Dean Michael Webber
The San Francisco Business Times sought to get a
sense of how business schools in the Bay Area are evolving as the local
tech economy booms. Hannah Albarazi spoke with five Bay Area business
school deans to learn how they hope to reshape their institutions in the
coming years.
Below Dean Michael Webber speaks about the School of Management:
Michael Webber
School: University of San Francisco School of Business.
How long as dean: 1 year as interim dean, 1 month as dean.
Big Goal: We’re moving the graduate school to our new location at 101
Howard St. The university purchased the old Folger’s factory and we
hope to be teaching as early as June 25. It takes us into the heart of
San Francisco and the heart of the financial and business community.
Students can take classes with us at their convenience. It allows us to
make connections with the business community and facilitate career
services and internship opportunities. We’re also beginning to develop
new programs, a few more one-year masters programs in particular,
financial analysis, investor relations and risk management, and in the
fall a new program in analytics.
In the next few years we hope to develop programs to help working
professionals in very focused areas of business. We want to provide
deeper learning in very specific areas in addition to the broader
business programs. We are hoping to begin to learn to look at the needs
of the adult learner in the region.
We have resources and have been hiring new faculty in entrepreneurship and are looking to develop accounting and analytics.
We run the Masters in Global Entrepreneurial Management in
conjunction with IQS in Barcelona and Fu-Jen in Taipei. In the fall,
students are in Barcelona; and in the spring, they are in Taipei; and
then in the summer, they are in San Francisco. They learn about business
in three different cultures and in three different languages. We think
students studying together in different places has been a powerful
model. They can learn skills they use in business and hopefully they can
learn to give back. We want to provide an ethics-based business school.
The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most competitive areas for
business education, especially with the emerging for-profit and online
educators. We need to be able to raise money for scholarships and
fellowships. That’s no easy task. We’re concerned about providing
quality education while holding down costs and fees to make it
affordable. We recognize how expensive a business education can be and
are searching for ways to help students.
To read the full article go here:
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/print-edition/2012/06/08/ask-the-dean-what-will-your-program.html
