By
Nick Zeckets
Friday night, a dinner was held at McClelland Hall in conjunction with the Business School's National Board of Directors Meeting to honor case proposal winners. That same evening, several successful graduates of the Eller College of Business and Public Administration addressed the crowd of nearly 150 dinner guests about the future of the school.
Coincidentally, the Wildcat published an article entitled, "Going 20 MPH on the Information Superhighway," last Friday which recommended that more classes on e-commerce entrepreneurship be offered. Guess who got an invitation to hear about the future of the Eller School?
Dean Mark Zupan rang up and e-mailed, leaving no rock unturned, as he wanted to show how wrong that article was, and that Eller is moving forward; that it is breaking new ground; that it is the future of business schooling. Moving this columnist from handshake to handshake and introduction to introduction, participants shared their personal anecdotes about where the school is going.
Granted, the e-commerce lab dedicated Friday afternoon to benefactors Mark and Susan Hoffmann is a technological advancement that few schools can boast having, but it is still not quite what the UA needs. Sadly, though, there may not be much room for the Eller School to afford its students with the successful advancements that other business schools are implementing.
Just as the new lab was a private donation, any other funding for the school also would have to be. Its operating budget nearly exceeds what funds are given it by the state legislature. To make UA's business school on a par with the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School and the University of Chicago we need more teachers and more area technology businesses.
Both improvements seem to be out of reach for Eller right now. To give credit where it is due, the staff at the school is incredibly energetic and hard working. The faculty is excited about the future and breaking through every obstacle possible. Never before have there been so many genuine smiles in one room as there were Friday evening. All present relished the school's success and future, but the room and attention of the audience belonged to the speakers that night.
Several affluent Eller graduates talked about their time in the world of business to business and venture capitalism, indicating what they would like to see happen at the school. Sherri Neasham, CEO of FinanCenter.com, is a young and hardworking business woman with savvy. She promised earlier in the night, during one of the many Zupan-borne exchanges, to show how UA was breaking new ground. Indeed, on the administrative and some conceptual fronts they are. However, Neasham still wasn't able to show that a real bridge existed between the tech community and Eller. While her success is apparent, it was difficult to see what real bridges to the business community she was afforded while at Eller.
Director of Cross Merchandising for Amazon.com and classmate of Neasham, Matt Williams, said that Eller needs to create a relationship with the companies, venture capitalism firms and banks shaping B2B. He mentioned his position as advisor to the University of Washington's entrepreneurship program in Seattle and what programs they were using. He said, "They're fostering relationships with the business community and it's been very successful." His primary recommendation was offering a class educating students on how to win investors.
Opening speaker John Clarey, Chairman and CEO of Orbyte Networks, related the system that UC-Berkeley has put in place, as school property has been morphed into a tech breeding ground for companies like Intel and promising startups. His concerns mirrored those of Williams, stressing that Tucson has some work to do in order to draw in the right companies and opportunities.
"Tucson has a great base," Clarey said, "but the lack of tech companies here is a problem." He continued, saying that in Berkeley, the proximity to Silicon Valley is very beneficial and for UA to create similar partnerships, contracts like those created by UC-Berkeley need to be fostered.
All the intelligence, charisma, excellent education and drive in the world are worthless without an investor. It is critical to remember that Eller is making leaps and bounds in many respects and this piece is in no way a reprimand or negative declaration. However, several initiatives need to be taken in order to truly make Eller and its graduates the leaders in the market. Business success isn't measured in intelligence, but in how many zeroes precede the decimal point in the bank.
