October 3, 2005

	From the Dean’s Desk - A time to take a fresh look at where we are and where we need to be…
	What I Did on My Summer, er, Vacation - Internships Take Owen Students out of the Classroom and into the Fire
	The Third Floor—Opinions & Editorial from Owen Faculty / Shocking Confession: Professor Admits There is More to Management Than What He Taught in Class…by Luke Froeb
	In Memoriam, Greg Shipe, MBA ‘04 - "Remembering Greg" by Leigh Spangler Rogers, MBA ‘04
	Accelerator: 53 Students, 28 Days, Wall-to-Wall Learning - Summer Program Helps Undergraduates Get Head Start in Job Market
	A Home Away From Home at Vanderbilt - Owen Warmly Welcomes Gulf Coast Business Students Displaced by Katrina
	The Owen Spotlight, David Adams, Executive MBA ’05, AVP Enterprise Data and Voice Network Services for HCA, For David Adams’ employer, the Executive MBA helped save $19 million — and that was before graduation
	The Owen Spotlight, Tricia Carswell, Associate Dean of Development and Alumni Relations, At Owen, It’s Only Two Degrees of Separation
	FYI (Announcements)
	FYI (Owen in the News...)
	Mark Your Calendars!

From the Dean’s Desk

A time to take a fresh look at where we are and where we need to be…

• Almost one-fourth of the MBA class of 2006 returned from their summer internships with post-graduation offers. This is a level that we are exceptionally pleased with and haven’t experienced for several years.
   
• Our Career Management Center reports closing the 2004-5 academic year with a 27% increase in the number of MBA recruiters on campus and a 97% increase in the number of jobs posted. This year has started off even stronger with an approximate 30% increase in on-campus companies in September and October alone.
   
• One year ago, I described three new programs in development. All are now a reality.
  • We have enrolled 24 first-year students in the unique clinical immersion course that is the foundation component of our new, highly differentiated Health Care MBA specialization.
  • The charter class of the new MS Finance program boasts an exceptional 22 domestic and international students.
  • Accelerator, the four-week summer intensive business institute for undergraduates who want a head start in the business world, hosted 53 students from across the country during May and June.

I see signs of the remarkable Owen community at work.

This past month we witnessed tremendous signs of our community working together to help those who suffered at the hands of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. As always, I am thankful for the generosity and the caring nature of our students, staff, and faculty who spearheaded efforts to donate time, money, and other resources to those whose lives have been so seriously touched by these unfortunate natural disasters.

I see there is still a great deal of work to be done.

While we recently went up two places in the Economist Intelligence Unit rankings and remained flat in the Forbes rankings of MBA schools, I am troubled by our decline in the recently published Wall Street Journal rankings. (For those who are not familiar with it, the WSJ’s particular ranking measures how corporate MBA recruiters view B-schools. It is a ranking in which we traditionally excel.)

There are many valid arguments against using backward-looking, volatile rankings as the scale for our collective sense of worth. However, the truth is that rankings do affect how each of us feels about the school. Anytime Owen’s many strengths aren’t fully recognized, I take it personally. And by now you know one of my key goals is to ensure that we improve our performance and gain the recognition our faculty, students, and staff deserve.

I have learned in my long business career that swift cosmetic changes are the wrong course of action. As in business, there is no simple, quick, or magical fix. However, that does not mean immediate action is unnecessary.

Based on what I see, here is what we are doing.

Our approach includes a set of interrelated actions to elevate the school to its proper place among the top business schools in the nation and internationally.

1. Differentiating the school in three primary areas: finance, marketing, and health care.

Finance
Owen is noted for its outstanding finance faculty and curriculum. We are building on this strength by:

• Promoting and rewarding outstanding finance faculty members for their teaching and research efforts;
• Recruiting excellent new finance faculty to Owen;
• Bringing financial market experts to campus to speak and participate in classroom activities;
• Launching a new MS Finance. This offering will allow us to attract top-notch students and faculty and should benefit the entire finance area.

Marketing
Establishing an outstanding marketing curriculum is a must. We have:

• Brought in an experienced visiting marketing faculty member to teach core marketing as well as other courses;
• Supported current faculty to improve the teaching quality;
• Invited six noted faculty from other institutions to visit and interview as candidates for a teaching and research position;
• Brought in distinguished marketing business professionals to conduct a “marketing camp” each winter;
• In addition, we are currently exploring options for innovative immersion marketing experiences for our students, including a recent consulting project for one of Jennifer Escalas’ classes.

Health Care
We have launched the new Vanderbilt Health Care MBA specialization. To strengthen this unique offering we have hired veteran health care executive Jon Lehman as Associate Dean to head the program and have recruited an outstanding Health Care Advisory Committee headed by Tom Cigarran, Chairman of American Healthways. Health Care business leaders from across the nation and industry have agreed to serve as advisors to this program which we expect to be the best nationally—and eventually internationally—of all health care offerings.

2. Attracting the best students to Owen.

While we have devoted substantial resources in the past to this effort and are able to attract students that compare favorably to any B-school, the changing nature of the MBA marketplace is making competition all the more intense for students.

We are asking you to play an important role in this area and I hope you will accept this challenge to work with our Admissions Committee to bring the right people to Owen.

We are making progress, as evidenced by a 17% increase in applications for this year in a down market. This was accomplished by the very hard work of the MBA Admissions team, a focused effort by our marketing department, and the assistance of our faculty, students, and staff. We will continue to devote additional resources to bringing the best students to Owen.

3. Improving our teaching quality and classroom experience.

Associate Dean Gary Scudder has worked with the entire Owen faculty to help them gain a better understanding of student needs with regard to core classes. In addition, he is working with individual faculty members to provide instruction and support of their primary teaching models. As we search for new faculty, the hiring criteria will include an excellent research track record as well as excellent teaching experience.

4. Attracting outstanding faculty and building upon our academic reputation.

In addition to the hiring committee in marketing, five other committees are seeking talented candidates for positions in finance, accounting, operations, health care, and strategy, all with health care expertise, if possible. The goal is to supplement our great faculty with key additions who will create new knowledge through research that impacts the business community and who will add their excellent classroom teaching skills to the Owen community.

