Prospectus - Spring 2010

PROSPECTUS COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

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ALUMNI MAGAZINE

The Missing Piece

Corporate Social Responsibility and the MBA

SPRING 2010

IN THIS ISSUE ■

THE LIVE CASE STUDY

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D O N O R H O N O R WA L L U N V E I L E D

PROSPECTUS

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Raisbeck Endowed Dean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Labh Hira Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dan Ryan Photo Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Katie Raymon Writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dennis Smith Dan Ryan Deborah Martinez

Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PUSH Branding and Design

Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Phillips Brothers Printing Contact College of Business Robert H. Cox Dean’s Suite 2200 Gerdin Business Building Ames, Iowa 50011-1350 515 294-3656 business@iastate.edu www.business.iastate.edu Prospectus is prepared twice per year by the College of Business at Iowa State University. It is sent without charge to alumni, friends, parents, faculty, and staff of the College of Business. Third-class bulk rate postage paid to Ames, Iowa, and at additional mailing offices.

The views and opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent official statements or policy of Iowa State University but are the personal views and opinions of the authors.

Prospectus welcomes correspondence from alumni and friends. Send your comments to Dan Ryan, editor, at the above e-mail or postal address. Prospectus reserves the right to edit all correspondence published for clarity and length.

Iowa State University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, marital status, disability, or status as a U.S. veteran.

Inquiries can be directed to the Director of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, 3280 Beardshear Hall, 515 294-7612.

The College of Business at Iowa State University is accredited by AACSB International — The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. The AACSB is the premier accrediting and service agency and service organization for business schools.

Features

Envisioning the New MBA Introduction Why is change necessary?

When the Party’s Over What does business ‘owe’ the world?

Foundation for Change The new curriculum.

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Of Agriculture and Engineers 12 Concurrent programs point the way.

Birth of a Brand 15

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Marketing to prospective students.

Using Live Case Studies in the Classroom Real businesses, real problems, real solutions.

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College Maintains Prestigious Accreditation

AACSB recognizes business and accounting programs.

ON THE COVER

Departments 2 25

Dean Labh Hira Faculty and Staff News

THE REDESIGNED ISU MBA WILL GIVE CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY A MORE PROMINENT ROLE.

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PHOTO BY MARK PETERSON.

Development Dr. Charles Handy

M ESSA GE FR O M THE DEA N

When Nobody Is Watching Integrity, it has been said, is doing the right thing even when nobody is watching.

People who had ethical obligations to others did not fulfill them.

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It might also be said that integrity is in short supply in the business world today. Whether it is simple greed, willful indifference, or some combination of both, too many people simply aren’t doing the right thing.

And the consequences are real. Ask the hundreds of thousands who find themselves unemployed today. Ask the retirees forced back into the job market because their nest eggs have shrunk to the point where they can no longer support themselves. Ask the students at Iowa State and at universities around the country who have to dig deeper to fund their education because the budgets of those institutions have taken huge hits.

Economic downturns are inevitable. But this particular downturn was worse than it had to be because people who had ethical obligations to others—shareholders, customers, even their own families—did not fulfill them.

Ethical dilemmas come in all shapes and sizes.

Sometimes they are consequential; many other times they are not. But as educators, we have an obligation to ask ourselves whether we are adequately preparing our students to face their own ethical dilemmas with the courage and competence to do the right thing.

For that reason, I think you’ll find this issue of Prospectus particularly interesting. We’ve been thinking for some time about what a redesigned MBA should look like.

Some of our questions were very pragmatic.

Iowa State University offers us some strategic partners in the form of our sister colleges on campus, so how can we best use those relationships?

But other questions were more philosophical. How do we prepare tomorrow’s MBAs to take a comprehensive approach to their decision-making? How do we convince them to put their company’s longterm viability ahead of short-term considerations?

The process was a lengthy and fascinating one, and our dedicated faculty who led the charge couldn’t have completed the process without perspective from some of our most loyal alumni and friends. For that, we are thankful.

Ethics and corporate social responsibility have always been a part of our program, but they are taking on new prominence. That’s the right thing to do, and it couldn’t come at a better time.

I am also pleased to announce that the College of Business has maintained its accreditation with AACSB International—The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. AACSB is the premier accrediting agency of business programs. A small percentage of business schools internationally achieve this honor, which we first earned in 1991, just seven years after we became a college.

Although accreditation is truly an ongoing process of self-evaluation, to prepare for a review of accreditation is especially time-intensive.

Associate Dean Kay Palan and her committee of faculty and staff deserve the credit for their management of the review. Read more about our accreditation on page 23.

Even in tough economic times, our college has much to celebrate and a compelling story to tell, and we will continue to tell it. ■

Labh S. Hira, Raisbeck Endowed Dean

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TOWARD A NEW MBA {

CONFRONTING THE CRISIS IN LEADERSHIP

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OVERDEVELOPMENT MANURE SPILLS GLOBAL WARMING

AGRICULTURAL RUNOFFS DEFORESTATION THE SAVINGS AND LOAN FAILURE OF THE 1980S

THE DOT-COM BUBBLE OF THE 1990S TODAY’S HOUSING BUBBLE, SUB-PRIME DEBACLE, AND GLOBAL RECESSION ENRON

WORLDCOM

GLOBAL CROSSING

HEALTH SOUTH HALLIBURTON GOLDEN PARACHUTES TYCO INTERNATIONAL

“SPECIAL PURPOSE ENTITIES” HEDGE FUNDS

MILLION-DOLLAR BONUSES FOR FAILURE KEN LAY

JEFF SKILLING

RICHARD SCRUSHY

BERNIE EBBERS BERNIE MADOFF

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ad enough?

If you feel the need to take a bath after doing business in America these days, you’re not alone. The waves of scandal, greed, and corporate plunder in the wake of the deregulatory free-for-all the past 30 years have even some of the most fervent free marketers reaching for the regulatory scrub brush.

The College of Business won’t be handing out soap with its syllabi any time soon, but instead seeks to help clean up the American workplace—one leader at a time.

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A CRISIS OF ECOLOGY Rightly or wrongly, public perception often focuses on the education business leaders receive at American colleges and universities—with special scrutiny reserved for the Master of Business Administration, a degree

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TOWARD A NEW MBA

increasingly considered the golden ticket to the executive suite.

Rather than learn a particular business from the ground up over many years, the reasoning goes, today’s business student leaps from the bachelor’s degree to the MBA to the corporate fast track. Once there, he will ignore the long-term health of his company in favor of the spectacular—and spectacularly risky—short-term gains favored by the firm’s stockholders.

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Business as practiced and taught today is, in every sense of the word, unsustainable over the long term.

Still, it’s not just the cyclical plundering of corporate wealth or fleecing of gullible investors by America’s “Masters of the Universe” that alarms b-school faculties these days, but context in which the plundering takes place. There is a very real sense that America’s continuing corporate crime wave is part of a larger social, economic, and even environmental crisis that impacts our lives in ways that current business education is not designed to address.

In short, business as practiced and taught today is, in every sense of the word, unsustainable over the long term.

ACTION-REACTION It was inevitable that the chronic excesses of a relative handful of bad actors would trigger a response by the larger business community, including educators.

Questions of regulation aside, educators have come to recognize their responsibility to give students not only the technical skills to succeed in business, but to stimulate as well the conviction and moral vision needed to change the way business is done in America to better address the long-term challenges facing the world today.

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While current economic and environmental conditions have catalyzed changes to the MBA program at Iowa State, the institutional forces for implementing these changes have been in play for some time. From the groundbreaking programs of the Aspen Institute’s Center for Business Education beginning in the late 1990s, to the appointment in 2007 of a committee for revamping the college’s MBA core curriculum, to the vision and active engagement of individual faculty members and leading alumni, the College of Business stands poised to stake its claim to a leadership role in MBA education grounded in sustainable business practices and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Any such claim might be dismissed as little more than a trendy marketing wedge, were it not for one critical advantage the College of Business enjoys over most of its peer institutions across the nation. The synergy of the college’s MBA offerings with its sister colleges of engineering and agriculture, together with Iowa State’s wider institutional focus on sustainability, provides a concrete platform for turning high-minded principles into real-world solutions through a program of meaningful educational reforms.

AN APPEAL TO BETTER ANGELS Yet good intentions and the good fortune of being situated in one of the world’s premier universities dedicated to science and technology are not in themselves enough to remake the Iowa State MBA for the needs of the twenty-first century. In the following pages, we’ll look not only at the resources available to the college for implementing the new MBA, but also the challenges— and potential pitfalls—that accompany that endeavor.

Whether business in the twenty-first century is defined by the demons of the past or the better angels of a new generation of leaders is, inarguably, a project of educating those leaders. And that project begins here and now at Iowa State and the College of Business. ■

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When the Party’s Over GETTING DOWN TO THE BUSINESS OF REFORM

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BILL KALM BELIEVES IN REFORM—starting with himself.

