The State of the MBA at Buffalo

We’re at that time of year when there is a plethora of “looking back and looking ahead” on all sorts of dimensions.  Academia is a bit off cycle since we tend to run on academic years rather than calendar years but I want to look ahead based on a set of developments that have come to fruition in the past year that I anticipate will have a lasting positive impact on the University at Buffalo MBA Program.  If you have been following program developments you probably already know that we have a new curriculum launching for the fall of 2012.  This is coming together with maturing program elements that we have been refining over the last several years that I believe are going to blend into a package that will make the UB MBA one of the most holistic, integrated and compelling MBA programs in the country.

The new UB MBA core comes out of two years of intensive committee work that looked at content and delivery in top MBA programs across the spectrum graduate management schools.  The result is a smaller, modular core focusing on what every manager needs to know, with renewed emphasis on delivery as well as content, with an experiential capstone. This restructuring also allows students greater flexibility to take advantage of a rich selection of concentrations and the LeaderCORE™ program. The addition of Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainability and IT Management courses round out an already strong core by introducing areas of discussion that are high on the list of management priorities today.

One of the hallmarks of the UB program, “real-world learning” is integrated throughout the program.  In the first semester the Corporate Champions program directly connects study teams with companies in the area for multiple touch points including site visits, community service projects and in-depth analyses of challenges the companies may be dealing with.  The final Corporate Champions project integrates elements from Statistical Analysis, Organizational Behavior and Management Communication and is a demanding team effort that extends across the entire semester.  The Business Strategy class challenges each study team to evaluate a different distressed company, develop a turn-around plan and present their analysis to a live panel of evaluators who will give them tough feedback about both their analytical and presentation skills.  The second-year Business Practice class will bring students back to strategy concepts and require them to engage in solving real-time company challenges.  Many elective courses provide additional opportunities such as the live projects in Consulting and SAP training in Supply Chains courses.

The LeaderCORE™ program is challenging our MBAs to assess, develop, and certify their leadership competencies and soft skills that are so critical to successful management today.  This program is being intimately integrated throughout our core and elective courses with faculty highlighting in their syllabi what course elements tie back to the ten competencies in our LeaderCORE™ model.  The foundation of Leadership PACE, built over more than ten years, now expanded to a comprehensive two-year leadership development experience, culminating in student certification, provides an opportunity that is truly unique to Buffalo MBA students.

The first-year Mentoring program provides support for first-year teams and provides further leadership development opportunities for second-year students involved in the program.  Conversations with an Executive, country forums, multiple case competitions, the January China trip, MBA Advantage and opportunities for students to engage with and run a variety of clubs round out an MBA experience that stands with the best and comes with an outstanding value proposition consistently recognized by the likes of Businessweek and Forbes.

I am excited about the future of our UB MBA.  If you are a prospective student reading this, check us out thoroughly, we’ll measure up to your needs and expectations.  If you are an alum, check in with us to learn how you can contribute to further strengthening your program’s heritage.  If you are a potential employer of MBA students, contact us to find out how you can access what will be some of the best and brightest future leaders.

Here’s to a bright 2012 and beyond.

Dave Frasier, Assistant Dean

 

WOOSH!

I think that was the semester that just flew by.  It seems like just last week that we welcomed a new group of MBA, MS and PhD students to the University at Buffalo School of Management and now they are down to a last few exams, projects and papers.  They’ll all be gone in a few days, we’ll celebrate Christmas and New Years and then a group of us will be off to China for our annual MBA trip to explore what’s going on in the Middle Kingdom.

It was an exciting semester in many ways.  Last week I sat in on 18 Corporate Champions presentations by our first-year MBA teams.  The corporate exposure, insights and outcomes these first semester students gained were phenomenal.  Our statistics, communications and organizational behavior faculty collaborated on these “projects” this year so the student inquiries and presentations cut across multiple areas and were outstanding.

One of the second year classes, Leadership Development, had students undertaking projects including an evaluation of the Panasci Technology Entrepreneurship Competition, and the Giving Tree Project that succeeded in soliciting over$4000 worth of Christmas gifts for inner-city kids in Buffalo.

