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 21st 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.
