B-School Deans Share 2017 Resolutions

Eleanor Roosevelt urged Americans to face down their fears, advice one B-school dean takes to heart

BIG YEAR FOR CORNELL JOHNSON

Cornell Johnson Dean Mark Nelson

Mark Nelson, dean of Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, knows 2017 will be a big year for his school because of its newly reconfigured College of Business and the long-planned opening of the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City. “We plan to continue building on Johnson’s immersion learning program to benefit our students in their internships and recruiting,” Nelson says. “We see great potential in capitalizing on the creation of the newly formed Cornell College of Business for our MBA curriculum, recruiting relationships, and faculty hiring. Finally, we’re very excited to be opening the Cornell Tech campus in the fall of 2017 on Roosevelt Island and move our innovative Johnson Cornell Tech MBA program to that stunning location in New York City.”

Cornell’s big move to the city colors some other school officials’ resolutions for 2017, too. Cynthia Saunders-Cheatham, executive director of Johnson’s Career Management Center, resolves to “continue to increase face-to-face recruiting opportunities for our students in Ithaca and beyond, including cities like NYC, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco,” while Daniel Van Der Vliet, executive director of The John and Dyan Smith Family Business Initiative, vows to “continue to support and strengthen the network of business-owning families, students, and alumni, from Ithaca, to New York City, to across the globe.” he hopes, he adds, to “rapidly promote the virtues of family-owned business (and) their determination to succeed in the face of threats, both internal and external.”

And Jamie Joshua, interim director of Johnson’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, resolves “to continue to offer programming through our Community Conversations and to highlight and discuss current issues facing under-represented groups in business and the world.”

LIGHTER SIDE

Business schools, like the business community, may be feeling serious about 2017, but not every resolution had a serious tone. Indiana Kelley’s Kesner, for instance, in addition to her vow to highlight diversity and increase opportunities for students, resolves to help Kelley’s donors, too.

“To our donors,” Kesner says, “I resolve to find more ways to show them how their gifts to the Kelley School can help them turn a 2017 tax burden into an opportunity.”

And Sri Zaheer, dean of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, resolves to prioritize students over a certain other distraction.

“My resolution,” Zaheer says, “is to spend as much time as possible with students, and to not lose any sleep over rankings.”

DON’T MISS IN AGE OF TRUMP, B-SCHOOLS BRACE FOR UPHEAVAL and POETS&QUANTS‘ FAVORITE MBAS OF 2016