Is Carlson As Good As Ross or Haas? Sri Zaheer Thinks So

‘A HANDS-ON, HIGH-TOUCH WAY OF DOING BUSINESS’

“As you learn the theory in the classroom, you want to have the ability to straight away apply it,” explains Zaheer. “So you get this hands-on, high-touch way of doing business. I meet a lot of business school deans who say we don’t know how to keep our students engaged in the second year. Year two is a party. Not here.”

Some 30 to 40 students work in each of the enterprise areas—brand, consulting, ventures, and funds. The latter is one of the three largest investment funds managed by business students in the world, a $40 million pot of assets divided into a growth fund and a fixed income fund. The consulting program, headed by an ex-McKinsey manager, has worked with such companies as Best Buy, Medtronic and Northwest Airlines on projects.

Students aren’t only getting real world experience here. They are connecting with companies that are likely to hire them once they graduate. “Firms get to know our students very well from the enterprise projects,” reasons Zaheer. “It’s phenomenal for career changers but it’s also good for career enhancers because they have the ultimate responsibility for the project work.”

A “global discovery program” is part of a second-year course that culminates in a two-week international trip every January. Each section of the class travels to a different locale around the globe. Once they return, students reconvene in the course to engage in a comparative analysis of different regions.

FACULTY RESEARCH OUTPUT RANKS HIGH BY ONE INDEPENDENT SOURCE

She points out that the school’s faculty is ranked highly on an Academic Ranking of World Universities, a ranking put together by researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University that rates schools on faculty research. In the economics/business category, Carlson was tied with Ross for 14^th in the world in 2012, ahead of UCLA’s Anderson School, Duke, Cornell, and the University of Southern California.

Among the star faculty are Myles Shaver, who teaches corporate strategy and has racked up numerous teaching awards, regularly garnering the highest possible grades in student evaluations; Kathleen Vohs, a marketing professor brings psychological perspectives to business issues and has come up with some insightful theories on self-regulation. Other notable professors include marketing guru Vladas Griskevicich, human resource expert Michelle Duffy, and Ravi Bapna, a social media and information technology prof who is a thoughtful observer of the so-called “big-data revolution.

In common with many public universities, Carlson has seen its state funding decline dramatically in recent years, putting significant pressure on the school. State funding has fallen from some $13.7 million in fiscal year 2007 (about 17% of the school’s operating budget) to about $4.0 million last year, or less than 3.6% of this year’s budget.

PUTTING THROUGH A $2,000 SURCHARGE ON UNDERGRADS

One of her first initiatives as dean was to get the school on a more secure financial footing. She spent a good deal of political capital to convince the university to impose a $2,000 annual surcharge on undergraduate business majors. When that surcharge takes full effect in 2016, it will bring in an additional $4.8 million in revenues a year to Carlson.

Zaheer expects tuition to account for $75 million of the school’s annual $95 million budget. With an endowment that ranges in value from $135 million to $165 million, Zaheer believes the school is in much better shape thanks to the surcharge. Her next goal is to significantly raise Carlson’s endowment, though she won’t yet say how high it needs to be to fulfill her vision for the school.

“We have to do something about keeping higher education affordable,” she says. “We have a public responsibility to educate our people. So a big part of it would go toward scholarships and to retain and build our faculty. I go to conferences and deans openly envy our faculty. I want to keep it that way.”

Zaheer has predictably strong opinions when it comes to the value of the MBA degree and believes that critics who question that value are dead wrong. “It’s a seriously ridiculous debate. It’s populist, anti-elitist rhetoric. A business degree is probably one of the few investments today that has a guaranteed payoff.”

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