5. Providing more and varied employment opportunities for our graduates.

This past academic year was witness to the hard work of our Career Management Center. Overall, we saw a 77% increase in the recruiting activity at Owen. Despite this increase we are not accomplishing all we want to do.

Taking our recruiting effort to key cities has been an important thrust of this improved recruiting effort. In addition, we want and need your help to bring your present or former employer(s) on campus to recruit. As an Owen community, we must support this recruiting effort to provide the depth of preparation and interest which employers expect in the interview process. To help in this area the curriculum this year includes a mandatory Career Management Center one-credit course to insure that students are prepared for the rigorous recruiting schedule and expectations of employers.

6. Broadening our students’ international experience.

International students from 36 nations currently make up 32% of our student population. Ray Friedman’s popular Doing Business in China course is again being offered this year.
To continue to broaden our international exposure we are:

• Encouraging faculty to bring their extensive international experience and knowledge into each course and, where appropriate, integrate it into the curriculum;
• Planning an additional international trip for interested students during spring break;
• Revising our method of recruiting international students to better attract student candidates to Owen;
• Visiting international employers to interest them in sponsoring students and recruiting at Owen.

7. Improving the connectivity among alumni and the Owen community.

The Alumni Board and Vanderbilt have set an aggressive goal of locating and (re)connecting our alumni to the school.

• New Alumni Council and Class Agent programs have been implemented and the first meeting of the Alumni Council was held on September 9. We are proud that Owen had the best showing of all alumni on the VU campus for this training session.
• We have brought back Peter Veruki—who spent 12 years of a successful career in MBA admissions and placement here at Owen—to help Owen reconnect with alumni and attract more hiring companies to our school.
• Newly hired Associate Dean Tricia Carswell will lead the Development and Alumni Relations efforts for Owen. Tricia has hired an outstanding staff consisting of Marshall Turnbull, Melinda Phillips, Amy Norton, and Tim Pierce, who will be joining the team in November.

8. Continuing to innovate with new programs.

The door is still open for new programs, new activities, and new ways of upgrading Owen. For example, Leadership Development is a new pilot program designed to help our students see tangible improvement in the leadership skills prized by corporations. It is the direct result of a joint collaboration of faculty and students to meet a need in a truly unique way.

9. Seeking your input.

I am personally undertaking a series of “listening sessions” designed to include every member of the faculty and all students at Owen. My goal is to hear their ideas.  

In addition to hosting alumni events here in Nashville, I will be traveling extensively for “Meet the Dean” activities in New York, Washington D.C., and Chicago in the coming weeks. Events of this nature were held earlier this year in Memphis, Louisville, Atlanta, and Chattanooga, and others are planned.

On the drawing boards are several new initiatives for consideration. It is too early yet to bring drafts of these forward, but the point is that we are aggressively working to modify the school’s quality, position, and recognition among great business schools internationally.

In the meantime, you can help.

• If you are already part of the Owen Community, I ask you to join with me in telling the great Owen story, reaching out to prospective students, and sharing your experiences and memories with them.
• If you are Owen alumni, I invite you to reach out to your classmates and encourage them to get involved; bring your company to campus to recruit; help mentor and educate our current students; and partner with the school to identify and help fund the best students to build the future of the school.
• If you are a prospective student thinking about Vanderbilt, I encourage you to come for a visit and experience the Owen difference yourself. You’ll be glad you did.

Thanks. And, as always, I welcome you to call me with your ideas, comments, and questions.

Best regards,

Jim Bradford
Dean

(Back to Top)

What I Did on My Summer, er, Vacation

Internships Take Owen Students out of the Classroom and into the Fire

Here’s your "Survivor: Collegeville" marketing challenge. With no experience in the industry, you’ve been assigned to a major pharmaceutical company’s brand team for a drug used to treat infectious diseases.

Because the drug has potential for more than 150 distinct market segments and sub-segments, your team must develop more than 150 different marketing messages and pieces.

On top of that, your company has just launched a new, best-in-class antibiotic — the first to win FDA approval in over 10 years — that will cannibalize the sales of the first drug, whose patent rights on a critical compound expire in 2007. Until then, however, you must continue to maximize the effectiveness of your marketing message for the first drug, while developing promotional messages for a sales force that will sell both the old and new drugs.

And on top of all THAT, the tight regulation of the pharmaceutical industry makes marketing and promotions extremely complicated.

Sound like a vacation to you? Welcome to Katie Wernert’s world. (By the way, she had a wonderful time.) Katie, now a second-year Vanderbilt MBA student, earned an internship last summer at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in Collegeville, PA. Her concentrations in Marketing and Strategy made her a natural fit for the brand team at Wyeth that promotes ZOSYN (the "first" drug mentioned above). It was a strenuous challenge, she says, but also a wonderful opportunity — giving added meaning, perhaps, to the term "summer break."

"I learned a lot about general brand management," she says. "And I gained a much better understanding of the complexity of the pharmaceutical marketplace, specifically about anti-infectives and infectious disease issues."

Among her project assignments after she arrived in Collegeville:

If those duties, which also required Katie to manage costs carefully and draw upon out-of-the-box thinking, sound rigorous, they’re pretty much par for the course for Vanderbilt MBA interns.

Last summer, 83% of the Class of 2006 (and 100% of those who sought them) received internships that were spread across 24 states from New York to California. They worked for such leaders as GE, FedEx, Citigroup, Dell, Mattel, The Home Depot and Time Warner — at weekly salaries that ranged up to $3,250. As students like Katie demonstrated, they were well worth it.

And while all had very different responsibilities, all had the common experience of putting their classroom knowledge and skills to work in a fast-paced, highly competitive business environment.

Christopher Raabe, for example, worked as an Operations intern in the Future Leaders Program for The Home Depot in Atlanta. His team was handed a high-profile assignment— implementing a new “In-Store Service” program — that was accompanied by tight deliverables.

"The expectations placed on me were extensive," Chris recalls, "but my studies in General Management and Operations at Owen prepared me well to contribute from the first day." At the end of the summer, his team had contributed more than $70 million in annual cost savings to The Home Depot, and implemented a seasonal staffing model for more than 1,200 outsourced service employees. In addition, he says, his experience enabled him to spend a great deal of time with the company’s senior management, giving him insights he is using to tailor his Owen experience this year.