“I had a mediocre grade point when I got out of undergraduate at Iowa State,” Kalm acknowledges. “Between working never less than 40 hours a week from the time I was 15, carrying a full load, and partying, I didn’t have a lot of time for studying.”

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till, after a couple years in the workforce, Kalm took his admittedly average GPA to Dr. Charles Handy and petitioned the program head for admission to the master’s program in industrial administrative sciences. Handy interceded on Kalm’s behalf with the admission committee, which agreed to admit the reformed slacker—provided he maintained a 3.0 grade point.

Kalm scored a perfect 4.0.

After a successful 25-year career as a health care industry consultant for Accenture, early retirement, and several years’ sponsorship of case competitions in the college’s MBA program, Kalm has turned his reformist sensibilities to the MBA itself. With the advent of a restructured core curriculum, he saw an opportunity for Iowa State to seize upon its native advantages in agricul-

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OPPORTUNITY AT THE CROSSROADS It’s an opportunity that comes at the crossroads of deteriorating environmental conditions and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression—both driven in no small part by decisions made in the boardrooms of business. That those boardrooms are increasingly populated with men and women holding the MBA is not lost on Rich Leimsider, Director of the Aspen Institute’s Center for Business Education (CBE).

BILL KALM (’73 INDUSTRIAL ADMINISTRATION) WAS A DRIVING FORCE BEHIND THE CHANGES IN THE MBA PROGRAM.

ture, technology, and other fields to offer an MBA that didn’t just talk the talk, but walked the walk of sustainable business practices and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in every sense of the concepts.

With the advent of a restructured core curriculum, Bill Kalm saw an opportunity for Iowa State to seize upon its native advantages in agriculture, technology, and other fields.

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{ “You have this special moment where some of the most powerful leaders of our society are people who have MBAs,” Leimsider observes.

“In fact, at this point, there are about twice as many people graduating with MBAs each year than there were in 1998—more than 150,000 MBAs granted in the United States alone every year.”

Founded by businessman Walter Pepke in 1950 to bring together leaders in government, business, and academia to address some of the world’s most urgent problems, the Aspen Institute initiated its Business and Society Program in 1998 on the eve of the dot-com bubble. Since its establishment, the CBE has been a global leader in the effort to reform business education in general and the MBA in particular in order to

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The faculty needs to have the reward and recognition for being willing to change, and to having their own personal commitment to make that change.

Bill Kalm counter the social, economic, and environmental damage of unchecked development and unregulated markets.

The CBE’s “Beyond Grey Pinstripes” program includes a biennial ranking of MBA programs on principles of sustainability and CSR

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WHEN THE PARTY’S OVER

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“CHANGE MUST HAPPEN,” SAYS RON ACKERMAN, DIRECTOR OF GRADUATE ADMISSIONS.

as reflected in course syllabi and faculty publications. Yet while Iowa State has appeared in the top 100 in past years, it was conspicuously absent from the rankings published in 2009.

The college’s slippage wasn’t due to any change in its own curriculum so much as to an increased emphasis by other schools in restructuring programs to more strongly emphasize sustainability and CSR. Caught unaware, Iowa State had soon found that, under Aspen’s prodding, the competition had stolen a march on the college.

“But good news: the MBA core faculty are grasping this, recognizing that change must happen,” says Director of Graduate Admissions Ron Ackerman. “And change is happening. When we go back to that survey in two years, it will be extremely disappointing if we’re not on that list, and two years after that moving up that list.”

CSR AND THE SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MODEL Mike McBreen is one Cyclone determined not to be disappointed— and he’s not even an alumnus of the college. Together, he and Kalm serve as spiritual “godfathers” of the college’s renewed focus on sustainability and CSR. A 1988 graduate in chemical engineering who later earned his MBA from the University of Houston, McBreen learned about CSR as an executive with Nike from 2000 to 2007, when that company was struggling to defend a brand that had been tarnished by questionable labor and environmental practices in its overseas operations.

“One of the responsibilities I was tasked with is, ‘how do you integrate corporate social responsibility into a business strategy for growth?’” says McBreen, currently president for global operations for footwear manufacturer Wolverine International.

“We spent a lot of time working not only with folks at Iowa State, but other universities as well, developing strategies for how corporate social responsibility can be integrated into business strategy.”

“Nike made a huge change in terms of their attitudes and behaviors around social responsibility,” says Associate Dean Mike Crum.

“And Mike McBreen was influential in moving them that way.

“It was really eye-opening when I spent a couple days with him on the

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{ Nike campus,” Crum continues, “sitting in on different meetings to see how that was embraced, how it permeated the way they think in the organization. That’s what we’re trying to do in our program.”

Nike still has its skeptics: a visit to the company’s Wikipedia entry reveals both acknowledgment of Nike’s efforts to be a more responsible global citizen, as well as complaints of lingering social and environmental problems. But given the inherently conservative nature of large organizations, a lag between efforts and results over the short term is inevitable when undertaking a profound change in business philosophy.

WHEN THE PARTY’S OVER

REWARD AND RECOGNITION KEY Iowa State is no exception in this regard. As Leimsider and the Aspen Institute acknowledge, faculty must lead the charge in reforming business education. Yet both the formal and informal expectations faculty must meet for professional success— publish-or-perish, the tenure system— tend to discourage risk-taking.

“The faculty needs to have the reward and recognition for being willing to change, and to having their own personal commitment to make that change,” says Kalm. “If Dean Hira ‘dictates’ that we’re going to do this, but the professors don’t really believe it, it’s not going to happen.”

Leadership is nonetheless a critical factor in the success of any such

MIKE MCBREEN (’88 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING) IS A FREQUENT GUEST LECTURER IN THE COLLEGE OF BUSINESS. HE OFFERED HIS EXPERIENCE ON MESHING CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY WITH BUSINESS STRATEGY.

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} We looked at the president’s vision for the next strategic plan.

And if you look at what he was saying, he’s really asking, how do we make a contribution to sustainability?

Mike Crum

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endeavor. Besides the “outside” perspective furnished by alumni trendsetters such as Kalm and McBreen, the college has looked as well to Iowa State President Gregory Geoffroy for direction.

“We looked at the president’s vision for the next strategic plan,” Crum notes. “And if you look at what he was saying—let’s feed the world, let’s protect the environment—he’s really asking, how do we make a contribution to sustainability?”

More than high-minded rhetoric, however, the college’s best bet for successfully refocusing its MBA brand lies in embracing the institutional strengths of Iowa State in which Geoffroy’s vision is grounded. “How do we take advantage of the assets that are at Iowa State and use those to help create a uniqueness within the MBA program?” Kalm asks.

The high international profiles of Iowa State’s colleges of engineering and agriculture in particular, Kalm feels, give the college a unique branding opportunity in the sustainability sweepstakes and a material

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MIKE CRUM, ASSOCIATE DEAN, RECOGNIZED THE IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING AROUND THE UNIVERSITY’S STRATEGIC PLAN.

advantage over other MBA programs.

Not only was Iowa State’s MBA originally based in agribusiness, but renewed interest in sustainable agriculture has revived that original mandate. And fully half of the students enrolled full time in the Iowa State MBA are engineers.

WHEN THE PARTY’S OVER

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A UNIVERSITY’S ‘BRAND EQUITY’ Beyond that enviable foundation, McBreen notes, Iowa State as a whole has long enjoyed an advantage in the higher education marketplace based on its perceived Heartland values and cultural associations.

“There’s a brand equity to a student from the Iowa State College of Business,” McBreen stresses. “It’s the work ethic; it’s the integrity and humility. And it’s the pragmatic approach to problem solving.”

Still, college leaders are quick to point out that any additional emphasis on CSR and sustainability will not come at the expense of the fundamental business skills that comprise the MBA curriculum. “Our students will be as well-prepared as they’ve always been to go into any company and perform,” Crum says.

Indeed, before sustainability became a buzzword around the college and its curriculum, that curriculum was first subjected to the scrutiny of a faculty committee, many of whose recommendations will be implemented beginning next fall. Together with the broad institutional advantages cited

by Kalm and McBreen’s “branding” elements, it is the foundation upon which the “new” Iowa State MBA will be established. ■

There’s a brand equity to a student from the Iowa State College of Business. It’s the work ethic; it’s the integrity and humility.

