Strategic Plan for

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1 The Eller College of Management is internationally recognized for pioneering research, innovative curriculum, distinguished faculty, excellence in entrepreneurship, and social responsibility. U.S.News & World Report ranks the Eller undergraduate program #12 among public business schools and five of its departments are among the top 25 Entrepreneurship, MIS, Marketing, Management and Organizations, and Accounting. The MPA program in the School of Public Administration and Policy ranks in the top 50. Financial Times ranks the Eller MBA full-time program #27 in the U.S. and #57 in the world, and Forbes ranks the program among the top 50 nationwide. The College leads the nation s business schools in generating grant funds for research. In addition to a full-time MBA program, the Eller College offers an evening MBA program, and the Eller Executive MBA. The Eller College of Management supports more than 5,100 undergraduate and 600 graduate students. In , 1,200 students graduated making Eller one of the top two degree granting colleges in the University. Prebusiness is one of the most sought-after majors at the University. Faculty Success / World-Class Research To create new knowledge and be regarded as among the world s best management schools, the College must first and foremost continue to attract and retain an outstanding research faculty. Currently 97 faculty hold tenure track positions and an additional 25 faculty are lecturers. Of the tenure track positions, 41 are ranked full professors, 27 associate, and 29 assistant. Over the past 25 years, our research efforts have led to the creation of new knowledge in ways that improve the human condition in Arizona and beyond. The College emphasizes interdisciplinary research and encourages faculty to seek outside funding for these initiatives. Research success has been recognized and rewarded at the College and this culture has been a major factor in the recruitment of highly qualified junior faculty. Research faculty such as Jay Nunamaker and Vernon Smith established nationally recognized research laboratories many years ago to facilitate collaboration among faculty members and to attract research funding. In fact, Smith was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002 for his two decades of research in experimental economics at the University of Arizona, though he had moved to George Mason University the year before he was awarded the prize. More recently, a new generation of Eller researchers, including Hsinchun Chen, Sudha Ram and Martin Dufwenberg has established national and international reputations for their research efforts and labs. Following are the most recent grants developed by our faculty in collaboration with other units on campus and colleagues from other organizations.

2 McClelland Professor of MIS Sudha Ram is one of the principal investigators on the fiveyear, $50 million iplant Collaborative, funded by the National Science Foundation, which seeks to answer plant biology s most challenging questions. Soldwedel Professor Jay Nunamaker was awarded a five-year, $15 million grant by the Department of Homeland Security to establish a Center of Excellence in Border Security and Immigration at the UA. McClelland Professor Keith Provan of our School of Public Administration and Policy is part of a team exploring ways to improve the effectiveness of smoking cessation programs through a $3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute. Faculty research is broad based in nature and includes a variety of topics such as corporate social responsibility, healthcare policy and governance, and public policy issues such as water management, privacy versus security concerns, the success of welfare reform, discrimination in the workplace. In addition, faculty members publish regularly in top tier journals. Please see Appendix A for reference to articles published by Eller faculty. Increasing diversity among our faculty is essential to the College s success and to attracting a diverse student body. To that end, a number of initiatives are in process or planned to increase faculty diversity. These initiatives are outlined in Appendix B. Student Success Our undergraduate program is one of the most highly regarded in the country according to U.S. News & World Report, it ranks 12th among public institutions and 21st among all public and private universities. Partly for that reason it is one of the most sought-after majors at the University one-fifth of all incoming UA freshman in fall 2007 declared pre-business as their major. MPA program in the School of Public Administration and Policy ranks in the top 50. Financial Times ranks the Eller MBA full-time program #27 in the U.S. and #57 in the world, and Forbes ranks the program among the top 50 nationwide. The College leads the nation s business schools in generating grant funds for research. In addition to a full-time MBA program, the Eller College offers an evening MBA program, and the Eller Executive MBA. Our business graduates are essential to the state and continue to be in high demand because of the need for effective resource management, particularly in light of the focus on ethics and responsible stewardship outlined in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. To prepare students for productive careers and be a significant contributor to economic growth, the College offers students a curriculum that reflects the best of modern business education. In addition to the fundamental building blocks including accounting, economics, finance, information technology, marketing, and strategy, the program offers integrative instruction in ethics, international business and other areas. We also feel a special obligation to encourage and inspire our students with an entrepreneurial bent because of the important role that new business creation plays in economic growth. Page 2 of 9