Stephen Hardin, meanwhile, went to Wall Street last summer to work in investment banking for Merrill Lynch. He was part of some high-profile projects, too — including a major cross-border deal with a Japanese company, an important strategy presentation for Pepsi, and a divestiture related to the Procter & Gamble-Gillette transaction, which ranks as the 13th-largest deal in history.

It would seem a daunting challenge into which to throw most people. Stephen was not intimidated. "My Finance and Strategy courses prepared me well and gave me the confidence to work alongside some of the top professionals in the field," he says. It may not sound quite like a summer vacation. But for an upwardly moving career, the summer definitely provided some important breaks. (Back to Top)

The Third Floor—Opinions & Editorial from Owen Faculty

Shocking Confession: Professor Admits There Is More to Management Than What He Taught In Class By Luke Froeb, William C. and Margaret Oehmig Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship and Free Enterprise [Editor’s note: Professor Froeb just returned from Washington, D.C., where he served two years as chief economist at the Federal Trade Commission, managing 110 employees, including 75 PhD economists.] Now that the fall tuition checks have been cashed, I have a confession to make. After 11 years of teaching management, I discovered that there is a lot more to the topic that I had been telling my students. Fortunately, the Internet has facilitated the amends-making process, so to all my former students, consider this an epilogue (or erratum) to my course.

The government presents a unique challenge to any manager because it has no well-defined goals, few metrics to gauge its performance, and no sticks and only small carrots to align the incentives of employees with the goals of the organization. In addition, the employees are all lifetime civil servants, with better information than the political appointees who manage them and strong ideas about what the government should be doing. They can easily outlast the appointees who seem to come and go every few years or so. [Note to Chancellor Gee: I really am talking about the federal government, not Vanderbilt.]

The "rational actor" paradigm that I teach in my MBA classes predicts that government employees will shirk, or follow objectives of their own choosing. While this is true of some, others work hard for management and take considerable pride in their work. If you want to accomplish anything during a short government stint, you must identify these employees and motivate them to work toward a common goal.

This requires, of course, that you actually have a goal. Without one, you cede control of the policy agenda to the career staff, who determine which cases and issues reach your inbox. This is OK if you are a Democrat, since the staff is likely to share your party affiliation and views. (And may explain why Al Gore thinks his program to reinvent government was a success.) Otherwise, you need clear goals and a strong sense of what you want to accomplish.

I was fortunate to inherit an active "search and destroy" mission from my predecessor and Vanderbilt colleague, David Scheffman. We searched for barriers to competition — particularly those erected by well-intentioned government bureaucrats — and set out to destroy them. (If you are interested in the specific damage that we were able to do, check out the FTC’s competition advocacy program at www.ftc.gov).

Here are a few other management lessons I learned from my time in Washington:
 

1. Develop goals during annual or semi-annual retreats that review past accomplishments, and plan future goals. Be as specific as possible with timetables and measurable benchmarks.
    
2. Constantly monitor progress toward your goals. Otherwise, subordinates will infer that your priorities have changed and, consequently, stop pursuing them. To guard against this, require weekly reports from your subordinates, and ask questions during weekly meetings to assure your staff that you still care about what they are doing. If you discover that a goal becomes too costly to reach, drop it and replace it with another.
    
3. If the organizational structure is broken, fix it. Otherwise, respect the structure you have. This means letting your subordinates manage their own people. If you jump over them to become directly involved in specific matters, you are implicitly telling them that you don’t think they are capable of doing their assigned jobs. Every time I did this, I ended up creating more work for subordinates with no better outcome.
    
4. Finally, manage yourself. Don’t let your inbox run your life. Figure out what you can do that no one else in the organization is capable of doing, and then do it. If you find yourself doing something that your subordinates can do, stop. This means that you are leaving undone those things that you ought to have done.

I am tempted to conclude by telling you that I made a difference. But this would indicate that I didn’t learn what may be the most important management lesson of all. Ronald Reagan put it best: "There is no limit to what a man can accomplish, as long as he doesn’t mind who gets the credit." (Back to Top)

In Memoriam, Greg Shipe, MBA ‘04 Gregory Shipe, a member of Owen’s Class of 2004, was fatally shot while walking his dog in his Washington D.C. neighborhood the evening of September 17. Over 200 friends, family, and members of the Owen Community came together recently in Pittsburgh to celebrate Greg’s life. "Remembering Greg" by Leigh Spangler Rogers, MBA ‘04

Many times before, when I heard about a young person cut down in the prime of his life, I remember remarking on the senselessness of the crime and on how terrible it must be for the family and friends of the victim. Sadly, I recently learned all too well what it means to be a member of the latter group. Greg Shipe was one of the first people I met at Owen. From the day that I met him until the last time I saw him in early August, he was someone that, just by being around him, would brighten my day. His quick wit and mischievous grin were hallmarks of his personality and he supplied them generously to everyone he encountered. However, saying that Greg was "funny" doesn’t begin to do justice to his legacy.

At his memorial service in Pittsburgh, hundreds of people, ranging from childhood friends to co-workers from a position that he started only months earlier, gathered to say goodbye. Most striking was that regardless of the time or context in which we knew him, the same picture of his life as told through varying stories emerged. Greg could make you feel like his best friend, while at the same time being somewhat reserved about his personal life. At first glance this may seem incongruous; however, I think it represents the true selflessness of his nature. He understood his friends, probably better than they understood themselves, without, what he would consider, burdening them with his own concerns. Better yet, Greg used this knowledge at Owen to, in his own sarcastic, silly way, alleviate a variety of graduate school anxieties ranging from the stress before a big exam, to the boredom of an exceptionally long lecture, to just being silly for the sake of silliness.