Mike McBreen

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Kalm Continues Support of MBA Case Competition BILL KALM recently made a 10-year pledge commitment of $100,000 to the College of Business in support

MBA students receive a case study and

of the annual MBA internal case

have less than 24 hours to submit their

competition. Kalm’s gift will support

recommendations. They spend the next

scholarships that are awarded to each

day preparing and making presenta-

year’s competition winners. Members

tions based on their findings to a panel

of the winning team, plus individual

of judges, who act as the company’s

award winners for best presenter

board of directors.

and best in the question-and-answer

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The internal case competition was started in 2005. Teams of first-year

Kalm returns to Ames each spring

portion of the competition, receive

to help oversee the internal case

$1,000 scholarships.

competition and present the awards. ■

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Foundation for Change RECONSIDERING THE CORE CURRICULUM

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THE BIRTH OF THE MBA AT IOWA STATE within a year of the founding of the College of Business was necessary if the college wished to count itself among its peer business schools nationwide. Yet even then the program met with skepticism, if not overt resistance from the Board of Regents, leading college officials to center their MBA around an agribusiness specialization to better distinguish it from the University of Iowa’s program.

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hat might have been mere expedience then seems keen foresight today, as the college actively courts and embraces associations with its sister colleges at Iowa State. Still, that early agricultural identity soon faded, as by the 1990s, the MBA evolved into a more comprehensive, even generic, product.

Over the next 20 years, “change” in the MBA became associated more with the manner in which the degree was offered than in the substance of the program itself.

Starting with little more than 30 students in 1991, the curriculum split into part- and full-time programs, followed by the addition of a Saturday program that enrolled no fewer than 50 students alone in its first year.

“That really began to attract employed professionals from Des Moines and some of the surrounding communities,” notes Ron Ackerman, director of graduate admissions.

The College of Business initially centered its MBA around an agribusiness specialization.

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THE IOWA STATE MBA FIRST ENTERED THE DES MOINES MARKET IN 1999. TODAY, THE EVENING MBA IN DES MOINES IS THE COLLEGE’S LARGEST GRADUATE PROGRAM.

“We saw a significant spike in enrollment in the early 1990s because of that Saturday MBA program.”

A CHARGE FOR CHANGE Those working professionals quickly became the program’s bread and butter. In 1999, the college entered the Des Moines market directly, going head-to-head with Drake University and the University of Iowa with an evening program that further swelled Iowa State’s MBA cohorts.

Then, in 2004, together with the College of Engineering, the college launched a program that allowed engineering under-

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graduates to leave Iowa State with an MBA after only a year’s additional study on top of their engineering curriculum.

By 2006, however, the changing composition of the MBA student body compelled college leaders to reconsider both the curriculum itself and its delivery. Associate Dean Mike Crum formed a committee of veteran teachers with knowledge of MBA education comprised of Rick Carter, Amrit Tiwana, Steve Kim, and Brad Shrader. Crum charged them, in Shrader’s words, with no less a task than “actually creating a new MBA—wiping the slate clean and developing a program that would meet the needs of the various constituencies of our college.”

In 2007, the committee presented its recommendations. Overall, Shrader says, they felt that students were well-served by the current program, but that some of the MBA faculty had expressed frustration with the two-credit instructional modules, favoring instead a return to the more traditional three-credit structure as the most effective means of delivering content.

At least as significant, though, was the committee’s recommendation to rebalance the curriculum between required courses on the one hand—the MBA “core”— and electives on the other. “As we’ve seen more of these younger students through these concurrent programs coming in,” Crum reflects, “we felt that we had to provide an even more solid foundation in business with the core.”

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The restructured curriculum grounds all MBA students more rigorously in core business practices.

ETHICS NOT OPTIONAL That “solid foundation” now means that, where formerly the MBA core formed only half of the 48 credits needed for graduation, effective this fall, students entering the program will be required to take 30 hours in the core, with electives trimmed to 18 credit hours.

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Rather than taking what we’re good at in the College of Business, we landed on this idea of ‘what is Iowa State known for?’

Brad Shrader

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The restructured curriculum effectively sets the table for the college’s new thrust, grounding all MBA students more rigorously in core business practices while at the same time enriching that core with the principles of sustainability and corporate social responsibility. Indeed, the confluence of these twin imperatives is evident in a new pivotal required course.

“In the past, we had a one-credit-hour module in ethics,” Shrader observes. “We decided a three-credit-hour course on ethics, leadership, and governance would make sense in the core. We based that on where we were as a college and what other MBAs were doing, but mostly on what AACSB—The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, our accrediting agency—was saying MBAs needed.

“We were just coming off the early 2000s—the Enrons and Health Souths, Tyco,” Shrader continues. “We’re still in the middle of all that. And so we felt, OK, that’s timely, we should probably strengthen that.”

The upshot, according to Shrader, is a “retrenchment” of the MBA in certain respects, including elimination of the once successful but increasingly undersubscribed Saturday program in favor of the more popular evening program in Des Moines. Yet by drawing back into and reinforcing the core, he suggests, the college might better position itself to introduce the sustainability and CSR thrusts championed by key alumni and MBA core faculty.

THE QUEST FOR NEW RESOURCES While Shrader feels that the emphasis of sustainability and CSR within the MBA core curriculum holds promise, he is careful to note that the college in general and the faculty in particular have some ground to cover to fully realize any potential payback to the MBA program and its students.

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“It’s interesting,” Shrader observes. “Rather than taking what we’re good at in the College of Business, we landed on this idea of ‘what is Iowa State known for?’ That’s fine; that makes a lot of sense. But to say we have a sustainability emphasis in our MBA right now is a little premature. We’re planning on it; we’re talking about it. We as an MBA core have sent a resolution to our dean saying, ‘hey, we think sustainability is a good idea and could be a good way to integrate our MBA program.’

“But,” he adds, “here are the resources we would need.”

Foremost among those resources, according to the criteria of the Aspen Institute, is a faculty whose research, publications, and course syllabi reflect the centrality of sustainability and corporate social responsibility to the MBA core curriculum. “We have to demonstrate that we’re helping to create knowledge in those areas, and not just disseminate knowledge through our educational programs,” says Mike Crum.

The college, Crum notes, currently has faculty conducting research in environmental manufacturing and the safety and security of the food supply chain. And, he adds, at least four of 10 new faculty members hired last year either have already published on the subjects of sustainability and CSR or have expressed their intentions to do so—a reflection, arguably, of the rising influence of Aspen’s active engagement in graduate business education.

“We’re seeing that the new professionals coming out in the faculty field in business have an interest in this,” Crum observes. And, he says, the College of Business intends to encourage and materially support both new and veteran faculty members in networking with both Aspen and their peers, as well as adapting their curricula to more strongly reflect ethical and sustainable business practices.

A DRIVE FOR DISTINCTION Yet even if the college hires the faculty, does the research and publication, and revamps the curriculum? That, says Brad Shrader, will not be enough.

“If we think this is going to set us apart, we’re wrong,” says Shrader, “because there are plenty of other schools that are way down the road in their level of commitment to it.

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BRAD SHRADER, EUCHER FACULTY FELLOW IN MANAGEMENT, SERVED ON THE COMMITTEE THAT WAS CHARGED WITH “CREATING A NEW MBA.”

“But,” he continues, “there are relatively few schools that sit on top of a gold mine like we do. I mean, we sit on top of Iowa State University that, as an entire institution, really does a lot with it from a technical sense.”

Key to success, Shrader believes, is accepting the perhaps humbling notion that, however structured, the MBA is largely a “value-added” degree that, for the purposes of CSR and sustainable business practices, assumes and retains value only insofar as it is embedded within a more “substantive” knowledge base—say, engineering, agriculture, or chemistry.

There are relatively few [business] schools that sit on top of a gold mine like Iowa State University.

Brad Shrader

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Crum knows this, and can see it in the numbers: the biggest growth the MBA program has had recently, he notes, is in the concurrent BS/MBA program with the College of Engineering, which today includes students from just about every engineering discipline.

“And,” he adds with a smile, “chemistry just approached us to do a concurrent.” ■

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Of Agriculture & Engineers {

THE MBA ENLISTS THE AGENTS OF CHANGE

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LAST FALL MIKE CRUM HAD A VENN DIAGRAM sketched on the whiteboard in his office. Three overlapping circles represented three colleges at Iowa State University: Engineering. Agriculture. Business.

Crum notes that the diagram wasn’t his idea but instead the work of alumnus Bill Kalm who, together with College of Business supporter Mike McBreen, met in Crum’s office in Gerdin Business Building last fall to discuss the future of the college’s MBA program.

A

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s a consultant, I always had a whiteboard and an empty pad of paper,” Kalm acknowledges. “I love to draw pictures to help get my point across.”

And the point?

“When you put those three circles together,” Kalm says, “you have this nice little diamond in the middle where the MBA, engineering, and agriculture all intersect. And that, to me, is where this idea of sustainability could get its focus.”

ADDING LUSTER TO THE DEGREE As Brad Shrader and other MBA faculty acknowledge, that’s still a diamond in the rough. Yet the college has been mining its relationships with its sister colleges at Iowa State over the past decade, and is now preparing to polish that diamond to a high luster.

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Several diamonds, actually.

Clearly, the jewel in the crown of the college’s interdisciplinary efforts is the concurrent BS/MBA program with the College of Engineering.