3 The College has an active program to assess student outcomes and has been using feedback from that process to improve its programs and instruction. Learning outcomes are assessed using a range of methods. Chief among these are: Professional program admission process (prior to junior year admission) Writing proficiency exam given to all students during the first semester junior year in Business Communications (BNAD 314R). A capstone course (MGMT 402) includes team-based case competitions and a series of written assignments. Student team projects and presentations in core courses. Employer surveys sent every two years to larger employers of our students. Feedback from employer advisory board. Exit surveys of graduating seniors. Student focus groups and meetings with students. Additional information on learning objectives and assessments methodologies for undergraduate, masters and doctoral programs, as well as tactical objectives is provided in Appendices C and D. A diverse student body is also essential to the College s success and important to recruiters, and Eller has made significant strides in student diversity. Between 2004 and 2007, ethnically diverse enrollment in all undergraduate programs at Eller was about 23%. In 2007, about 21% of the candidates in department sponsored Masters Programs were diverse, while 17% of MBA candidates in all MBA programs and 8% of our PhD candidates were diverse. Approximately 38% of undergraduates, 47% of department sponsored Masters Program students, 32% of MBAs and 31% of PhD candidates were female. As we continue to increase outreach efforts, the probability of reaching benchmarks increases. Refer to Appendix B for additional diversity data and outreach efforts and goals. Philanthropic Success The Eller College endowment is small relative to peer and aspirational business schools, in part because the University of Arizona has grown to be a large institution only in the last few decades. As a result, the number of alumni is small relative to the size of the College, and the number of older, wealthy alumni is also small. However, even with these constraints, the College has been reasonably successful with a small but solid base of support. As of July 1, 2008, the Eller College endowment stood at $53.6 million, and generated approximately $1.9 million per year. While this endowment is very helpful, its size limits our ability to invest in a number of important areas. Although we have a number of major donors, such as Karl Eller and Norm McClelland, gifts in addition to their historical generosity are tied to their perceptions that Eller College will become a University priority. Page 3 of 9

4 Community Engagement & Outreach Faculty Partnering With and Serving the People of Arizona Eller faculty and students engage with the community through numerous activities and events, including multiple initiatives targeting K-12 students; the Arizona Healthcare Leadership Academy and Business of Medicine series, serving the healthcare community; the Southwest Leadership Program, serving leaders in the public sector; and annual events, speakers series and other activities serving the business community. The Economic & Business Research Center serves the community and state by providing comprehensive forecasting services of the state s economy and producing multiple publications referenced by business and public sector leaders throughout the state. In addition, the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship provides education and support for launch of new business ventures, which provide significant benefits to the local and state economy. Appendix E provides brief descriptions of our community engagement events and activities. Page 4 of 9