In darker moments I think of the sidewalk where his life was inexplicably cut short and my heart breaks. I imagine a thousand different outcomes, all the while knowing nothing that I imagine will change the outcome. It’s the sidewalk in New York City where I last saw him that I prefer to remember most often. He was in town visiting, and after catching up over brunch we said our goodbyes and walked off in opposite directions. I happened to look back as he turned the corner at the end of the street. Catching his eye, he paused, grinned and gave me one last wave goodbye. I know Greg would probably cringe at my sentimentality, but with this memory I can’t help but think of the opening lines to "Far, Far Away," by Wilco, one of his favorite bands. Far, far away from those city lights/Might be shining on you tonight. No doubt Greg’s life will forever shine in the hearts of his many family and friends. I consider myself lucky to have been counted as one of those people, even if only for a too brief period of time. (Back to Top)

Accelerator: 53 Students, 28 Days, Wall-to-Wall Learning

Summer Program Helps Undergraduates Get Head Start in Job Market

Next to the empty and, for once, quiet speedway racetrack, the executive team of the Music City Motorplex sat at a long table, listening. They had come to hear ideas from teams of consultants on how to improve attendance for the Motorplex’s weekend, family-oriented racing events. They wanted to know everything from marketing strategies to projected costs and revenues. And they heard everything from "The Ultimate Southern Party" (with a Civil War theme) to a "Country-Western Extravaganza" (complete with an outlaws vs. sheriffs race) to golf cart derbies and dance contests in between races. The "consultants" provided their services free. But that was the only notable exception to the real business world.

The presenters were all students, and the presentations on that warm June evening were part of an innovation in business education: Accelerator – the Vanderbilt Summer Business Institute, which debuted during four intensive weeks in June.

The innovative, four-week summer program was designed to enable college students — both undergraduates and some recent graduates — to gain the knowledge, skills, practical experience (and the connections they need) to land meaningful internships and/or career-track positions after graduation. Some students, meanwhile, used Accelerator as the foundation for an MBA program.

"The real strength of the program," says Amy Achterhof, Associate Director, "is the emphasis on project-based experiences, which allowed students to apply what they learned in the classroom to the real world."

Students worked in teams on "mini-consulting projects" — like the one at the Motorplex — in which they met with actual business clients and proposed strategies for addressing actual business problems and opportunities, and then executed their ideas. “We referred to it as an ‘internship on steroids,’" Achterhof says. "The format helped students learn actively as well as through our core curriculum."

The students — most college juniors and just-graduated seniors, along with a smattering of sophomores — came from as far away as California and the East Coast as well as from Vanderbilt.

As it turned out, the Accelerator program was aptly named — and not just because they worked with the Motorplex. The 53 students who participated never slowed down.

"We ran 28 straight days and packed a lot in," says Achterhof, "including 7 a.m. starts; late nights; over 100 businesses; major projects for O’Charley’s, Velocity, the Motorplex, the Nashville Predators, Haverty’s, Fido, J&Js, and Sonic; business breakfasts; faculty breakfasts; coaching time with our library staff; venture capital presentations; individual resumé reviews; interview prep; job and internship interviews; not to mention the Accelerator Olympics and a Nashville Urban Adventure race that we ran in the rain."

The program also involved an important career component. "We helped students learn what they might want to go into,” Achterhof says. "There were lots of breakfasts and dinners that served as mini-networking events — some of which led directly to internships and full-time jobs."

Based on the initial reviews (which were solicited through student evaluations), Accelerator was a hit. Forty-four of the 46 students who submitted evaluations said the program exceeded their expectations. All 46 said they would recommend the program to others — and some already had done it.

"Coming in, I couldn’t explain to my friends why I was spending money and not getting paid,” said one. "Now, I would absolutely do it again. There is definitely a significant ROI for this program."

Wrote another: "[This was] unquestionably one of the best and most useful experiences of my life."

"I got used to it fast," said yet another. "The pace helped me to get as much out of it as I possibly could. My 9-to-5 internship will now look like a breeze. I have never felt so prepared to tackle the real world as I do now."

The teams that night at the Motorplex got a prize: They had to execute the events they had just proposed. The Accelerator students originally had formed nine teams, with three teams each presenting ideas for Friday, Saturday and Sunday events at the raceway. After Motorplex management selected the winning presentations, the three teams for each night collapsed into one to produce the event.

"The management panel told us they would have staged at least one idea from every team," says Mike Sicard, Faculty Director, who shaped the objectives and design of the program. “They liked the students’ energy and professionalism, and they want to do it again next year."

The Motorplex’s owners also reported they were pleased by the results. For the Friday event, the track enjoyed its largest crowd in five years. On Saturday, the urban dance party promotion attracted better-than-average attendance — many from the younger audience that the Motorplex would like to reach.

On Sunday, Father’s Day, when it appeared that the crowd might be smaller than everyone had hoped, the Accelerator students launched a last-minute, person-to-person marketing blitz. "They went to restaurants and met families as they were coming out of brunch,” Sicard says. "They’d say, ‘Hey, if you’re looking for something fun to do with Dad today…’ We wound up with a good crowd."

That resourcefulness, says Sicard, was both characteristic of the Accelerator class and reflected the lessons they learned. "Business ideas are harder than they look on paper. That was a great lesson."

If the program exceeded the expectations of students, it did even more for the program’s developers. "We took a risk," Sicard says, "to put on a program that doesn’t exist anywhere else. I think we’ve hit on a unique forum for preparing people for business." (Back to Top)

A Home Away From Home at Vanderbilt

Owen Warmly Welcomes Gulf Coast Business Students Displaced by Katrina

"Whether you decide if Owen will be right for you or not, we want you to know that our student body and faculty would love to have you here," the letter read. It was not your typical letter to prospective students. It was an e-mail to evacuees — displaced MBA students from Tulane and other Gulf Coast schools who were invited to continue their studies temporarily this fall at Owen while their school prepared to reopen in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. And it came not from Owen in any official capacity but from two first-year MBA students, Grant Kinnett and Rhett Morris.

"[We] both decided to come to Owen because of the strong sense of community and the quality of people that study and work here," continued the letter, which invited their counterparts from New Orleans to call them for candid answers to any questions they might have about Nashville or Vanderbilt. "After beginning classes at Owen this August, our preconceptions and expectations of this community have only been exceeded. We hope that you can join us this fall and experience the Owen community as well."

Kinnett and Morris spearheaded the efforts to welcome to Owen visiting students from the Gulf Coast who were displaced by Katrina. "Many of them have been completely devastated by this disaster," said Kinnett. "We want to make sure that this transition is as easy and comfortable for them as possible."