Recently, however, the MBA with a minor in sustainable agriculture has shown another way to sparkle with students such as Nicholas McCann (see “The College as the Cradle of CGOs” on page 13 of the fall 2009 Prospectus) and Jonah Brown-Joel.

Brown-Joel’s undergraduate studies in philosophy and pre-law bring the kind of “outside” perspective to advanced business studies that can make the college’s MBA program stand out in the crowd. A research assistant with the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, his take on the environment and sustainability is pragmatic and free from the conflict

You have this nice little diamond in the middle where the MBA, engineering, and agriculture all intersect.

Bill Kalm

}

of the culture wars. Indeed, Brown-Joel can even see himself one day working for a company such as Wal-Mart.

“Did you know that Wal-Mart sells more organic milk than any other company?” Brown-Joel asks.

“And their supply chains: it’s just one thing, but when you’re talking about a retailer that has relationships with 80,000 companies all over the world, any little thing can have huge impacts.”

Such perspectives elevate the notion of “sustainable agriculture”

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ALLISON MACHTEMES, BRANDON KENNEDY, AND SCOTT GROH ARE ALL IN THEIR FINAL YEAR OF THE ENGINEERING/MBA CONCURRENT DEGREE. THEY SAY THAT BUSINESS EDUCATION FORCES THEM TO THINK MORE BROADLY.

from a limited focus on production to include the critical elements of distribution and consumption as well—in short, a systems approach to the entire food chain.

‘A FAMILY OF MBAS’ Engineers are no strangers to thinking in terms of systems, as a generation of students has been trained to look beyond narrow disciplines to apply their analytical skills to applications that may include electrical, mechanical, chemical, and other elements. That’s just one reason business considers engineers attractive candidates for leadership positions— including the executive suite.

So when, in 2004, former College of Business Associate Dean Anthony Hendrickson got together with Arun Somani, chair of Iowa State’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, it was no surprise that discussions between the two colleges resulted in the concurrent BS/MBA program for engineers. Indeed, it would have been surprising had it not: Somani’s

two sons and a daughter-in-law— all engineers—hold the MBA as well.

“A family of MBAs,” Somani chuckles.

Business, Somani feels, is just one more element in the larger engineering system, and thus the logical extension of an undergraduate education for engineers seeking management careers. And, he adds, if engineers are to influence institutional decisionmaking, whether in public policy or private business, they must necessarily expand their knowledge beyond merely technical matters.

“If we want engineers’ voices to be heard in making policy,” says Somani, “it’s in our interest to encourage our people to get, if not business degrees, then more business savvy, so they can talk the language of economics, the business world, and capital markets— not just from a technological silo.”

} question. While students are increasingly adept regarding the technical sustainability of systems, only recently have engineering faculties folded the general sustainability of social and environmental systems into the equation.

Construction engineer Allison Machtemes and mechanical engineer Brandon Kennedy, both in their last year of the concurrent program, are scholars with the College of Engineering’s Engineering Leadership Program, designed to groom elite students for leadership in business and government. The program gives students a healthy dose of ethics and public policy beyond their limited coverage in the undergraduate engineering curriculum. Still, for most, the rigors of the engineering curriculum leave little room for broader considerations.

“Initially, we’re not taught to think about the financial implications or environmental aspects of an engineering decision,” Kennedy says. “But in the real world, you have to take all of those things into consideration. You can’t have a silo mentality.”

GROOMING THE ELITE Whether engineers are any more disposed than their business counterparts to ponder larger issues of sustainability and CSR is an open JONAH BROWN-JOEL

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{ Machtemes says that ethical issues were addressed only in the context of professional practice in her construction engineering curriculum and did not extend to broader considerations. As a project engineer, she says, “ethics” might involve little more than a narrow calculation of professional liability for design decisions. As a manager, however, “ethical” practice raises questions of corporate social responsibility beyond narrow professional concerns.

“You have to ask those questions,” Machtemes says. “Your client wants something because it looks good on the numbers. But is it best for the people who will be using it? For the environment? Is a 10-year solution the right solution?”

LEVERAGING DIVERSE VIEWPOINTS Scott Groh, in his last year in the concurrent program, advises incoming students in the industrial engineering department, and often recommends the BS/MBA to those expressing an interest in business. Nor does he hesitate to expound the benefits of engineering perspectives for the MBA program.

“Engineering in its purest form is simply problem solving,” Groh says.

“You’re figuring out how to design something from scratch or solve a process problem. Engineers break it down into smaller pieces that make it easier for others to help solve those parts of the problem that otherwise might seem too big a task.”

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OF AGRICULTURE AND ENGINEERS

} ideas. Only after working with this diverse group awhile did I realize I was the one who was thinking inside the box—it was really an eye-opener.”

“To solve a problem just from a business paradigm isn’t necessarily solving that problem, unless you see how this solution to this specific problem is going to affect our social or ecological systems.

“That’s what brought me into a multidisciplinary program. That’s what attracts me to sustainable agriculture; that’s what attracts me to ecology. And that’s what attracts me to business.”

Nicholas McCann Iowa State MBA candidate Despite this ability to segment and compartmentalize aspects of a challenge—indeed, because of it— the engineer needs to see the bigger picture, and Groh feels that’s where the MBA program has particularly benefited his education. For though the program gains significantly from the analytical skills of engineers, its greatest value for all students lies in the diversity of experience and viewpoints the class brings to problems.

“As engineers, we follow a different type of thought process,” Groh says.

“I hadn’t even thought about this until I got into the program and started working with people from different backgrounds.

“One woman in particular in my group wasn’t very technical,” he continues, “so I didn’t always value her

BUYING INTO THE BRAND Whether the environmental focus of sustainable ag advocates or the systems approach of engineers, the business perspectives of these young MBA candidates are grounded in the exercise of what they consider their primary fields rather than “business” in the abstract. That, says Brad Shrader, is grounds for optimism.

“My view is that business education works best when paired with something substantive, with real knowledge,” Shrader offers. “With engineering or agriculture, with chemistry or statistics. The MBA is a big value-added degree—but it’s general.”

The college will always welcome those who pursue the MBA “generally.”

But if the Iowa State “brand” is to stand out among hundreds of others, it must build upon the strengths realized through the college’s unique association with Iowa State’s internationally recognized programs in agriculture, engineering, design, and other fields— not simply “business” in general.

As that happens, the program’s image of itself will evolve, first through the faculty and then to those cohorts currently enrolled. Only after that level of buy-in has been achieved can the brand be marketed successfully beyond Iowa State. ■

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Birth of a Brand MARKETING THE MBA IN A TOUGH MARKET

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HEDGE FUNDS, DERIVATIVES, AND “SPECIAL PURPOSE ENTITIES” notwithstanding, most business people operate with both feet planted firmly in the real world. That being the case, those charged with marketing the Iowa State MBA would like to offer a reality check to anyone who, fired with missionary zeal, thinks the College of Business is going to preach the Gospel of Sustainability to certain of its stakeholders.

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rankly,” says Mark Peterson, director of graduate career services for the college, “if we try to say ‘we’re the MBA program for sustainability employees,’ we’re not going to have very many people graduate with jobs.

There’s just not a market out there like that.”

Few people are recruited out of MBA programs to fill “sustainability” positions, says Peterson, even in large corporations with thousands of employees. Rather, companies look for expertise in the fields they’ve always looked for it: accounting, marketing, management, and—a particular Iowa State strength—supply chain.

The vast majority of students graduating from Iowa State will eventually find themselves in the business world in one capacity or another: after all, finding a good job is by far the primary reason people go to college. Still, like most of its peers, Iowa State is nonetheless a “missionary” institution

Companies look for expertise in the fields they’ve always looked for it: accounting, marketing, management, and supply chain.

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FROM LEFT, MARK PETERSON, DIRECTOR OF GRADUATE CAREER SERVICES; RON ACKERMAN, DIRECTOR OF GRADUATE ADMISSIONS; JENNY REITANO, DIRECTOR OF MBA RECRUITMENT AND MARKETING; MIKE CRUM, ASSOCIATE DEAN, GRADUATE PROGRAMS; AND DEBBIE JOHNSON, SECRETARY, GRADUATE PROGRAMS.

insofar as its “mission” centers on preparing students to make positive contributions in a world of increasing scarcity.

Enter the “sustainable” MBA. THE HEART OF THE MBA Jenny Reitano became director of MBA recruitment and marketing just as the college began work on the new curriculum in 2007. Though it wouldn’t be effective for three years while the college shopped it around various campus committees for review, she knew it would be her job to sell that curriculum to prospective students.

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The new curriculum was approved, but still uncertain was a new emphasis—a “brand”—for the program. Bill Kalm, visiting for the internal MBA case competition in April 2009, offered insight on what those guiding principles should be.

