School News
New MBA Curriculum Offers Students More Options
Beginning next fall, McCombs full-time MBA students will create their own core curriculum—at least partially—by choosing from a menu of courses, rather than proceeding in lockstep through a rigid set of core classes that culminated in the third semester.
The class of 2011 will complete the core in the first year. This change will enable students to tailor their MBA experience according to their unique interests more effectively, because up to three elective courses will be available to them during their second semester, much earlier than in the old system.
“With limited room for electives, very few students took advantage of the wealth of curricular offerings outside of McCombs,” says Eric Hirst, associate dean for graduate programs. “Having the core finish in the first year also means key tools and knowledge are available for interviews, internships or elective courses on a timely basis."
Leveraging the university’s vast resources to customize a course of study was a primary motivation behind this revamp. The new system, which includes splitting core courses into two-hour, half-semester time slots, also allows for better integration of knowledge across disciplines—and across the four pillars of leadership identified by the program renewal task force: Knowledge & Understanding, Responsibility & Integrity, Communication & Collaboration and a Worldview of Business & Society.
These pillars also guide the co-curricular activities students engage in to round out their classroom experience, from international study opportunities to hands-on mini-consulting projects to business case challenges.
“Our students come in with a variety of experiences and backgrounds,” Hirst says. “They have a wide variety of career objectives. The new program reflects that by offering considerably more avenues to customize their Texas MBA experience.”
AMA Honors Srinivasan for Marketing Research, Mentoring
Associate Professor of Marketing Raji Srinivasan is the inaugural recipient of the American Marketing Association Erin Anderson Award for an Emerging Female Marketing Scholar and Mentor.
The award is given to a female marketing professor who is an “emerging research star” and has “exceeded the normal expectations for someone of her rank in mentoring doctoral students and junior faculty members.”
Marketing Professor Leigh McAlister nominated Srinivasan for the award, noting that she has published six research articles since receiving her Ph.D. in 2000 and has been an active mentor to Ph.D. students at McCombs. “Raji teaches a doctoral seminar on marketing strategy, and I attribute the rise in the number of Ph.D. students moving into strategy here at UT to that demanding and exciting seminar,” said McAlister in her nomination letter.
New Online Community Connects MBA Alumni with Future Students
Alumni of the Texas Evening MBA, Texas MBA at Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth programs are invited to join the new online community for prospective students: http://community.texasmba.info.
Alumni Michael Hedegard, MBA ’07, Cindy Scovel, MBA ’05, and Michele Stoebner, MBA ’07, have recently posted blogs about their Texas MBA experience, and prospective students are asking them more questions on the site. If you want to help future students find their MBA path, share your story by blogging or answer questions in the discussion forum. It only takes a minute to become a member. If you have any questions, contact Admissions Director Shannon Chapman at shannon.chapman@mccombs.utexas.edu.
Women MBAs Discuss “The Balancing Act” at Leadership Conference
The eighth annual Women in Business Leadership Conference brought together McCombs students, alumni and prospective students on Feb. 20 to discuss how to balance the unique challenges women face in their careers. The conference’s theme was “The Balancing Act” and featured keynote speakers Alison Heiser, former CMO of Banta and Kimberly Clark, and Match.com CFO Gayle Anderson
The conference also featured panelists from Dell, ESPN, JPMorgan Chase, Schlumberger and Pielabs. “We wanted to facilitate a candid discussion among McCombs women and the panelists on specific challenges that women face in the workplace and how they have dealt with them,” said Andrea Shortell, MBA ’09, conference co-chair. “This is yet another venue to prepare McCombs women to succeed in their careers.”
Rao Research Earns Nods for Best Papers of the Year
Finance Professor Ramesh Rao’s article “Marketing Initiatives, Expected Cash Flows, and Shareholders’ Wealth,” was named a finalist for the Journal of Marketing’s Maynard Award, an honor given to one of the top three articles published in the Journal of Marketing during a calendar year. The paper creates a theoretical framework for showing the value of marketing.
The Journal of Marketing is one of the field’s foremost journals, and it published 54 articles in 2008. The Maynard Award recognizes the article that makes the most significant contribution to marketing theory and thought within the calendar year.
Rao also earned the Mirae Asset Securities Co., Ltd. Outstanding Paper Award at the third International Conference on Asia-Pacific Financial Markets for his paper “Contract Heterogeneity, Operating Shortfalls and Corporate Cash Holdings: Theory and Empirical Evidence.”
Monterrey Tec Hosts McCombs Leaders, Strengthens Partnership
How did Wal-Mart successfully penetrate the Mexican market? How does Mexico’s concrete behemoth CEMEX tailor its offerings to reach, and help, the less fortunate? And how do two of the world’s leading business schools strengthen and build on their decades-long partnership? These and many other questions were up for discussion Nov. 13-14 as 13 McCombs faculty members, among them four deans and two department chairs, visited the Santa Fe (Mexico City) campus of Monterrey Tec.
The visit, co-sponsored by UT’s Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) and the McCombs School’s Executive MBA at Mexico City, was organized by Dean Jaime Alonso Gómez of Monterrey Tec’s graduate school of business, both as a professional development opportunity for McCombs faculty members and to welcome new McCombs Dean Thomas Gilligan.
The editor of one of Mexico City’s leading newspapers opened the event by painting a rather grim picture of the drug wars, political gridlock and entrenched poverty that dominate headlines in Mexico. Against that bleak backdrop, the event featured business executives from the Mexican operations of PepsiCo, Wal-Mart, CEMEX, IBM and Coca-Cola FEMSA, who described how their companies have adapted to that cultural, political and economic setting to thrive in the Mexican economy. Linda Gerber, senior marketing lecturer, said, “After the trip, I was able to walk into class back at McCombs and add new and interesting perspectives to our discussions on NAFTA.”