Four PhD students from Tulane accepted the invitation to be visiting students at Owen this fall. They are joined by Robert S. Hansen, a distinguished faculty member from Tulane’s A.B. Freeman School of Business. He will be teaching a PhD seminar for them once a week.

"Because our core classes were already well underway when the hurricane struck, we were unable to accommodate any first-year students," says Kelly Christie, director of academic programs and student life at Owen. "But we are pleased to be able to make spaces available for second-year MBAs as well as MS Finance and PhD students."

"In addition, we worked directly with each of the 15 students who initially contacted us after the storm," says Christie. "We tried to find schools that would fit their needs — semester system versus quarter system, for example — so they could enroll full-time for 12 hours of credit. Fortunately, all of them were accommodated. We were so honored to be able to help."

"I am settling in here at UT Austin," e-mailed Neily Buff, an MBA student whom Owen staff helped resettle. "I wanted to drop you a note to thank you and Owen for all of your efforts in helping both me and so many other Tulane students find homes for the semester. It meant so much to us."

Besides welcoming temporary students, the entire Owen community has gotten involved in a variety of ways to help their neighbors along the devastated Gulf Coast.

100% Owen, the school’s volunteerism and community service organization, co-sponsored a fundraising effort with the Owen Student Government Association. The most visible activity was "Penny Wars," a competition between first- and second-year students to see which could raise the LEAST money. "

The campaign was structured so people would have an incentive to fill up the other team’s cash buckets," explained 100% Owen co-president Caroline Breyley. "It was a fun and different way to raise money."

In one week, these "Penny Wars" raised $2,500, which Owen delivered to the Red Cross and earmarked for Katrina relief. (Back to Top)

The Owen Spotlight

David Adams, Executive MBA ’05, AVP Enterprise Data and Voice Network Services for HCA   For David Adams’ employer, the Executive MBA helped save $19 million — and that was before graduation   An Executive MBA from Vanderbilt begins to pay dividends on the job from day one. At least that’s the claim the program often makes. David Adams is living, resounding proof that it’s true. And one of his initial dividends is worth nearly $20 million each year to his employer.

David, who completed his Executive MBA in May of 2005, is Assistant Vice President of Enterprise Data and Voice Network Services for Hospital Corporation of America. In that position, he and the employees in his department are responsible for telecom management at the more than 200 hospitals and surgery centers the company owns in North America and Western Europe.

Not long after starting the EMBA program, David and his team identified an opportunity to realize annually recurring savings for the company. While the telecom management team had always controlled contracting and provisioning of corporate services, each individual hospital could contract for its own local services. That autonomy made it difficult for corporate staff to get an accurate picture of the services each hospital used, and it limited their leverage to negotiate discounts with carriers. In addition, the operations staff at individual facilities generally lacked the detailed knowledge of telecom services contracts to manage their relationships with carriers effectively.

To improve visibility and management control, Adams identified an electronic solution that could analyze the company’s overall telecom spending, audit usage billing and rate compliance, improve dispute resolution — and, bottom line, cut telecom costs by 21% per year.

When it came time to present the case to senior management for investing in this solution, Adams drew on what he was learning at Owen. "It wasn’t long after I had begun the program," he recalls. "We had completed the basic courses. I had gone into the program knowing I needed to learn the language of business. I’m fortunate to spend a lot of time with the senior members of my company, but before the MBA it sometimes seemed that they were talking in code. I didn’t always understand the downstream effect of what they were saying. I needed to know more about general business. The EMBA program taught me to think through and transform systems across the enterprise, not just work within them."

For his presentation to senior management, Adams was able to use "the language of business."

"It was a different perspective. I was thinking in terms of what they wanted to know and not just what I wanted to tell them."

The plan was implemented. And the savings — almost $20 million in annual operating expenses per year — helped the company earn a national best practice award for telecom cost management from the Aberdeen Group.

If that weren’t ROI enough, Adams can point to other examples where his company profited even before he completed the work on his MBA. When his department needed to evaluate the merits of leasing equipment versus purchasing, in a transaction involving more than $100 million, says Adams, "the finance courses [at Owen] under Hans Stoll helped me understand the effect on finances for the whole company. Rather than thinking in a silo or as it relates to me, I can now think in a systems way." Drawing on his new, just-in-time knowledge, Adams and his team were able to perform the analysis within the department.

And when the department was at a critical stage of negotiations with a vendor, Adams was able to apply his knowledge of game theory he’d gained at Vanderbilt — understanding likely outcomes from a particular action, and then determining the best option for creating win/win situations — to obtain a deeper discount that saved $8 million for the company. "That ONLY happened because of the EMBA program," he says.

And that’s what he finds particularly satisfying about his executive education. It’s not just about personal development. "Everybody wants to do their part," he says. "You get a sense of self-satisfaction when you can make a difference."

It’s even more satisfying, he might have added, when you can make a difference even before you graduate. (Back to Top)

The Owen Spotlight

Tricia Carswell, Associate Dean of Development and Alumni Relations, At Owen, It’s Only Two Degrees of Separation

Alumni Representatives Help Keep Classes in Touch

Ever played "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?" Someone names any actor or actress, living or dead, and, within six moves — Kevin Bacon acted with John Belushi in Animal House, Belushi starred with Dan Aykroyd in The Blues Brothers, Aykroyd starred with Jessica Tandy in Driving Miss Daisy, and so on — you can link them with Bacon.   The game is based not just on the movie/play Six Degrees of Separation, but on a sociological phenomenon verified by research: Some people really DO seem to know everyone. Through such people, who seem to create a social glue, no one generally is separated from anyone else, even total strangers, by more than six degrees.   It’s a useful way to think about Alumni Class Representatives, a new outreach effort by Owen’s office of Development and Alumni Relations. Owen, however, has improved the connectivity by about four degrees.

"We now have an alumni representative for almost every Owen class going back to 1971," says Tricia Carswell, who joined the school this fall as Associate Dean of Development and Alumni Relations. Their role, she explains, is simple: Keep everyone connected.

All of the ACRs are volunteers, who met for a retreat in Nashville in early September and began their new roles almost immediately. Class representatives at Owen are not a glorified term for development officials or fund raisers. Naturally, Carswell says, "we want to encourage alumni to contribute money to the school." As someone with long experience in philanthropic development, she "learned the power of endowment" long ago.