It has also been an encouraging semester in terms of resources for the school.  There are a number of developments in the works that appear to be coming together to allow us to significantly improve programs, staffing and outcomes throughout the school.  I keep teasing our development staff about scholarship funds and capital funding for the next addition to our physical plant.  That should be done in collaboration with a business partner(s) who will establish facilities right here on campus where our students can be a resource through internships and part-time work.  Things are looking up but we have a tremendous amount of work to do to build further critical resources for the school.

LeaderCORE(TM) has also been developing in great ways.  Professor Muriel Anderson and I traveled to Seattle to present the program at the MBA Roundtable’s Curricular Innovation Forum last month and were very well received.  We still believe it is the only MBA leadership development program that incorporates a formal certification step.  Current students assisted us over the summer in developing a tremendous excel tool to capture and document individual student activities that provide evidence of their competency development.  That log will be an integral part of the certification defense next March.

Stay tuned for more good news from the UB MBA, MS and PhD programs and check in with us to discover ways you can contribute to the efforts – be a classroom guest, an executive speaker, give to a fund in the school, host a group of students at your company, be a Corporate Champion – the opportunities, and rewards, are just an ask away.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Dave Frasier, Assistant Dean

East Meets West: University at Buffalo School of Management and Renmin University School of Business Linking Up for Outstanding Student Opportunities

Students from the the UB School of Management and the Renmin University School of Business in Beijing, China, will have an opportunity to exchange places for a semester or a year under a new agreement being ratified by both schools. Under the agreement students will have one-semester or full year options to study at the alternate school. Under the full year option students will spend their second semester, the summer and their third semester at the host institution, engage in a summer internship and be awarded an MBA degree by both institutions.
Given the continued importance of the U.S. – China relationship in global business this program affords an unprecedented opportunity for students from both schools to gain insights and experience in the “other” country. U.S. students with some Mandarin language expertise will be preferred but courses in both programs are taught in English so fluency will not be critical. For more information on this developing program contact David W. Frasier, Assistant Dean at the UB School of Management at 716-645-3204 or davidf@buffalo.edu

Buffalo, For Real

Really! When the tourism bureau came out with that tag line it got a lot of poor reviews – but maybe that criticism was premature.  There may be some traction in that tag line.

In so many ways Buffalo is real.  One of our School of Management distinctives is “real-world learning” and it is real.  And Buffalo itself is real, played out in so many ways.  The learning and experience MBA, MS and undergrad students get at UB is down-to-earth, practical, and holds real value for them and the organizations they will work with in their careers.  The recent Preservation Conference highlighted the architectural wealth that we enjoy here, but also focused on the kind of people we have who take such care to preserve, restore and share the gems we have in the area. I see it even in the care that people in random neighborhoods take in keeping up their homes and yards – that’s missing in a lot of towns and cities in America.

The investment local corporate leaders are willing to make in our students is real too.  Many of our Corporate Champions teams this year have spent quality time with presidents and CEOs of the companies they are partnered with.  That is real insight into the soul of our companies and what makes business real in Western New York.  As guests come to spend time with our students they comment on the genuine nature of students’ interest in what they have to share.  Corporate recruiters comment that our UB MBA graduates have a real sense of their current and potential roles in organizations – not unrealistic expectations or an inflated sense of self that they see in graduates of some other MBA programs.

I was at an event on Monday where one of the presenters was a native Canadian who has lived and worked in many locations around the world and across North America.  She recently became a US citizen and settled in Buffalo because it is a real city where people live real lives.  She was struck by the simple fact that when she was in line at a Tim Horton’s, the people in front and back of her were actually talking to each other.  “That never happens in cities like New York” and it was indicative of the atmosphere that convinced her that Buffalo was where she wanted to live and work.

You can find a real education, real people, real life in Buffalo – for real!

