How San Diego State Aims to Be Unique
Wall St. Journal 2/20/07
Nowhere is that more apparent than in San Diego. Business schools there are becoming much more active players in the M.B.A. marketplace as San Diego State University, the University of San Diego and the University of California, San Diego, all roll out new degree programs.
M.B.A. Track columnist Ron Alsop recently talked with Gail Naughton, dean of the College of Business Administration at San Diego State University, about the school's two newest M.B.A. programs, in global entrepreneurship and the life sciences, and about online education and the escalating M.B.A. competition in San Diego.
WSJ: How has San Diego State been affected by the development of new full-time M.B.A. programs at both the University of San Diego and the University of California, San Diego?
Dr. Naughton: Our applications are increasing, so if anything, the new programs are heightening awareness of the importance of an M.B.A. in the San Diego community. Each school is also taking a different approach to management education. We are playing to our established strengths in international business, entrepreneurship, and accounting and governance, while the University of San Diego is focusing on business ethics and social responsibility and UC San Diego has reacted to the growth of technology and the life sciences to train scientists and engineers in management.
Many schools today claim to be international. What do you believe will set your global-entrepreneurship degree apart from other international business programs?
Our program will focus very heavily on the importance of local culture and language in doing business abroad, as well as the interaction of government and politics with business. Students will experience a total immersion in other cultures, spending about 12 weeks each in San Diego and at partner universities in China, India and the Middle East.
San Diego State is working closely with companies in developing some of its degrees, including your sports management M.B.A. with the San Diego Padres baseball team and the global-entrepreneurship M.B.A. with Qualcomm, Invitrogen, Microsoft, Intel and KPMG. Why have you chosen to work hand in hand with companies?
I believe that business schools need to partner more with industry to become as competitive as possible. It only makes sense that the executives and HR directors, who are sending us their managers and recruiting our graduates, should help develop courses and share best practices as mentors and lecturers.
For the new entrepreneurship M.B.A., we decided to focus on global industries that are key to the economic growth of San Diego -- technology, biotech and telecommunications -- and we wanted corporate partners who would play a continuing role in this degree program. Executives from the companies will lecture about their experiences in cross-cultural business ventures, and students will visit their operations here and abroad to see how the strategies they are learning about in class are being implemented in the workplace.
Your next degree will be an executive M.B.A. on the life-sciences industry. Did your background as a scientist and biotechnology entrepreneur influence your decision to develop this specialized program?
It definitely did have an impact. With my biotech company, I learned what it's like not to be able to find the talent you need to deal with regulatory agencies and to understand such things as clinical design and statistics, quality-assurance management, patent protection, and the constraints on sales and marketing with government-approved products. Our new M.B.A. will train managers in those areas and, in doing so, will draw on the most relevant parts of San Diego State's existing online master's programs in regulatory affairs and biomedical quality control.
With this degree, you are joining forces with Gallup University. Why did you decide to make that connection?
The executive M.B.A. will be a two-year part-time program with six weeks taught in person in San Diego and the remainder online. So we wanted someone with more online experience than we have had and someone we could learn best online practices from to apply to our other programs, including our general M.B.A. This will be our first program that is primarily online, but we are certainly moving toward more because we feel it is a far more convenient modality for students. In addition, Gallup is committed to providing life-science executives to mentor the students one on one.
In the annual Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive business-school survey, corporate recruiters tend to be critical of online M.B.A. education. Are you concerned about delivering the same quality of instruction as you add online content?
Originally, yes, I did have some reservations. But we looked at some assessment tests that show students can do as well or better online as in a classroom. We also felt comfortable because we believe Gallup is well established with a quality online educational approach.
You are one of a small minority of female business-school deans. Do you believe that your presence at the helm has helped attract more women to enroll in your graduate programs?
Having a woman as dean can certainly help in attracting both women students and faculty members. They like having a role model who looks like them. We are pleased that about 40% of the students in our graduate business programs are women and hope to see the number rise even higher.