More important, though, is simply helping Owen alumni keep close to the place that meant so much to their career development (and, in more than a few cases, the place where students met their future spouses).

"I told the entering MBA class this fall, ‘You are family now. And you will be family after you graduate. Family is forever. My job is to provide meaningful opportunities for alumni to continue their relationships with us. When they’re in town, we want them to feel like they can call and come have a cup of coffee with the dean. This is home."

The death in mid-September of Owen alumnus Greg Shipe (MBA ‘04), killed in a random shooting as he walked his dog, illustrated how Alumni Class Representatives keep the community connected. "Within 24 hours," Carswell says, "the other members of his class got word of this tragedy via e-mail. The e-mail also explained that a classroom that had been refurbished through the class gift of these alumni would be named for their former colleague.

Alums can also expect to hear regularly from Carswell, who joined Owen after serving as Senior Director of Development for the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, where she helped raise money for the new facility and developed a comprehensive gift program.

Now, she says, "we want to build on the great efforts of our predecessors in Development and Alumni Relations here at Owen. Our alumni are our greatest resource. We want to engage and educate them on the successes and challenges at Owen and how they can help. And we need to continue to make our case regarding funding needs so alumni know exactly how their gifts impact Owen."

Toward that end, Carswell, members of the Alumni Relations staff and Dean Jim Bradford have traveled to a number of larger cities this fall to meet with Owen alumni. More stops are planned in places such as Houston, Birmingham and New York City. Keeping in touch, Carswell says, is what it’s all about. (Back to Top)

Announcements

TOP ANALYST/FIRM: Owen graduate DAVID WINDLEY, of Jefferies & Co. in Nashville (MBA 1997) was named the No. 1 analyst in the Pharmaceutical sector by the WALL ST. JOURNAL this year.
OWEN’S CHRISTIE TO EDIT SCHOLARLY PUBLICATION: BILL CHRISTIE, Frances Hampton Currey Professor of Management, has been named executive editor of the Financial Management Association’s (FMA) journal, Financial Management.

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Owen in the News...

DEAN JIM BRADFORD:

o HEALTH CARE MBA AIMS TO BE BEST OF CLASS: Combine the international reputations of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Owen Graduate School of Management with the peerless collection of health care businesses in the Nashville area, and the atmosphere is ripe for the new Vanderbilt master’s of business administration with a health care specialization. JIM BRADFORD, dean of the Owen School spoke about the program with NASHVILLE MEDICAL NEWS: "Nashville and middle Tennessee is a business center for the health care industry… It’s a huge industry in this part of the world, and Vanderbilt is a major research health center. I think we have a very market-backed, focused program that will be best of class nationally and internationally. That’s what we’re aiming to fulfill."

o The TENNESSEAN interviewed Dean BRADFORD in June, where he discussed plans for the future of Owen in an article titled "Companies Want to See Leadership."

o BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE featured Dean BRADFORD in an online interview, where he discussed how he keeps Owen’s offerings updated, as well as the Accelerator Summer Business Institute and the Health Care MBA curriculum.

o SUMMER READING FOR B-SCHOOLERS: Reading has been proven as the country’s No. 1 leisure activity, and business school students are reading a variety of new selections. BUSINESS WEEK featured Dean BRADFORD’S choice for students’ required summer reading, Tempered Radicals.

o LOCAL MORTGAGES HEALTHY DESPITE DROP NATIONALLY: The real estate "bubble" is in no danger of bursting anytime soon in Nashville, with area residents seeking mortgages in large numbers as home sales head for another record-setting year. In an article in the NASHVILLE CITY PAPER, Dean BRADFORD said, "Real estate is always about location and quality of life. If you look at Nashville nationally, we are a hot city with a lot of interest by corporations to locate here."

ADMISSIONS and CAREER MANAGEMENT:

o WHY IT’S A GOOD TIME TO BE AN MBA: With hiring way up, MBA candidates have more job options. Quotes from MELINDA ALLEN and 2005 MBA graduate JEFF BEIERLEIN lead this FORBES article on the current job market for MBAs.

o MBA APPLICATIONS: With interest in management already on the wane, the Graduate Management Admission Council released study results in August that show applications to full-time United States MBA programs are down for the third straight year. While full time programs took a hit, part-time programs saw a slight rise in applications. "The MBA is alive and well and in demand," says MELINDA ALLEN, Assistant Dean of Admissions and the Career Management Center in this BUSINESSWEEK.COM article.

PROF. PAUL CHANEY, Professor of Management (Accounting):

o WATCHING A WATCHDOG: From BARRON’S: Recipients of recent hefty accounting fines from the Securities and Exchange Commission probably had a chuckle after a General Accountability Office audit found the agency had inadequate controls in the preparation of its own financial statements. Prof. CHANEY says, "the agency has a big job in overseeing all public company financial reporting, with a smaller staff, and may need a budget increase."

o SARBANES-OXLEY HAS DRAMATICALLY CHANGED HOW EXTERNAL AUDITORS, THE AUDIT COMMITTEE, AND COMPANY MANAGEMENT INTERACT: The dissolution of Arthur Andersen is a vivid reminder of the professional risks auditors face. Prof. CHANEY is quoted in BUSINESS FINANCE: "I think all of the Big Four firms are very concerned about their reputations…none of the remaining Big Four firms wants to be the first firm that has given a clean opinion to [a client’s] internal control [system] only to find out subsequently that there were problems." Chaney has published papers on a range of financial reporting and auditing issues.

o ANALYSTS DEFEND HEALTHCARE REALTY: Healthcare Realty Trust Inc. has had a sudden break with its second accounting firm in two years, KPMG LLP. Prof. CHANEY commented in The TENNESSEAN that, "In today’s climate, it’s not surprising that an accounting firm would respond aggressively to a seemingly small mistake. There’s a potential huge cost for KPMG if they sign off on a statement and it’s later determined it’s not in conformity with (general accepted accounting principles)."