Dave Frasier, Assistant Dean

Connecting MBAs

As we constantly tell our students, success in an MBA program is all about connecting -  about networking.  That has to be done by the student taking personal initiative to build their own network, those who network and build their own personal capital are the ones who will be successful – on so many dimensions.  However, we do work to provide many opportunities for our students to “plug-in” to networks that we have as a school and as individual staff and faculty members.  One great feature of our orientation and personal development program, called MBA Advantage, is the “Realistic Job Preview” sessions we run in January for first year students and again in September for second year students.  That happens this year on Friday, September 9.  Here’s a list of the companies that will be represented at this one event: DTE Energy, Eric Mowe and Associates, Rich Products Corporation, Kaleida Health, First Niagara Bank, National Fuel Gas, Citigroup Global Markets, Harmac Medical Products and New Era Cap.

Meanwhile, our first year students are deep into their second week of classes and working in teams that are each linked with representatives from companies with a local, and often, global presence.  In our Corporate Champions Program this year students are engaging with the following companies: Buffalo Games, The Buffalo News, Columbus McKinnon Corporation, Goodyear Dunlop Tires Corporation, Evans Bank, First Niagara, Harmac Medical Products, Hunt Real Estate, Independent Health, M&T Bank Corporation, People, Inc., Pepsi Bottling, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, The Mentholatum Company, TOPS Markets, United Way of Buffalo and Erie County, and VA Hospital.

Thanks to all our corporate partners who give of their time and effort to produce a stronger, smarter pool of MBAs for the region and the world to tap into.

Dave Frasier, Assistant Dean

Thoughts on the Debt-Ceiling Debate and Management

I have long been a fan of the Institute for Global Ethics and its director, Rush Kidder. Rush just posted a very insightful commentary on the debt-ceiling debate currently raging in Washington.  As you consider his comments on this debate, think about how his behavior categorizations might apply to many of the debates we have in corporate offices as well. It might change your approach to managing. We can only hope that Washington’s approach to a lot of things changes in the near future.

Dave Frasier, Assistant Dean

Experience plus theory or theory plus experience – or does it matter either way?

There has been much discussion over the years about the value of an MBA.  Some pundits claim that managers only need experience and that paying for a degree is a waste.  We also have considerable discussion about how much work experience adds to the value of an MBA degree.  I have consistently held that the degree adds significant value and that value is leveraged by having experience before one gets the theory.  I use the analogy that when you are weaving a personal “fabric” of knowledge, that fabric is much stronger when experience and theory are woven together.  There is currently a trend that younger, and thus inexperienced or less experienced, students are entering MBA programs.  This happens in Buffalo for several reasons.  First, we have a number of dual degree programs, like our JD/MBA or MD/MBA programs where students in the non-MBA side of the degree simply are not going to come with experience because of the natural flow of those programs that most often follow immediately after the undergraduate degree.  We also have 3/2 programs with management and engineering students at UB who can complete both degrees in 5 years and give themselves a significant long-term career advantage with both degrees.  However, one of our distinctives is an emphasis  on real-world experience being integrated into MBA courses so our students gain experience to weave into their fabric. ( See one of my earlier posts about some of the activities that are involved.)  We also require that all students without significant work experience engage in a credit-bearing internship.

One of the best defenses of the MBA degree I have seen recently was just published in the Financial Times by David De Cremer, a professor of behavioural business ethics at the Rotterdam School of Management.  I quote a few sentences of his article below and you can read the full text at:  http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/c9f0278a-7d7a-11e0-b418-00144feabdc0.html  (You may need to register to access the full text but it is free of charge.)

De Cremer says, in part: “…Too often today business students – and by extension the business community – maintain the belief that experience should be the primary driver of learning. Experience does help to identify problems and future challenges but experience alone teaches nothing. Link experience to a theory, and you generate knowledge that you can use to your benefit.

It is at this intersection that business schools need to place themselves. Independent research is needed at business schools to provide students with differing perspectives; ideas that are proffered by experienced, independent businesspeople who realise the importance of placing such ideas where they matter most. Such ideas would have to be tested on their external validity, but the point is that students with experience can gain more if they also possess an independent set of theoretical tools.”

At Buffalo we believe in, and strive for, a balanced mix of experience and theory that results in superior learning and knowledge.  I believe without reservation that the MBA adds value for the individual, the organization and the global economy.

Dave Frasier, Assistant Dean

Is Atlas Shrugging?