Since the mid-1980s, the McCombs School and Monterrey Tec have partnered on both student and faculty programs. According to David Platt, director of CIBER, “Monterrey Tec is the business school’s oldest and strongest partnership. They are to us what [Longhorn wide receiver] Jordan Shipley is to [quarterback] Colt McCoy on the football field: the old friend and go-to guy, the partner we turn to when we need help filling an international need for our students. And we, in turn, have helped them with many programs, including doctoral training and opportunities for their faculty and students.”
Reflecting on the event, Dean Gilligan said, “I was impressed with what I saw and am looking forward to strengthening our relationship with Tec.”
MBAs Win National Real Estate Challenge
A team of graduate students from The University of Texas at Austin defeated 19 top business schools to win the National Real Estate Challenge Nov. 13 at the McCombs School. This was the first time in seven years the host school had won the prestigious competition.
The team consisted of second-year MBA students Scott Humphreys, Michael Searls, Ryan Childs, Kevin White and Bryan Kaminski. The team received a first-place prize of $6,000, and the university lit the tower orange Nov. 21 in honor of their win.
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania finished second, with Yale University third and Vanderbilt University fourth, winning $4,000, $2,000 and $1,000, respectively.
The annual competition is coordinated by The University of Texas at Austin’s Real Estate Finance and Investment Center (REFIC) and the Graduate Real Estate Society.
“It was a great competition this year,” said Jay Hartzell, associate professor of finance and REFIC director. “It is exciting to see Texas win, but this group of students has won other competitions in the last year so we had high hopes for our team.”
This year’s case was provided by Goldman Sachs. The teams were asked to assess a complicated business plan about a competitive bidding process for the acquisition of a Central American–incorporated company with land holdings in a premier U.S. urban location overlooking a major park. The business plan included the purchase of the company, demolition of the hotel that exists on the large parcel and the construction of a two-tower luxury condominium development.
Hartzell said the competition relies on cooperation with business leaders working in the real estate field.
“Todd Williams of Goldman Sachs put together a very difficult case,” Hartzell said. “And Mark Gibson of HFF was instrumental in bringing in the judges—real estate experts from all around the country.”
The other universities participating in the competition included the University of California at Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Virginia, Duke, Harvard, Northwestern, Michigan, MIT, NYU, Stanford, UCLA, North Carolina, Southern California and Wisconsin. The competition was also sponsored by ING Clarion, Inland Western Retail Real Estate Trust, the Lionstone Group and Weingarten Realty.
UT, McCombs Lead in Study Abroad
The University of Texas at Austin is among the nation’s top three universities sending students abroad and the top 10 universities educating international students, according to the new “Open Doors” report, published by the Institute of International Education (IIE). The five most popular study abroad destinations for students are the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, China and France.
The university provided academic credit for 2,172 students who completed educational programs throughout the world during the 2006-07 school year. Only New York University and Michigan State University sent more students abroad.
More than one third of McCombs graduate and undergraduate students studied abroad in 2007-08. McCombs MBAs make up the majority of University of Texas students earning academic credit in China.
“Study abroad is no longer a luxury,” said Terri Givens, vice provost for international activities. “It is becoming a key element in academic preparation because, in an era of globalization, employers increasingly value international experience and language skills.”
Executive Education Launches Corporate Partnerships Program
Texas Executive Education recently created the Corporate Partnership Initiative, designed to provide organizations with a comprehensive, easily administered education plan. Corporations can purchase multiple classroom seats in any open enrollment programs, including those in any certificate program. The program offers flexible billing and a dedicated registration Web site for each company. Companies also have access to networking opportunities with other corporate partners, pricing discounts, concierge-level services, advisory opportunities and more.
“The partnership plan allows companies to tap into a core suite of essential business courses at reduced program rates, while also offering ease of administration via streamlined registration and billing services,” says Gaylen Paulson, interim associate dean and director of Texas Executive Education. “Benefits include increased access to our faculty, contacts with career services advisors to aid in recruiting and even opportunities for on-site consulting project activities with teams of MBA students.”
Voboril Details MBA Journey for BusinessWeek: First-Years Must Let Go of Egos
BusinessWeek featured first-year MBA student Kathleen Voboril in its “MBA Journal” segment. She wrote about lessons learned, including letting go of her ego and learning to love numbers. Read an excerpt below, or see the full article by visiting http://blogs.mccombs.utexas.edu/ mccombs-today/ and searching for “Voboril.”
BusinessWeek, Jan. 19, 2009
The list of core classes for the first semester was daunting: accounting, finance, statistics, economics, and marketing. As a more qualitative student, marketing was my beacon of hope. It was first thing in the lineup, 9:30 a.m. Monday morning. Great, I thought. I’ll get this semester started off right. Wrong!
Because I had a background in marketing, I thought it would be my class to shine. But our professor had a different way of thinking about marketing, and his way didn’t come easily to me. I couldn’t deny how important quantification was becoming in the marketing world, so I just had to embrace his process. Once I did, I was able to really learn something. I could blame the teaching style, the class format, or the case method, but ultimately, I was the one who needed to adapt.
When that happened, a glorious realization occurred: Numbers are my friends. Numbers win arguments. Numbers put stakes in the ground. Numbers confirm assumptions, land bigger paychecks, and nail interviews. I love numbers.