“Bill said, ‘Iowa State is focusing on sustainability,’” Reitano recalls. “He had studied the nuts and bolts of this program, and one thing he saw in it was sustainability or corporate social responsibility. He thought there was a commonality here that we were overlooking.

“So we started looking at the courses we were offering,” she continues, “—the corporate governance, the ethics, how many engineers we get. It took somebody from the outside to look at it and say, ‘I think we’ve got a theme here.’”

Reitano has already revised the program’s Web pages www.business.iastate.edu/masters/mba—a key point of entry for prospective students—to reflect the program’s new thrust, foregrounding the program’s emphasis on corporate social responsibility as the core value of the Iowa State MBA. For Reitano, that’s simply a question of truth in advertising: even if it hasn’t been as prominent in the college’s outreach as it will be in the future, CSR has long been at the heart of the Iowa State MBA. And, despite Peterson’s caveat, she’s not concerned those values won’t be reflected in the hiring decisions of employers.

“CSR has been in major companies awhile,” Reitano says. “You look at Starbucks, you look at Coke or Ben and Jerry’s—it’s been there awhile, and there is great interest in it now because of our economic crisis.”

It took somebody from the outside to look at it and say, ‘I think we’ve got a theme here.’

Jenny Reitano IN TUNE WITH THE ISSUES For his part, Peterson doesn’t discount the centrality of CSR and principles of sustainability to the MBA, even if those aren’t the primary criteria on which employers will ultimately make their hiring decisions.

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}

ANY CONVERSATION ABOUT CHANGING THE IOWA STATE MBA MUST INCLUDE A CRITICAL QUESTION: HOW WILL IT IMPACT STUDENTS’ ABILITY TO GET JOBS?

“I think that for most companies today that are hiring MBAs,” Peterson concedes, “knowing the candidates they’re hiring are in tune with issues related to sustainability, and have had some background in that, is probably good across the board.”

It’s fairly common, Peterson says, for younger MBA programs such as Iowa State’s to wrestle with questions of identity as they develop. However, he adds, roughly half the candidates graduating from the college’s MBA program will go into supply chain management—of all business fields the one area with the greatest relevance to questions of sustainable business practices.

Together with the preponderance of engineers and the emerging profile of agricultural specialties in the program, therefore, it is perhaps unremarkable that people outside of the college, such as Kalm and Mike McBreen, would perceive what is in fact already an essential trait of a program that simply reflects the character of a university dedicated to science and technology. And that, Peterson acknowledges, has always been the hallmark of the Iowa State brand in the eyes of employers.

“In terms of MBA employment today, companies are looking for people with focused skills,” Peterson observes.

“And so the engineers, the supply chain candidates with their modeling and forecasting and analytical skills— those are all really well-defined skills that lend themselves to easily connecting with the employers.

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“So if I’m an engineer or an agribusiness student,” he continues, “and I’ve had some sustainability coursework that relates to my engineering skill set or my agribusinessrelated skill set, it’s a lot easier to put a definition around it and operationalize it in terms of the job search.”

PURPOSE BEYOND PROFITS Raisbeck Endowed Dean Labh Hira and Dean of the College of Engineering Jonathan Wickert are members of the committee developing the university’s strategic plan for 2010–2015. It should come as no surprise, then, that both sit on the “2050 Challenge Task Force,” the subcommittee charged with advancing those aspects of the university’s mission that have made Iowa State “known around the world for our significant impact in addressing the major problems facing our planet.”

THE IOWA STATE MBA CAN UNIQUELY POSITION ITS STUDENTS WITH VERY SPECIFIC SKILLS LIKE THOSE IN ENGINEERING WITH BROADER CONCEPTS OF BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY.

Originating in the College of Engineering, the “2050 Challenge” both reflects and informs the core mission of Iowa State University across its wide array of academic and research programs. On the one hand, it suggests an ambitious agenda that would seem to exceed the comparatively modest mandate of a five-year strategic plan; yet, on the other, it encompasses much of the working lives of today’s MBA graduates, as well as those who will study here over the next five years.

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After all, students don’t come to Iowa State to prepare for the next five years but for an entire lifetime. And from climate change and environmental degradation to social and economic justice both at home and abroad, there is no question regarding “the major problems facing our planet” that will play out over the course of their lives.

The only question for the College of Business and the MBA program has been—and remains—the role of the business community in helping to address these grand challenges. By using its MBA as a tool to expand and strengthen its relationships with programs that constitute Iowa State’s core identity and land grant mission, the College of Business today offers an answer.

Kalm himself has little doubt of the marketing potential of those relationships to materially benefit the program and its students.

“If Iowa State wants to compete in the MBA marketplace,” he says, “it has a unique opportunity, because of the other aspects like engineering and agriculture, to create knowledge and capability for students that other programs just don’t have.”

MORE THAN A FEELING More than a marketing slogan, then, the complementary strands of sustainability and corporate social responsibility will form the thread that unifies the varied elements of the MBA core curriculum, and joins new cohorts of students from different disciplines in a common purpose. At the center of the effort to at once revamp that curriculum and invigorate it with a sense of urgency and broad purpose beyond profits, Associate Dean Mike Crum insists on rigorous standards.

“As we teach this,” Crum says, “it really needs to be woven into the fabric of the courses that decisions need to be based on strong analysis—that’s the approach we take. And we think that when you do that, you’ll get sustainability that’s justified by the science and the data.

Crum points to the remains of Kalm’s Venn diagram on his whiteboard and adds: “It’s not just to feel good.” ■

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Case for the

LIVE CASE STUDY

LIVE CASE STUDIES ARE DESIGNED AROUND REAL PROBLEMS FROM REAL BUSINESSES. STUDENTS WORK IN TEAMS TO CREATE SOLUTIONS, WHICH THEY PRESENT TO REPRESENTATIVES OF THE BUSINESS.

A law student can study case law for years but never understand what he’ll learn in one day arguing before the bench in a mock trial. Likewise, a med student will learn much about anatomy dissecting the cadaver assigned to her but never understand medicine until she lays hands on the living.

Why should it be any different for a business student?

W

hether undergraduate or MBA, you can go only so far toward understanding the real demands on business professionals through textbooks, class discussions, and term papers. Throw in a few case studies from the academic literature and you might get a better notion of the challenges people face in the real world of business.

But if you really want to get your feet wet, you need to get out of the wading pool and dive head first into the bracing, edifying waters of a live case study: no water wings, no lifeguards, just you, your colleagues, and your collective wits—deep end of the ocean, sink or swim.

That’s exactly what the students of associate professors John Wong, Jennifer Blackhurst, and Brian Mennecke have done the past several years. By partnering with businesses in real-world scenarios, their students are leaving Iowa State with the potential to swim laps around the competition in today’s hyper-competitive job market.

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Out of ‘Harvard,’ into the real world

only a few years ago, are dynamic rather than static, requiring higher levels of student engagement.

Blackhurst and Mennecke first teamed up to offer live cases in the MBA core curriculum in the 2008– 2009 academic year, Partnering with CAT Logistics, they offered what Blackhurst calls a “pseudo-live case.”

“Both Jen and I measured that as a success,” Mennecke recalls. “But there were pitfalls. It was a bigger company and their case was retrospective, more like a Harvard case than a real problem.”

If you haven’t heard about live cases, that might be because they’re not routinely offered as part of an undergraduate or even MBA education, where so-called “Harvard” case studies drawn from the academic literature dominate. And there’s a reason for that.

“A live case requires a massive amount of work up front,” Jen Blackhurst notes. “It requires coordination with the company and having that company tightly involved. It takes an inordinate amount of time.

“But from a teaching standpoint,” she adds, If you really want to get your feet wet, “what I got out of it, and you need to get out of the wading pool what I hope the students and dive head first into the bracing, and the company got edifying waters of a live case study. out of it—there’s just no comparison.”

Unlike Harvard cases, Blackhurst says, live cases give stuOne challenge facing Blackhurst and Mennecke was the need to find dents the opportunity to interact with company representatives to address a case that addressed problems challenges the business faces today. relevant to both of their respective Further, they are offered in the context fields of supply chain and manageof current business and economic conment information systems (MIS).

Whatever its other merits, the CAT ditions that, unlike cases as recent as

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“Jennifer came down for the last hatch last year and went through our facility and watched us pack,” Wood says. “She thought that what we were trying to accomplish was right in line with what she A live case requires a massive amount was trying to teach and sugof work. It requires coordination with gested we’d make a very good the company and having that company project for her MBA class.” tightly involved.

