Dear Alumni,

I would like to thank many of you who took the time to provide me with significant feedback on my vision statement last year. The responses were overwhelmingly positive.

As we look forward to a new school year, I am prompted to look back at the year behind us, my first with the College of Business Administration, and consider the progress we have made toward the long term goals outlined one year ago.

We have had success in some areas, while in others progress is difficult to see and in still others we have identified new challenges. Please reflect with me on where we stand and what the future requires.

Systems Thinking

Systems thinking has been successfully introduced in the Executive MBA, the Master's of Product Development and the Business Turnaround Management programs through a course that I personally taught.

It is critical that we employ the power of systems thinking and holistic views in all aspects of our teaching and practices. To sustain this level of teaching it is important to have our faculty teaching the principles of systems thinking. 

Leadership

Our first course on leadership was delivered to the Executive MBAs in January of this year. The week-long, seminar-style course was delivered jointly by myself and Visiting Professor Bob Thomas, a world-renowned expert on the subject.

One of the our students commented, "I have taken every leadership course offered in my academic and corporate experiences, and this one has taught me more than all the others combined." We are proud of our ability to offer something really useful on the subject and look forward to continuing and expanding the program.

Business Turnaround Management (BTM)

Our new BTM program has gone from idea stage to an approved program with students enrolled. This represents a very significant accomplishment for the College and should be a point of pride for those on our team who worked so very hard to deliver this program.

Integrated Curriculum

The BTM classes are taught simultaneously by academic and industry experts. This is a major step forward in integrating practice and theory. Similar integration in other programs will remain a long-term challenge. The required culture change will take time. Our faculty has begun a dialogue on how best to tackle development of an integrated curriculum, an important first step.

Experiential Learning

Our students have a number of internships and co-op opportunities available to them and we hope we can continue to build and expand this area. However, even though I believe this is critical, we have made no progress on creating workplace simulations to complement classroom teaching.

New Initiative: Build on Lean

In addition to the important initiatives that will carry over from last year, I am adding the need to build on our ability to prepare our students in the area of Lean Principles.

Challenges

We have started several initiatives since 2006 with good results. However, none of these are sustainable without all the key people taking ownership and leading the implementation.

Thank you for your thoughtful feedback and support over the past year. I welcome and appreciate the comments and advice you share with me. I ask that you stay involved with me and the College by continuing our dialogue.

I also ask that you make a conscious effort to market our College to your family, friends and associates. Our enrollment numbers have improved this year and we need this trend to continue to allow us to fulfill our mission.

Warm regards,

Hossein Nivi, Ph.D.
Dean, College of Business Administration