PROF. HANS STOLL, Anne Marie and Thomas B. Walker Jr. Professor of Finance and Director of the Finance Markets Research Center:

o CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE WINS APPROVAL TO ISSUE SHARES TO THE PUBLIC: Such moves are a major shift for entities that were created and always operated for the benefit of their members, said Prof. STOLL in the CHICAGO TRIBUNE. "It’s a really fundamental change in the character of the exchanges," he said. "They are clubs, associations of people who agreed to meet on the floor and trade. People belonged and traded with each other. The infrastructure developed around that. The ownership was tied to the livelihood of the membership of the club. When it becomes a business, you have to focus on creating stock market value."

o NASHVILLE IS HOME TO HEDGE-FUND ACTIVITY: Hedge-fund activity that usually takes place in large northwestern cities also takes place in Nashville, surprising financial investors, according to the NASHVILLE CITY PAPER. Prof. STOLL spoke about the complexity of measuring hedge fund performance: "It is difficult to measure returns of hedge funds," said Stoll, "The ones that have gone out of business are not [typically] factored into overall returns."

PROF. DAVID PARSLEY, Associate Professor of Management:

o BIG MAC INDEX COMPARES PURCHASING POWER: In an article from the ECONOMIST, Prof. PARSLEY’s work clarifies the ‘Big Mac’ index by separating out non-traded inputs, such as labor, rent, and electricity. PARSLEY commented again on the Big Mac index in an article published by New Zealand’s NATIONAL BUSINESS REVIEW.

o CHINESE CURRENCY POLICY AND THE U.S. TRADE DEFICIT: Prof. PARSLEY co-wrote an opinion piece in the SAN FRANSISCO CHRONICLE on the increasing value of the yuan having little meaningful impact on the trade imbalance between the U.S. and China.

o GAS DRIVES UP DELIVERY COSTS: Rising fuel prices took a bite out of consumers’ budgets this summer at the gas pump and in other ways as service-oriented companies such as pizza delivery and florists passed along higher gas prices. In this article from The TENNESSEAN, Prof. PARSLEY said, "People are already spending to the max, and these different price hikes are going to hit them in the pocketbook."

PROF. BRUCE BARRY, Professor of Management and Sociology:

o CRACKER BARREL TRIES TO REBUILD IMAGE AFTER SUITS, PROBE: Cracker Barrel was first accused of mistreating minorities nearly 15 years ago. After lawsuits and a later federal inquiry, the company has taken steps to rebuild its folksy image. Prof. BARRY commented that ‘overcoming such image problems can hobble a company for years.’ The same interview with Prof. BARRY was discussed in an article in South Carolina’s THE STATE and also in the LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER on KENTUCKY.COM.

o DO BUSINESSES HOLD DISASTER KEY?: The ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE just published an article that unfavorably contrasts the response of the national government to the response of several big companies. "Yet the tight focus that makes companies profitable would quickly become an Achilles heel if faced with the multiple duties of agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency," said Prof. BRUCE BARRY, professor of management and sociology. "Companies do one or two predictable things very well. That may work fine for one kind of disaster. But governments have to plan for all kinds of disasters in all kinds of climates, conditions and regions."

o BLOGGERS - WE CAN HELP MEDIA: Instead of viewing blogs as a competitor to traditional media, many bloggers at BlogNashville see it as a way to engage citizens in discussion. A blog by Prof. BARRY is mentioned in The TENNESSEAN article.

OTHER FACULTY:

o BANKRUPTCY WILL CHANGE DELTA, NORTHWEST: Delta and Northwest airlines began a lengthy and costly road to recovery from bankruptcy that will likely include cutting employee rolls, pensions and routes. MICHAEL LAPRÉ, an assistant professor of management who has done airlines research, said quality will remain very important for Delta and Northwest as the carriers seek to restructure their debts. "Either they get their act together or there will be some sort of a shake-up," he said. The bulletin appeared on hundreds of print and broadcast Web sites, including THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE BOSTON GLOBE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORK TIMES, FT. WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM, CBS NEWS.COM AND FORBES.COM.

o UNCHAINED SUPPLY IN HEALTH CARE: DAVID DILTS, professor of management, discussed the challenges of vendor-managed supply chains in the health care industry in the August edition of HEALTHLEADERS. This is something relatively new to health care and has made few inroads, but the efficiencies it generates can be impressive. "It’s incredibly more efficient," DILTS says. "Management lets suppliers stock the inventory and when they use it, they pay for it." Prof. DILTS also comments about the risks of having an outside company handle the supply chain for an entity such as a hospitals. WPLN radio also interviewed Prof. DILTS when there was a financial crisis at Metro General Hospital in August.

o HELPING YOUR PORTFOLIO, NOT THE WORLD: THE CASE FOR SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE FUNDS. Investors have flocked to socially responsible mutual funds in recent years, with their assets easily outpacing asset growth for all stock and bond mutual funds. This article in the WALL STREET JOURNAL references a recently published study on socially-responsible funds by NICOLAS BOLLEN, associate professor of management, and MARK COHEN, Justin Potter Distinguished Professor of American Competitive Business.

o COMPANIES TRY TO LEARN CHINA’S WAYS, BUT CHINA IS A DIFFICULT MARKET FOR AMERICAN MANAGERS: According to an article in the ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION, not only do executives have to deal with corruption and rampant intellectual property theft, cultural norms are also confusing. "The rules of the game in China are not the same," said Prof. RAY FRIEDMAN, Brownlee O. Currey Professor of Management, "You have to spend some time to learn how to do business there."

o MORE ISN’T NECESSARILY BETTER WHEN IT COMES TO ADDING OUTSIDERS TO A CORPORATE BOARD: Indeed, Prof. CHARU RAHEJA’s research on the topic was citied in a report on MARKETWATCH.COM. RAHEJA, an assistant finance professor, finds evidence that installing a high percentage of outside directors could be disastrous for companies in cutting-edge industries.

o SUITS FILED AGAINST AUTOMOBILE FINANCING COMPANIES: Research by MARK COHEN is bearing fruit once again as a series of racial discrimination lawsuits seeking class-action status was filed in federal courts against five automobile financing companies, according to the MILWAUKEE BUSINESS JOURNAL. Prof. COHEN’S research is basic to the claims involved. The lawsuits charge five major automobile financing companies with discriminating against African American customers in the Milwaukee area. Cohen’s study found that African American customers on average paid more in auto financing charges than white customers.