Because McMurray did its Jen Blackhurst own programming, the company had a treasure trove of data students could analyze. Moreover, From incubating chickens... from Mennecke’s standpoint, the projThe Murray McMurray Hatchery in Webster City in north central ect offered not only the supply chain Iowa bills itself as “the world’s largelements that Blackhurst’s students needed, but the clear MIS focus that est rare breed hatchery” of domestic was not nearly as pronounced in their poultry, boasting more than 100 difprevious year’s case. ferent breeds of chickens, turkeys, But that wasn’t all. ducks, and other fowl shipped across “It was a much more manageable North America. project,” Mennecke says. “It was Started as a family business during smaller in scope, more direct as to the Depression, today the hatchery is what the problems were—although run by Lucien “Bud” Wood, a 1978 they weren’t all obvious; it was actuIowa State graduate in landscape architecture who came on board after his ally a pretty complex case, and our own family had written a number of teams would figure out it wasn’t just software applications for the company. the plant layout.”

The hatchery uses these applications, In making her pitch to Wood, but due to growth over the years, Blackhurst emphasized that, unlike a consulting relationship, not only the firm was experiencing increased would the project be free, but that he bottlenecks and delays in processing would have the advantage of multiple and shipping their birds. perspectives from teams comprised of Through a chain of contacts leadthe best business minds in the MBA ing from his local Chamber of cohort. For their part, she, Mennecke, Commerce to Iowa State‘s Center for and their students would have a Industrial Research and Service chance to make a real difference for a (CIRAS), Wood eventually found small, Iowa-based business—and get himself talking to Jen Blackhurst. some invaluable problem-solving “Bud was looking for someone to experience at the same time. do consulting,” Blackhurst recalls. “I didn’t want to get involved with a consulting project, because I had other To incubating leaders things going on. So I asked if he’d be That mutual advantage—with interested in doing this live case—and a twist—is a defining feature as he was gracious enough to do it.” well for the variant of the live case Logistics case study met that criterion only partially. This year, however, would be different.

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undertaken in Marketing 343, John Wong’s Personal Sales course for undergraduates.

As with his colleagues, Wong’s live case was spurred by an inquiry from outside—here, Caterpillar’s technical sales division. Unlike McMurray, though, CAT didn’t have an internal problem to solve—and the CAT pitch wasn’t entirely from an “outside” source but instead from Kyle Griggs, a 2006 marketing grad training in tech sales with CAT. “I told Dr. Wong that one of my frustrations with coursework at Iowa State was that we relied too much on case studies,” Griggs recalls from a 2007 recruiting visit for CAT. “I told him I thought it would be neat if we could come up with a way to make case studies more relevant to students.”

Yet Griggs hadn’t told his former professor everything.

“Our secret agenda from Caterpillar,” he continues, “was that it would be nice for us to develop a way to identify high-potential candidates.”

Griggs wasn’t being disingenuous with his old mentor. Indeed, when it came to “high-potential candidates,” Griggs was “Exhibit A,” a standout business student in a division dominated by engineers. And that, Griggs and Wong agree, was due in no small part to Griggs’ leading a team for Wong his senior year that tackled a consulting project for Iowa State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

“Kyle told me that gave him a lot of confidence when he got to Caterpillar,” Wong says. “He went through six months of training, and that experience set him above a lot of the engineers who came into the program. He knew how to do the research, organize teams, and do the presentations.”

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LIVE CASES REQUIRE A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF PREPARATION AND COORDINATION WITH THE COMPANY BUT OFFER AN UNMATCHED OPPORTUNITY TO CREATE HANDS-ON EXPERIENCES FOR STUDENTS.

company’s literature, from glossy sales brochures to detailed spec sheets.

And they could do more.

“A lot of them were working with a Caterpillar dealer,” notes Ryan Gatzemeyer, a 2007 Iowa State graduate in mechanical engineering who took over recruiting and program duties for CAT from Griggs this year.

“And they’d actually contact a real customer of Caterpillar,” Gatzemeyer continues, “ask them about the product, what they liked, what they didn’t like. They’d create a sales scenario to address real problems the customer had, and to sell a new, updated Our secret agenda was that it would be product to address some nice for us to develop a way to identify of those problems.” high-potential candidates.

Kyle Griggs That’s a key point, according to Wong.

Even though the students had to know the technical Selling what matters specifications of the products they Divided into teams, the students were selling, they would be successwere assigned portfolios of CAT products to sell to clients, everything from ful only if they could go beyond construction to agricultural to mining product details to sell effective soluequipment and more. Over the next tions to their clients’ problems. six weeks, they could pick the brains “I told the students, yes, they of the CAT field reps and scour the have to know the technical side,” That’s an advantage Griggs, Wong, and CAT wanted to give to future Iowa State grads—all the while giving CAT a leg up in recruiting that talent.

So after several weeks of negotiations, in the fall of 2007 CAT agreed to send three sales reps to Wong’s classroom to give his students a crash orientation on technical sales. ”I wanted presentations on technical selling,” Wong insists, “because technical sales are tough compared to consumer products.”

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Wong says, “but that they have to sell benefits—that when people buy products, they’re not really buying products but solutions to problems and needs.”

Those lessons stuck: when, after six weeks, the CAT team returned for the students’ presentations—in addition to the staff who came for the initial class, field reps from Peoria, Kansas City, and Minneapolis showed up—they were impressed not only with the marketing students’ technical knowledge of the product line, but with their sales skills as well.

In fact, the CAT staff was so impressed by the students’ performance that the next year they invited Wong to Peoria to give a presentation on the program to the company’s top human resources executives, including the heads of CAT’s nationwide college recruitment teams.

“The field reps raved about their experience at Iowa State, and these guys had no idea what they were talking about,” Wong recalls. “So I took my teaching materials and gave them a presentation. They said it was really cool—it was the first time they had heard of something like this.”

Winners all around Blackhurst and Mennecke’s experience with the McMurray Hatchery would follow a similar trajectory as Wong’s classes. In addition to the data from McMurray Blackhurst compiled before the term, Bud Wood offered to come to the kickoff for each class, where he showed a video about the company and took questions from students based on the informational packets the instructors had given them earlier.

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live case approach taxes the already busy schedules of college faculty, he has every intention of continuing a program whose success has spurred Caterpillar to introduce similar programs in other universities.

In fact, so popular is the CAT live case with marketing students that Wong has expanded it to additional sections of his personal sales course.

It consumes more time than I’d like to “It consumes more admit. But I owe it to my students. time than I’d like to John Wong admit,” acknowledges Wong. “But I foresee access to Wood but instead routed doing this as long as Caterpillar is inquiries through Mennecke and interested. I owe it to my students.

COMPANIES WHO WORK WITH THE COLLEGE ON LIVE CASE STUDIES ARE OFTEN SEEKING NOT ONLY TO SOLVE Blackhurst to conserve Wood’s time.

“At the end of the day,” he continBUSINESS PROBLEMS, BUT TO IDENTIFY AND BUILD Wood then returned to each class for ues, “when I have kids who are timid RELATIONSHIPS WITH FUTURE TALENT. presentations, which he helped the and shy, and I have to goad them to instructors to evaluate. Wood got to produce just competent students speak up, and at the end of the semescopies of all materials generated by but capable professionals, men and ter they perform like tigers—that is the the students, and the students got women with the knowledge and intrinsic satisfaction, even if it doesn’t invaluable experience that would experience to contribute to the sucend up as a line in your vita.” boost their competitiveness for the cess of their enterprises—qualities, live case competitions Iowa State according to Wong, that made Kyle Kick-start to a career regularly enters—and for the even Griggs a “rising star” early in his One day last November, after more competitive job market they career with Caterpillar. the McMurray live case had run are about to enter.

“It gives students a lot of personal its course, Jen Blackhurst turned her Blackhurst and Mennecke? Despite confidence that they can go through car radio to NPR only to hear the the demands on their time, they this project knowing nothing on day familiar voice of Bud Wood discussing acknowledge, the live case format one,” Griggs says, “and in six weeks the upswing in people buying his offers real benefits to their teaching they’re in front of a judging panel as chicks as a sustainable way to raise programs, if not their research. conversant as some of my peers their own food. Blackhurst e-mailed “We have to do outcome assessabout this stuff.”

Wood as soon as she got to her office If they leave with half the confiand soon received a reply. ments, which are sort of a measure “He told me all the things he was of where students started versus dence Griggs displays, that alone going to be doing,” Blackhurst recalls. where they left.” Mennecke observes. would be the single greatest argument “And these were student ideas. So I “So we use this as sort of a metric for the live case studies at Iowa State. ■ for their standing when students forwarded that to the students, and come in. This is their first semester they really got a big kick in the program, so this is a pretty out of that.”

He told me all the things he was going to good measure of what they know And a kick-start to be doing. And these were student ideas. early on.” their careers, Blackhurst Jen Blackhurst As for John Wong, while he might add. After all, the agrees with his colleagues that the object of education is not “That one-hour slot I gave him turned into two hours for each class, simply because Bud was so great,” Blackhurst says. “And the students had really good questions, too.”

Over the next three weeks, the students would work on McMurray’s challenges. Unlike Wong’s students, however, the MBAs didn’t have direct

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Mission

Accomplished College Maintains Prestigious Program Accreditation

As you flip through the pages of Prospectus, you might not pause to notice the small, circular logo at the bottom of the inside front cover that says, “AACSB Accredited.”