5 Mission, Strategic Priorities and the Planning Process The Planning Process The College is committed to an inclusive and ongoing planning process. The Dean outlines goals and strategic priorities at an all-college meeting at the start of the academic year, and discussions are held with department heads, faculty governance committees, such as the College Advisory Committee, and our National Board of Advisors to refine the goals and strategic priorities throughout the year. Academic departments, research groups, and administrative support units report annually on the year s accomplishments and establish goals for the upcoming year. These are discussed with the dean and/or vice dean to ensure alignment with and contribution to College goals. The annual faculty recruiting plan, which begins with department proposals, is tied to the College and departmental strategic priorities. In the last three years, the college has accomplished many operational imperatives as outlined below. With the launching of the Phoenix program, the expansion of the faculty, and the introduction of new curricular offerings all successfully accomplished, we are developing a longer-term strategic vision to guide the college in the years ahead. While this document will serve as the basis for our strategic vision, goals and priorities will be reevaluated each year as we continue to strive for excellence. This document and the measures described below will be refined further over the next several years. Faculty involvement in goal setting and performance measure choice is critical to the success of the plan. Further, a number of our measures require faculty consensus on definitions, benchmarks and targets. Mission and Strategic Priorities Last fall, Dean Paul Portney drafted the following update to the College mission and visions statement. This statement is currently being vetted with department heads, faculty, and the national board of advisors. It is the mission of the Eller College of Management to create new knowledge through worldclass research and, through equally inspired teaching, to prepare our students for rewarding careers in business, government and the non-profit sector. Our vision, now beginning to be realized, is for the College to be regarded as among the world s best management schools and among the significant contributors to the economic growth in our region, our state and our country. The strategic objectives of the College flow directly from this mission and vision. Page 5 of 9

6 Faculty Success / World Class Research To determine a list of performance benchmarks for our research mission, we evaluated the Lombardi Program on Measuring University Performance to identify measures relevant at the college level in the management school environment. The first three measures listed below are based on the Lombardi criteria; the College developed the fourth criteria as an additional measure to encourage publication and the fifth criteria to ensure that the proportion of tenure track faculty to total faculty is large enough to meet accreditation requirements and to encourage faculty at all levels to continue to engage actively in research. Number of doctoral students per research active tenure track faculty and quality of placement (at graduation and after 5 years and 10 years). Number of research-related awards per faculty from academic and research organizations. Research grant dollars as a percentage of total funding. Number of peer reviewed publications per tenure track faculty. Percentage of total faculty (tenure track and lecturers) actively involved in research Throughout FY09, several faculty task force committees will develop more specific descriptions of each measure and collect base-line data that represent excellence in a business school context. Faculty input will be needed to define research active faculty, to develop a quality of placement ranking system, to define qualified awards, and to identify appropriate benchmarks for each measure. Faculty committees will propose annual targets for improvements in these measures and work with faculty to develop methods to reach the targets. To capitalize on Arizona s economic focus on real estate development, the College and Finance Department plan to hire an established scholar who would lead an expansion of our research and course offerings related to real estate. As recent events have indicated, developments in real estate markets can affect the stock market and the real economy both domestically and internationally. Understanding the role of real estate in modern portfolio management, then, is important for our graduates. Furthermore, because real estate is so central to Arizona s economy, an enhanced commitment to research and teaching in this area will help us meet our obligation to the state and region and strengthen the industry s financial support for the College. A research program in real estate will also complement Finance s current work in fixed income management. Page 6 of 9

7 Student Success Because we already have in place assessment instruments to help guide us in program changes and curriculum development, our performance measures will focus more broadly on areas that will reflect improvements in student quality. Following are these measures, the first four are output related and the last measure is input related. Student placement success: Performance will be measured at the undergraduate and master s levels and track the percentage of students who graduate with positions and the salary levels of recent graduates. Within the next year we will develop survey instruments of alums that will provide information about their placement and salaries after 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years and longer. These surveys will also ask for suggestions regarding our curriculum. Recruiter Perceptions: Recruiter perceptions of student quality, including their knowledge and skills. Performance will be measured through annual surveys of recruiters, the survey instruments will be developed over the next year. Rankings: Rankings for our undergraduate and graduate program and for our departments. Through faculty discussions we will develop a list of relevant organizations that rank our programs and departments. We will then track our rankings over time and determine appropriate ranking benchmarks toward which we will strive. Student Quality: Departments will develop measures that assess student growth in knowledge and skills during their upper division experience. This assessment activity will take place both at the department level and at the course level. Global and Technology Perspectives: Measures of opportunities for international travel and classes relevant to international business, and some measure of student-related IT dollars. Both of these areas need attention and offer opportunities to attract students of higher quality. Our MIS department is top-ranked and students expect high quality technological support. Community Engagement & Outreach To measure our performance in outreach, two types of measures are appropriate, one measure will reflect economic impact and two measures will reflect outreach activities. Following are our measures. Number of new businesses launched by graduates from the entrepreneurship program. The current rate of business start-ups per entrepreneurship graduate is 0.7 and there have been 1,500 graduates. To track this measure, graduates will be surveyed annually. The percentage of tenured or appointed faculty involved in community outreach. The percentage of students actively involved in community outreach activities. Page 7 of 9