o STATE NOT WISE TO SHRED NOTES, JOB EXPERTS SAY: Tennessee could leave itself vulnerable in a lawsuit if its practice in workplace harassment cases is to avoid taking notes during an investigation and to destroy notes if they are taken. Prof. NETA MOYE comments in this TENNESSEAN article, "Generally, companies keep records of investigations, but those aren’t subject to the state’s public records laws as a government agency’s might be." She notes, "I could see where they wouldn’t want to make the details public because that sort of hurts the guy who’s had the charge put against him."

o NEW TECHNOLOGY INCUBATOR TO HOUSE UP TO 50 COMPANIES: Nashville has joined other metropolitan markets in Tennessee in an effort to foster future job growth in high-skilled sectors of the economy. The incubator, founded by Tarun Surti, has partnership agreements with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University and the Tennessee Valley Authority, and is loosely affiliated with the Nashville Technology Council. Prof. GERMAIN BOER, professor of management, is highlighted in an article from the NASHVILLE POST. NASHVILLE CITY PAPER says "Vanderbilt University officials said they are looking forward to having a lab that can accommodate MBA graduates of its OWEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP CENTER.

The Health Care MBA:

o HEALTH CARE MBA OFFERS UNIQUE BLEND OF BUSINESS FUNDAMENTALS AND HANDS-ON HEALTH CARE EDUCATION: Several publications ran articles about Vanderbilt’s new Health Care MBA specialization, including HANDELSBLATT.COM (an online German business magazine), MODERNPHYSICIAN.COM, NASHVILLE POST, NASHVILLE CITY PAPER, and BUSINESS TENNESSEE. The specialization combines the standard MBA core curriculum of Finance, Management, Operations, and Marketing with health industry specific subjects. Students in the program will receive real-world clinic experiences university’s medical center and participate in projects with local health care organizations, experiencing the system from the perspectives of patients, physicians, and management. The Nashville metropolitan area boasts about 300 health care companies.

o LEHMAN APPOINTED ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR HEALTH CARE: The TENNESSEAN announced that JON LEHMAN will oversee the school’s new Health Care Management program while continuing to conduct research and teach health care information technology strategy classes as professor for the practice of management.

o HARRY JACOBSON HONORED WITH COMMITMENT AWARD: NASHVILLE BUSINESS JOURNAL ran an article about Dr. HARRY JACOBSON, Vanderbilt vice chancellor for health affairs and a co-founder (with Owen Dean JIM BRADFORD) of the new Health Care MBA specialization. The Commitment Award is presented to a member of the Health Care 100 who, through the course of a career, has helped shape Middle Tennessee’s health care industry. JACOBSON, who has helped blaze trails in health care since leaving the U.S. Army in 1978 for the University of Texas, is one of the most recognizable faces and most plugged-in people in Nashville’s health care sector.

o NASHVILLE MEDICAL NEWS QUOTES DR. JACOBSON ON THE NEW HEALTH CARE MBA: "There is absolutely nothing like this. Vanderbilt is unique in the way it’s leveraging off of having the Medical Center and the business school on the same campus and actually talking to each other."

ALUMNI:

o FOR THE POOR, HELP FROM MBAS: VENKAT SHANKAR, Executive MBA 2005, was quoted in an BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE article about MBAs helping the poor by bringing micro-financing, business development and an eventual consumer economy to many impoverished Third World areas.

o HOW TO GET HIRED: Recent Owen MBA alumni ROBERT WALKER and JASON LIOON (2005) were quoted in two BUSINESSWEEK articles, just as students were getting ready to graduate. "Just-in-time Jobs" is about the recent trend for companies to hire MBAs nearer to graduation than ever before. They also are quoted with "Tips for Last-Minute Job Shoppers" in a parallel article in the same issue. This article discussed things a job seeker can do to get hired in the new, more flexible hiring market.

NASHVILLE IS COOL:

o Nashville was ranked in the Top 7 coolest and most affordable cities by KIPLINGER’S PERSONAL FINANCE. Kiplinger listed Nashville, Athens, GA Atlanta; Austin; Denver; Minneapolis and Raleigh, N.C., as locations that attract young professionals with plentiful jobs and relatively low rents. With an aggressive strategy for recruiting companies, Nashville added 10,600 new jobs in 2004 alone. But its coolness quotient comes from the $2-billion-plus music business, which includes recording and video production.
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Congratulations to Our Student Leadership Team!

Thank you to those who ran for an OSGA position, and congratulations to our new council members.

The following students were elected to the OSGA Executive Council:

Nathan Bradford - President
Jeff Ervin - VP, Finance
Lisa Ryder - VP, Admissions & Communications
Adam Schlesinger - VP, Sponsorship & Social
Karen Talla - VP, CMC & Curriculum

The following students were elected as OSGA 1st-Year Representatives:

Rehan Choudhry - Sponsorship & Social Coordinator
Dan Nishimura - Curriculum Coordinator
Blair Stilwell - Technology & Plant Coordinator
Suruchi Sharma - Career Management Coordinator
William “Chris” Cathcart - Admissions Coordinator

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Getting married? Expecting a baby? Got a new job? We want to hear about your news! Now it is easier than ever to update your alumni profile or submit a class note to Vanderbilt Business Magazine! Click here to send us an email.

October 11-16 – National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA) Conference, San Diego, CA

October 14 & 15 – Homecoming and Reunion Weekend
Please join us for homecoming! Reunions for classes that end in 0 or 5. Click here for more details or to register.

October 17 – Mod II begins

October 22 – Executive MBA Preview Day
Click here for more details.

October 27 – Wall Street Week Alumni Reception, New York, NY
Owen MBA students make their annual trip to New York to visit financial services firms. All Owen alumni are invited to attend an alumni reception Thursday, October 27th, 6:30-9:00pm at the Union League Club at 37th & Park Avenue South. Dress is business attire. If you would like to attend please rsvp to cmc@owen.vanderbilt.edu by October 21st.

November 11-12 – MBA Discover Weekend I for Prospective Students
A Discover Weekend gives prospective students a preview of this unique, fantastic place without having to miss a day at the office. It’s a great way to learn about the Vanderbilt MBA experience.

November 15 – First application deadline for MBA Class of 2008
Click here to apply now!

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