Q: How does a native Australian end up as dean of a business school in Boulder?
A: I grew up in Wollongong, New South Wales, a steel and coal town, but didn’t want to stay there. I have studied economics since age 14 and knew that was what I wanted to do. I have always been interested in the practical application of economics.
After 25 years in a safe and well-financed environment (the University of Minnesota), I thought, Why not take a little more risk? What attracted me out here were the people trying out new ideas.
Q: What would you like to accomplish as dean?
A: My passion is really with the undergraduate program. We are crammed into this tiny, old facility. We have 3,500 undergraduates in a building built for 1,600. The last decade, we have had 42 percent more students and 25 percent fewer tenure- track faculty. The budget we have per student is less than half of our peer group among public schools and less than a third of the private schools we compete against. Finances are critical.
Q: How much will you need for a new building?
A: We will need close to $20 million. Renovations haven’t been done in 35 years. We will also add an extension. This has been on the drawing board for six years, on and off again because of the state budget situation.
Now the state has withdrawn completely. If someone wanted to give it all, they could see their name emblazoned on the building. It is the old woman in the shoe. We now have got kids hanging out windows. It is quite remarkable how we have been able to manage.
Q: Have you seen any impact from the corporate scandals on interest in business education?
A: On the undergraduate levels, there has been no discernible impact at all. But interest in accounting has just ballooned. Accounting is not bookkeeping. It is a very important area where you can spot scandals by getting the numbers right.
At the graduate level, there has been a significant downturn in applications worldwide because of uncertainty in the economy. People who would have quit their jobs, done two years and moved back onto the fast track are now a bit more risk- averse.
Q: Has the motivation changed in why students get into business?
A: A lot of people think they are going into business for the money. You can make a very comfortable living. But I am coming at this as a social scientist, an economist who has worked in developing economies, who has spent a lot of his life studying poverty.
In business, what you do is basically provide the economic livelihood for individuals, families and communities. Are you doing socially good things? Every time you create a job, you are doing social good. A family without a job is a family in trouble.
Q: Do you see any overlap between your hobby of collecting mystery novels and teaching students business?
A: I started collecting them while at the University of Pennsylvania as a diversion from the rigors of graduate school. I’m attracted by the critical thinking required in the whodunit, but it is deeper than that. It is a lot about teamwork. Sherlock Holmes never solved anything on his own. It was always Holmes and Watson.
The real outstanding mystery novels are about society in crisis. In the fiction that I like to read, there is the need to sift through a lot of conflicting information, teamwork and social conflict. In economics, it is about how economics can benefit society.
Q: How large is your collection?
A: About 3,000 books.
Q: What are your thoughts about state universities breaking away from state funding?
A: Colorado is developing a new model, but I think it is a model that is doomed. The state is getting out of the business of funding higher education, but it clearly is in the business of regulating education. We have the worst of both worlds.
Edited for space and clarity from an interview by staff writer Aldo Svaldi.