For years I have heard references to Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” but I had never read it for some reason.  Finally I had a vacation week a while ago and decided to take it along.  Once I started I couldn’t put it down and stayed up very late several nights reading it.  While I haven’t fully processed Rand’s philosophy, so won’t necessarily endorse her general thrust, one passage struck me as very relevant to something going on today.  One of the central characters in the book was talking with a medical doctor who had “dropped out.”  (You will have to read the book to find out what that means.)  But this is the explanation the doctor offered for what he had done: “I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago.  Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation?  Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill?  That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun.  I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything–except the desires of the doctors.  Men considered only the “welfare” of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it.  That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, only ‘to serve.’  That a man who’s willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards–never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy.  I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind–yet what is it that they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands?  Their moral code has taught them that to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims.  Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn.  Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce.  Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled.  It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it–and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn’t.” (Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand p. 683  50th Anniversary Edition paperback – Signet – Copyright 1957)

This passage was written in 1957.  Could Ayn Rand’s horrific vision be coming into existence today?  Read it and think about it…

Delivering on Our Distinctives

Several years ago as we were defining a positioning statement for the School of Management we settled on three particular distinctives that we believed defined us and that we would strive to deliver on for our students and other constituents.  These three are: real-world learning, community and economic impact and global perspective.  The past couple of weeks have been a great example of how we are delivering on this positioning in the MBA program.

Last Thursday we held a third core marketing class event with Mentholatum Corporation exploring their planned introduction of the Rohto Hada Labo line of skin care products to the U.S. market.  Two Rohto Pharmaceutical Co. executives, Hidetoshi Segi and Miki Fujiwara, from Japan, were here in classes along with several executives from the Orchard Park, NY headquarters of Mentholatum.  (Mentholatum is owned by Rohto.)   MBA students are developing marketing strategy proposals for the Hada Labo introduction to the U.S. and will present their ideas over the next several weeks.

This is an outstanding convergence of our three distinctives in that students are working with a real company, on a real product that is facing challenges of maintaining a global brand for a product that has unique Asian characteristics.  A successful launch could have a very positive economic impact for the local community and global businesses.  It doesn’t get much more interesting than that.

Stay tuned for the next big event – the Strategy course presentations that are being delivered to top level executives from local and national companies.

Dave Frasier – Assistant Dean

A Step in the Right Direction for New York State – Miles to Go for UB and the School of Management

Last night the New York legislature made what amounts to an historical breakthrough by passing a budget on time, for the first time in years.  While it may be a painful budget in many areas, at least it is done and we can move on with some degree of certainty as to the limited resources we have to work with.

Speaking of resources, I was recently reading an article about what makes world class academic programs and, restating the obvious, adequate resources was one of the keys.  It seems relatively clear that SUNY, and therefore the University at Buffalo and the School of Management, is not about to get sufficient resources from traditional state sources for the foreseeable future.  Therefore it is critical that our constituents realize the dependency we have on raising significant donations for support of our endeavors to truly make our programs world class.

One thing that the legislature COULD do to help out is to pass UB 2020.  I am particularly interested in the feature of the proposal that could unlock land for collaborative projects with private developers.  I’m about to throw out a BHAG here – big, hairy, audacious goal that is my dreaming, and as stated in this blog’s disclaimer, not necessarily endorsed by anyone:

On the east end of the Jacobs/Alfiero complex is a nice piece of vacant land.  I want to see a private developer come in and partner with us on that land.  We put in a foundation of 2 or 3 stories of underground parking, then a couple floors of academic space with a 400 seat auditorium so we can have major presentations in-house.  Then we layer in several floors of business incubator space so companies can plant next door to a source of great knowledge and energy in our students, who do class projects and internships with them.  And we top it off with several floors of graduate student housing.  The developer fronts the money, gets payoff from rentals on office and housing space, depreciates the building and then donates it to the school for a tax benefit.

As we’re working on that we can also find the individual or organization willing to make the substantial gift needed to name the school and endow funding for faculty resources and student scholarships.

As I said in the title, we have miles to go, but it is time for the legislature to open up possibilities by passing UB 2020, and for those who value the School of Management to step up big time and allow us to really show what we are capable of doing to help our community, our state and our world when given the resources.