But you should.

AACSB INTERNATIONAL—The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business is the premier accrediting body for business and accounting programs that offer undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees in those disciplines.

Fewer than 600 schools of business, or less than five percent worldwide, have earned business accreditation. And of those, only 170 have earned specialized accreditation for their accounting programs.

The College of Business at Iowa State University is one of those 170, and in recent months, the college participated in an intense self-review followed by a peer review with deans and department chairs of peer institutions. The result was the best possible outcome: the peer review committee awarded accreditation for an additional six-year period.

“We are extremely proud to have maintained our AACSB accreditation,” said Labh Hira, Raisbeck Endowed Dean of the College of Business at Iowa State University. “This college has made tremendous strides in its short history, and

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achieving accreditation was a major milestone. It is truly a measure of the excellence of our faculty and staff and the learning environment we provide for our students.”

The college received its initial AACSB accreditation in 1991, just seven years after becoming a college.

Reaffirmation of accreditation was received in 2000.

The Department of Accounting was separately accredited

by AACSB, with its initial accreditation in 2000.

The AACSB review process has changed in the last few years. Rather than requiring a full accreditation review every 10 years, business colleges and accounting departments that have been previously accredited now undergo a maintenance of accreditation review every five years that focuses on

Fewer than 600 schools of business, or less than five percent worldwide, have earned business accreditation.

23

Mission Accomplished

establishing that the program is maintaining and improving quality from one five-year cycle to the next. The review is primarily consultative, and rather than auditing compliance with every accreditation standard, selectively investigates a few of the most critical standards.

The maintenance of accreditation review this year focused primarily on three areas for both the college and the accounting department: 1. Strategic planning process and progress: Are the objectives of the current strategic plan being met? Are there enough resources to meet the objectives?

2. Faculty qualifications and sufficiency: Are faculty members academically or professionally qualified, and does the college have enough qualified faculty members to teach its student body?

3. Assessment of learning: Are the required learning outcomes for students in the undergraduate and graduate programs being achieved?

The self-study reports prepared for the college and the accounting department included information about the context in which the college operates, including factors such as the historical factors that have shaped its mission, the internal and external forces impacting its future,

“ This college has made tremendous strides in its short history, and achieving accreditation was a major milestone.” Labh Hira enrollment and demographics, the competitive environment, and opportunities and challenges. The reports also included detailed information on faculty qualifications and assessment of learning procedures and processes.

Kay Palan, associate dean for undergraduate programs, managed the college’s reaccreditation effort, while former accounting department chair Marv Bouillon oversaw the accounting department reaccreditation effort. Dan Johnson, associate professor of logistics and supply chain management, wrote the college’s self-review report and Bill Dilla, Union Pacific/Charles B. Handy Professor in Accounting, oversaw the accounting department’s self-review report.

The achievement was recognized in April at the 2010 AACSB International Conference and Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California. To learn more about AACSB International accreditation, visit the accreditation section of the AACSB International Web site at www.aacsb.edu/accreditation. ■

Changes Coming to LOMIS Department EFFECTIVE JULY 1, the college’s two undergraduate supply chain management majors, logistics and supply chain management (LSCM) and operations and supply chain management (OSCM), will be combined into one supply chain management (SCM) major.

The move, said Department Chair Qing Hu, is recognition of a changing global economy. “Rapid advances in information technology have significantly altered business models and practices,” Hu said.

“More integrated supply chain systems have emerged that require skills and knowledge from logistics, operations, and information systems to effectively develop, operate,

24

and manage.” Other universities with top logistics and operations programs have made similar moves, and more employers are seeking to hire students with “supply chain management” majors and benchmarking university programs using that category.

More pragmatic concerns were also in play. In an environment of restricted budgets, programs with smaller enrollments are especially vulnerable. As presently configured, the current LSCM

and OSCM degree programs are the college’s two smallest, and combining them helps consolidate resources and create a unique and unified curriculum.

To reflect this change, the college’s Department of Logistics, Operations, and Management Information Systems (LOMIS), which also includes the management information systems major, will change its title to the Department of Supply Chain and Information Systems (SCIS). This change conveys a more precise and contemporary message and better aligns the department name with its undergraduate and graduate program offerings. ■

VOLUME 26 NUMBER 1

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FA C ULTY A ND STA FF NEWS

Faculty and Staff News “I look forward to working

Dark Named Interim

University of Northern Iowa and her master of education from Iowa State.

Chair of Accounting

with Jim and to the experience

and Finance

and insight that he will bring to the

Departments

engineering college,” said Jonathan

Howard Van Auken

Rick Dark, Dean’s

Wickert, dean of engineering. “I also

has earned recognition

Professor in Finance, has been named

welcome this synergy with the College

as one of the nation’s

the interim chair of the departments of

of Business.”

top entrepreneurship

accounting and finance in the College

Kurtenbach, who served two terms

of Business. His term began in January

in the Iowa House of Representatives,

and runs through June 30, 2011.

researchers. A paper titled, “Rankings of Top

also has experience as the chief

Entrepreneurship Researchers

Dark had served as the chair of the

financial officer for a chemical and

and Affiliations: 1995 through 2006”

Faculty Executive Committee and mem-

materials company and as the CEO

cited Van Auken as the thirteenth

ber of the Dean’s Cabinet. He earned his

and board member for another firm.

most prolific researcher during this

bachelor’s degree from the University of

He has held officer positions in the

period by total weighted papers.

Arkansas and his PhD from the

construction industry.

University of Utah.

A paper co-authored

“I am pleased to appoint Rick Dark

Jon Perkins has been

by Sridhar Ramaswami,

to this position,” said Labh Hira,

named to the Editorial

Heggen Faculty Fellow

Raisbeck Endowed Dean. “He is a dedi-

Board of Issues in

in Marketing and PhD

cated and loyal member of our faculty

Accounting Education.

who is committed to student learning

program director, was selected as the recipient of the Sheth

and values quality research.”

Leah Berte recently

Foundation Best Paper Award from the

joined the College

Journal of the Academy of Marketing

left the College of Business after the fall

of Business as an

Science. He collaborated with Rajendra

semester to chair the accounting

academic advisor. In

Srivastava of Emory University and

department at Central Washington

addition to advising

Mukesh Bhargava of Oakland University

Dark replaces Marv Bouillon, who

University in Ellensburg, Washington.

undergraduate students, Berte will

to produce “Market-based capabilities

be involved in prospective student

and financial performance of firms:

Kurtenbach

recruitment. She earned her bachelor’s

insights into marketing’s contribution

Named Associate

degree in public relations from the

to firm value.” ■

Dean in College of Engineering Associate Professor of Accounting Jim Kurtenbach was named associate dean for administration in the College of Engineering at Iowa State University, effective in January.

In this newly created position, Kurtenbach will guide the college’s information technology, distance education, personnel, and financial operations. He will retain his ties with the

A GROUP OF IOWA STATE BUSINESS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE STUDENTS BRAVED THE HARSH WINTER AND TRAVELED

College of Business.

TO MINNEAPOLIS TO VISIT CARGILL IN JANUARY.

IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY

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COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

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DEVELO PM ENT

Are You Ready for a Vacation?

We’ve just weathered a long, tough winter. As the inches of snow piled up, it was easy to start thinking about

Just as you prepare for the unexpected in your travel plans, you should prepare for the unexpected in life.

Your estate plan should include information on who will care for your children upon your passing.

Make sure to discuss these plans with your guardians prior to finalizing your estate plans.

Also share with them how you plan to financially support your children after your passing.

If your marital status changes or if someone you’ve named as a beneficiary predeceases you, then your life insurance, retirement account, or annuity may not go where you desire.

Review your beneficiary designations annually to ensure that your wishes are followed.

DO YOU HAVE A WILL OR A LIVING TRUST?

HAVE YOU MADE SPECIFIC BEQUESTS TO CHARITY

It is very important to have a will or a living trust created by a professional who can provide you with the legal advice necessary to make this document stand up in court upon your death. This is necessary to reduce estate taxes, reduce additional stresses upon loved ones at an already difficult time, and ensure that your final wishes are upheld.

IN YOUR WILL OR LIVING TRUST?

EXECUTORS KNOW WHERE TO FIND

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ALTERNATE GUARDIANS FOR YOUR MINOR CHILDREN?

warmer destinations, or even upcoming summer vacations.

With any big trip, there are lots of questions.

What should I wear? Is the car tuned up? Are my reservations set? Has my will or trust been updated?

Admittedly, that question isn’t one that usually makes travel checklists—but it should. Just as you prepare for the unexpected in your travel plans, you should prepare for the unexpected in life.

