMG Peat Marwick Mentor for the African-American Doctoral Students Association. She served on the AAA Commons Editorial Board 2009-2010. She served as President of the International Accounting Section of the American Accounting Association (AAA) 2007-2008. She currently serves on the Editorial boards of the Journal of International Accounting Research, Advances in Accounting Education, and the Journal of Managerial Issues. She has also served on the Accounting Education Executive Committee of AICPA.

In addition to her many academic and professional accomplishments, Jenice is a very caring individual with a passion for student learning. Each year she takes a group of students to Europe to study international accounting trends and standards. She plans to continue this great experiential opportunity with UAB students in the coming 2010/2011 academic year.

I am very proud of the exceptional talent that we are bringing to the UAB School of Business. We are on our way to becoming a destination school for business education!

Increased Credit Hour Production Supports Continued Growth

Along with my excitement of announcing Dr. Molly Wasko as the new Chair of the Department of Management, Information Systems, and Quantitative Methods (MISQ), I am also pleased to report that our credit-hour production for fall and spring semester was up 10% and 14% respectfully. Given the very entrepreneurial environment of UAB, the growth in credit hours produces a direct increase in school revenue. I wish to thank all the faculty and staff members for their excellent work in creating a positive and exciting learning environment which is the key to student growth. While many other state university schools of business are cutting back staffing (in response to budget cuts), we at the UAB School of Business are pursuing exceptional scholar-teachers to work with our excellent faculty in meeting the learning needs of our growing number of exceptional students.

Plans For The New Year

We start 2010 with a new addition to the UAB School of Business team, Erik Kahill- our new Senior Director of Development and Alumni Affairs, joining our school from the Terry School of Business at The University of Georgia. In addition to Erik, we are in the final phases of recruiting two excellent Chairs—in Accounting/ Finance and in Management/Information Systems/Quantitative Methods. I am also pleased to report that we have appointed two new faculty members in Marketing and we are actively searching for two or three faculty in accounting, one in quantitative methods, and one senior position in health care management. These new faculty hires are a strategic part of our transition to becoming a destination School of Business. We are excited about the high caliber of scholar candidates who have expressed a serious interest in joining UAB. In these difficult economic times, we are blessed with being one of the few Business Schools in our region to be actively seeking new scholar teachers. The entrepreneurial environment of UAB has facilitated the financial ability to hire new faculty. We have confidence that we can hire 8-9 new faculty members, and continue to generate investable surpluses for the current academic year and again in the 2010/2011 academic year. These surpluses will be “invested” in new creative student-learning programs and in support of quality faculty research.

As we begin the new year, I would love to hear any comments or ideas that you may have regarding plans for continued growth and success of the School of Business in the coming year and over the next decade.

Have a blessed new year, David