8 To provide a baseline from which to develop targets, we will survey faculty and students about their outreach activities. Benchmark targets will be set by consensus with faculty and students. To encourage tenured faculty to focus on outreach, some weight will need to be given to outreach activities when decisions about merit raises and promotions are made. Ongoing discussion with department heads and the general faculty will be required Philanthropic Success Quantitative outcomes of our funding priorities are as follows: Philanthropic support for faculty awards: This is our highest priority. Currently there are 7 chairs at the Eller College; we need to add at least two more. Ideally, these should both be endowed chairs, although we would consider a 5-year renewable term chair. There are 25 professorships and 11 fellowships that have dedicated funding streams. The remaining 8 are funded out of the Eller General Endowment. We will develop dedicated funding streams for these awards so that the endowment can be used strategically by the dean. Ideally, these awards would be endowed, but it may be necessary to accept three year pledges and establish them as term awards. Annual funding for summer research awards has hovered in the vicinity of three-quarters of a million dollars. All but a small portion of this is funded from annual giving. The endowment for research funding stands at only $1M. We must find a way to market the research endowment. Support for scholarships: Support for scholarships, especially MBA scholarships, continues to be a priority. At the MBA level, there is a direct relationship between having adequate scholarship funds and attracting good students who in turn get better placements. Placements are a significant factor in driving rankings higher which then bring even stronger student applicants. Currently we award $200,000 in MBA scholarships of which $80,000 is generated from scholarship endowments. Marketing Department Endowment Initiative: The Marketing Department is seeking to raise $10 million in endowment to provide support for students and faculty. Direct student support goes to on-campus conferences for the students, participation in regional and national competitions of the American Marketing Association and American Advertising Federation, scholarships, and more frequent and higher-quality industry speakers. Direct faculty support is needed in the area of compensation supplements made possible from endowed professorships, which can also be used to support teaching and research innovations New Program Initiatives: The dean is planning a series of courses that will teach students how to analyze carefully which sustainability measures make sense from both an environmental and a financial standpoint. The cases to be studied in the courses will be drawn from among the investments the University of Arizona is considering. They will include proposed investments in solar power, water conservation, solid waste recycling and clean-fuel vehicles. The Department of Management and Organizations has launched Page 8 of 9

9 a sports management minor that will require $100K in start-up costs. The dean is working with Jim Livengood to identify sources for this funding. The School of Public Administration in collaboration with the Department of Management and Organization will launch a five-course certificate program in Organization Leadership. Funding required is $200K/annually for 5 years. Two initial donors have committed $10K each per year for five years. Fundraising will be completed for this by February of 2009 for the program to launch spring To achieve the level of growth in these areas, we need to grow our endowment to levels similar to peer business schools. Since external influences such as the economy affect the ability to achieve these goals, specific metrics that will be targeted for FY09 and beyond are as follows: Number of donor meetings in general and for specific campaigns o Target: 250 meetings in 2009 with 2% increase per year Number of annual proposals in support of faculty awards o Target: 24 proposals for 2009 with a 5% increase per year Number of new major donors identified o Target: 50 for 2009 with an increase of 2 per year thereafter Development of a significant fund raising campaign o The faculty has been discussing ways to increase the visibility of Eller s research and teaching excellence. We will identify a niche that will draw research colleagues from across the globe to conferences, draw high quality students our programs, and engage donors in our success. Several ideas have been suggested and this discussion will continue through the fall, resulting in an innovative idea that will launch a large fund raising campaign. Page 9 of 9