In my fourth and final column on gift planning, here are five useful questions for you to consider:

DO YOUR IMMEDIATE SURVIVORS OR

�������������

HAVE YOU APPOINTED QUALIFIED GUARDIANS AND

HAVE YOU UPDATED THE BENEFICIARIES ON ALL ACCOUNTS AND INSURANCE POLICIES?

If you are like many of our supporters, you hold Iowa State University close to your heart and want to keep supporting its mission far into the future. A bequest in your will or living trust naming the Iowa State University Foundation is the easiest and most popular deferred gift plan used by alumni and friends. Your assets can be used to support student scholarships, the development of professorships for faculty, or to fund leadership programs.

YOUR WILL OR LIVING TRUST?

Obtain permission from the person you wish to name as executor, then list that person’s name and contact information in your estate plans.

Share your estate plans with your executors or make sure they can find these important documents.

Share passwords to your accounts and other information that may be necessary to settle your estate.

Individuals work hard throughout life to be in a position to affect people and organizations that make them feel good. I encourage you to keep these five useful tips in mind as you finalize your estate plans. Please contact me or visit www.isugift.org with any questions you have. ■ Jeremy Galvin is the senior director of development for the College of Business. He can be reached toll free at 866 419-6768 or by e-mail at jdgalvin@iastate.edu.

VOLUME 26 NUMBER 1

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DEVELO PM ENT

Donor Wall Unveiled in Gerdin Business Building During the 2009–2010 academic year, the College of Business has been installing a donor honor wall on the first floor of the Gerdin Business Building. The wall features five pillars. The two pillars on the left list the college’s largest lifetime donors who have provided cash gifts and pledge commitments of $100,000 and greater. The two pillars on the right list named faculty positions and members of the college’s Dean’s Advisory Council.

The center pillar features an interactive, touch-screen kiosk that includes searchable lists of annual donors, donors with documented estate gifts of $500,000 or greater, alumni awards, faculty and staff awards, scholarship recipients, general information about the college, and much more.

The donor wall is the end result of a multi-year planning process initiated by the College of Business Campaign Committee for Campaign Iowa State: With Pride and Purpose.

The committee and the college administration wanted an elegant, permanent way to thank the donors who have been instrumental in providing resources to help build Iowa State’s business program into the college we know today. ■

WE’RE SORRY! The fall 2009 Prospectus included a

Scott Stogdill

Michael and Sandra Wege

list of donors during the 2008–2009 aca-

Todd and Sydney Taggart

Andrew and Christina Weyenberg

demic year. Unfortunately, in the second

Frank Tharp

Douglas Wiedemann

column of page 33, the section for

Rick Thuesen

Brian and Carol Worth

donors at the $250–499 level was cut

Kevin Toft

Douglas and Susan Zubradt

off and we did not catch it. Here are

Robert and Mary Ellen VanderLinden

the names that were mistakenly left off

Lynn and Jody Vorbrich

the list. Please accept our apologies.

Stanley Warren

IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY

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COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

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DR . C HA R LES HA NDY

From the Desk of Founding Dean Charles Handy Spring means the beginning of a new baseball season, the favorite sport of my youth. I still enjoy watching games but no

“Such an institution was my goal and that of many others on the school faculty.”

28

longer memorize players’ names and statistics.

However, firmly entrenched in my mind is a story that goes back to my early childhood.

The time was 1926. The St. Louis Cardinals, my lifelong favorite team, and the New York Yankees were playing the seventh and deciding game of the World Series. The visiting Cardinals were leading 3–2 in the bottom of the seventh inning with two men out. A blister on one of St. Louis pitcher Jesse “Pop” Haines’ pitching fingers forced Rogers Hornsby, the Cardinals’ manager, to make a change. The bases were loaded, and Yankees’ power hitter Anthony “Poosh ’Em Up Tony” Lazzeri was coming to bat.

In came Grover Cleveland “Old Pete” Alexander.

At 39 years old, Alexander was in the twilight of his pitching career, one that would eventually find him in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Prior to joining St. Louis, Alexander had spent successful stints with the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs. His fast ball and curve were still effective. He had already won two games in the Series, pitching a complete game the prior day. It was reported his after-game celebration left him with a hangover. (Alexander was reputed to be a heavy imbiber.)

Alexander spent little time with Lazzeri. The latter was a strikeout victim on four knee-high pitches. The Cardinal fans went wild, including those listening to the radio in the Handy household. (Of course, television was not an option in 1926.) Old Pete went on to pitch two more hitless innings to secure the victory for St. Louis.

My mother had a lifelong regret about missing the strikeout. You see, she had left the radio to change my diaper at that moment in the game.

In my teen years, I was told that Alexander, retired from the major leagues, would be playing baseball in my hometown with a traveling team called The House of David. As I recall, each team member wore a beard. Regardless, I looked forward to an opportunity to meet this legendary figure.

Unfortunately, I was never able to find out if Alexander was indeed unshaven, as he was not with the team. I asked one of The House of David players about the situation. He said Alexander had a “flea circus” at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. I was completely puzzled by his response, and to this day I am not certain what he meant by a flea circus.

However, this does not bother me as much as the fact I had once again missed my big moment. Sometimes life is just not fair. ■

GROVER CLEVELAND “OLD PETE” ALEXANDER

VOLUME 26 NUMBER 1

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COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

Administration Labh S. Hira

Ronald J. Ackerman

Mark S. Peterson

Raisbeck Endowed Dean

Director, Graduate Admissions

Director, Graduate Career Services

Michael R. Crum

Steven T. Carter

Sridhar Ramaswami

Associate Dean, Graduate Programs

Director, Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship

Director, PhD Program

Kay M. Palan

Ann J. Coppernoll

Jennifer D. Reitano

Associate Dean, Undergraduate Programs

Director, Undergraduate Programs

Director, MBA Recruitment and Marketing

Thomas I. Chacko

Mary F. Evanson

Daniel J. Ryan

Chair, Department of Management Chair, Department of Marketing

Director of Development

Director, Marketing and Alumni Relations

Frederick H. Dark

Jeremy D. Galvin

Kathryn K. Wieland

Senior Director of Development

Director, Business Career Services

Interim Chair, Department of Accounting Interim Chair, Department of Finance

Qing Hu Chair, Department of Logistics, Operations, and Management Information Systems

James M. Heckmann Director, Small Business Development Center

Soma Mitra Academic Fiscal Officer

Dean’s Advisory Council Craig A. Petermeier ’78, Chair

Russell Gerdin

David W. Raisbeck ‘71

President, CEO, Retired Jacobson Companies

Chairman and CEO Heartland Express, Inc.

Vice Chairman, Retired Cargill, Inc.

Ronald D. Banse ‘75

Peter Gilman ‘86

Ann Madden Rice

Assistant General Auditor Union Pacific Corporation

President and CEO Carbry Capital, Inc.

CEO University of California, Davis Medical Center

Kelley A. Bergstrom ‘65

Isaiah Harris, Jr. ‘74

Frank Ross ‘84

President Bergstrom Investment Management, LLC

Consultant Palm Coast, FL

Vice President—North America Operations Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.

Steve W. Bergstrom ‘79

Cara K. Heiden ‘78

Steven T. Schuler ‘73

Chairman Arclight Energy Marketing

Co-President Wells Fargo Home Mortgage

Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines

G. Steven Dapper ‘69

Daniel J. Houston ‘84

Walter W. Smith ‘69

Founder and Chairman hawkeye | GROUP

President, Retirement & Investor Services Principal Financial Group

CEO ITWC Polyurethane

John D. DeVries ‘59

Richard N. Jurgens ‘71

John H. Stafford ‘76

CEO, Retired Colorfx

Chairman, CEO, President Hy-Vee, Inc.

Vice President, Financial Shared Services General Mills, Inc.

Jerald K. Dittmer ‘80

David J. Kingland ‘80

Jane Sturgeon ‘85

President and Executive Vice President The HON Company and HNI Corporation

President and CEO Kingland Systems

CEO Barr-Nunn Transportation, Inc.

David J. Drury ‘66

Daniel L. Krieger ‘59

Jill A. Wagner ‘76

Chairman and CEO, Retired The Principal Financial Group

Chairman, Retired Ames National Corporation

Regional Vice President Frontier Communications Solutions

Mark Fisher ‘76

Cheryl G. Krongard ‘77

Mark Walker ‘79

President and CEO United Community Bank

Partner, Retired Apollo Management, LP

Senior Vice President C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc.

Beth E. Ford ‘86

Robert E. McLaughlin ‘60

Executive Vice President, Head of Supply Chain International Flavors and Fragrances, Inc.

Senior Partner Steptoe and Johnson, LLP

James F. Frein ‘67

Timothy J. O’Donovan ‘68

President, Retired Hutchinson, Shockey, Erley & Co

Chairman of the Board Wolverine World Wide, Inc.

NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID AMES, IA

2200 Gerdin Business Building Ames, IA 50011-1350

PERMIT NO. 200

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