Dean Earley Envisions a Global Business School

Hartford, CT (1/28/2008) - Dr. P. Christopher Earley, the new dean of the University of Connecticut School of Business, believes there are great opportunities to the make the school more visible and deeply engaged with business leaders in Connecticut and beyond.

Towards that end, Earley, as part of a keynote address he delivered to an audience of over 400 at the "Economic Summit & Outlook" sponsored by the Connecticut Business & Industry Association and Webster Bank, said he will build on the school’s experiential learning initiatives and expand its focus globally.

"There’s no reason why UConn should not be globally recognized business school by 2010," Earley said. "It's time we start to think about ourselves not as a regional or national school, but as a global business school so that anywhere you go in the world, someone will know about us."

Additional goals Earley highlighted include plans to professionalize the school's staff; allow wider access to the Dean’s office; put greater emphasis on multi-campus programs to usher in what he termed "the University of Connecticut Business School system"; hiring more faculty and raising the visibility of the school’s research and academic programs among business leaders globally.

"UConn is an unknown secret to many people," said Earley, who served as dean of the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School – one of the top business schools in Asia – before coming to UConn. "We can leverage that into developing international alliance opportunities. This is key to developing a global reputation for UConn."

In today’s global reality, business education should be added alongside math, English, physics and other traditional courses to form the basis of a broad-based "renaissance" education, Earley maintained.

Citing the business school's unique set of experiential learning initiatives (e.g., edgelab, SS&C Technologies Financial Accelerator, ING Center, Student Managed Fund, Innovation Accelerator) designed to enhance a student’s educational experience by applying their classroom learning in real-world business experiences, Earley said "I've never seen a school that does this as broadly and wholly as UConn."

Calling the approach a "signature experience" of the UConn business school, Earley spoke of bold plans to leverage the experiential learning model into a global network of alliances. For a start, he plans to focus on Asia – particularly China and India, to where he is traveling next month. "This is an exciting time in Asia, with tremendous growth and alliance opportunities," Earley said.

Another project Earley wants to pursue could create stronger links between the business school and the business community. Because of the high cost of employing MBA graduates, increasingly companies want MBA graduates to have an immediate impact on the business, Earley said. UConn will keep a "small and elite" MBA program, he noted, but increase the prominence of specialized degrees tailored to business issues so that faculty and students become involved in real business projects.

"We're also planning to introduce a specialized master degree in risk management," he said. "This type of program will allow us to develop very specialized degrees that will have an immediate impact and usefulness for certain sectors of the business community."
School of Business Pressroom
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