Dean Search
The University of Texas at Austin
Dean, McCombs School of Business
The University of Texas at Austin seeks nominations and applications for Dean of the McCombs School of Business.
Overview
The McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin is a national leader in business education and research. It is consistently ranked among the top 20 business schools by Business Week Magazine. Led by its No. 1 ranked accounting program, McCombs is one of the few schools in the country to receive top marks in nearly all the business specialty areas ranked annually by U.S. News & World Report.
More than 170 renowned experts educate more than 6,000 students each year. Its size and the quality of its educational and research programs make McCombs one of the most influential business schools in the country.
The School houses five academic departments (Accounting; Finance; Information, Risk and Operations Management; Management and Marketing). These are bolstered by 19 research centers including the Center for Research in Electronic Commerce, the Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship and the Center for Customer Insight and Marketing Solutions.
McCombs students complement their rigorous coursework with real-world exposure
to business, including Moot Corp®, the world's original and most lucrative
student business plan competition, and the MBA Investment Fund, L.L.C., the
first legally constituted, private investment company managed entirely by
students.
Students and faculty at the McCombs School of Business frequently partner with
Austin’s business community, which is home to more than 800 semiconductor,
energy, computer and software companies and industries focused on the
biosciences, multimedia, film, music, and logistics and distribution. A
youthful, highly educated city with a thriving entrepreneurial economy, Austin
is an ideal setting for business education.
McCombs graduates have a reputation for productivity, skill and leadership
potential, drawing recruiters from more than 500 companies to campus annually.
The school is one of the country’s top producers of Fortune 500 CEOs. MBA
placement (employment three months after graduation) placed sixth in the nation
in a recent Business Week ranking. More than 80,000 alumni in 50 states and 113
countries comprise an engaged and influential global network extending from New
York to Seattle to Beijing.
Position
The Dean is the senior academic and administrative officer of the school. As such, he or she is responsible for:
• Providing leadership in advancing the school’s goal to be among the nation’s
most highly regarded, premier business schools;
• Ensuring that the school’s resources, both physical and intellectual, are
employed efficiently and effectively;
• Providing leadership, and inspiring faculty to ensure continuous improvement
of all research and teaching activities;
• Acting as an effective spokesperson for the school to its various
constituencies, within the school, within the University and in the outside
business community;
• Collaborating with faculty and administrators in other colleges and centers of
the University to promote interdisciplinary research and interdisciplinary
academic programs;
• Promoting and coordinating ongoing efforts to enhance the school’s financial
resources;
• Furthering ties with universities and businesses throughout the world.
Faculty
The McCombs Faculty is committed to both forward-looking research and high-quality teaching.
The faculty is considered among the most productive and influential research faculties in the country. It is ranked seventh in terms of research contributions, based on a survey of publications in top-tier academic business journals (2000-2005) conducted by the University of Texas at Dallas, and ninth on the Social Science Research Network’s list of most downloaded working papers from American business schools (2007).
Faculty routinely serve as editors and editorial board members of leading research journals, and hold leadership positions in their academic societies. Moreover, their opinions and insights can be found on the op-ed pages of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week and heard on both mainstream and business-oriented radio and television news programs. Several faculty are members of government advisory boards, serve as expert witnesses, and engage in corporate consulting.
The School’s academic programs are considered exceptionally innovative and serve as models for others throughout the world. Several members of the McCombs faculty are the authors of the leading textbooks in their academic specialties. Eight faculty members are in the University’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers, one of the highest teaching honors bestowed by the University.
Programs
Undergraduate
As one of the largest and finest undergraduate business programs in the nation, the McCombs undergraduate program provides a superb, comprehensive education to more than 4,800 students. Of these, approximately 500 students are enrolled in an especially prestigious Business Honors Program.
Nationally ranked by U.S. News as seventh overall, the School has also been recognized as having the No. 1 undergraduate Accounting program, the No. 2 ranked Marketing program, and the No. 3 ranked Management Information Systems program. Admission to the undergraduate program is highly competitive, with only 20 percent of applicants being accepted. The average entering SAT score is approximately 1300 (1450 for Business Honors) and entering students ranked, on average, in the top 2.4 percent of their high school classes (2.0 percent for Business Honors). The school boasts 226 National Merit Scholars.
MPA
For the last fourteen years, the Master in Professional Accounting Program at The University of Texas has been named the No. 1 graduate accounting program in the nation by a Public Accounting Report survey; and U.S. News named it the No. 1 graduate program in 2007. As a result, the program attracts high-quality, motivated students from around the world.
There are two routes to the Texas MPA degree. The traditional MPA is a 12- to 18-month graduate program for students who have earned a bachelor’s degree from a four-year accredited institution in any field. In fall 2007, the 89 entering students had an average GMAT score of 671 and a 3.72 undergraduate GPA.
The integrated MPA is a three-year program designed for McCombs students beyond their sophomore year who are in the process of earning their bachelor’s degree. Upon completion of the integrated MPA degree, students receive bachelor of business administration (BBA) and master in professional accounting (MPA) degrees concurrently. The 237 students beginning the integrated MPA in 2007 had an average SAT of 1303 and an average GPA of 3.72 in their first two years of university education.
Keeping pace with the ever-increasing globalization of business, the Texas MPA gives students the option to participate in four international programs: the European Double Degree Program, the Latin American Joint Academic Program, and the summer International Accounting Programs in Paris and Hong Kong.
Texas MPA students are highly sought after by more than 200 employers representing 25 different industries, Fortune 500 companies and nonprofit and government organizations, in addition to the Big Four accounting firms. A vast majority of Texas MPAs accept offers for permanent positions before or within a few months of their graduation.
MBA
The McCombs School of Business is home to a highly-regarded MBA program portfolio, which offers six routes to the degree, all with the goal of developing influential business leaders. With a “one MBA” philosophy, the same high standards are applied to all aspects of the portfolio. The top-20 ranked full-time program admits 260 students per year to the two-year program. Work experience averages five years. Approximately 25 percent of the class members are international students, and roughly 35 percent are from Texas. The remaining students are drawn from all regions of the United States. The Texas Evening MBA in Austin is a three-year program for working professionals with an entering class of 70 each year. The two-year Texas MBA in Houston enrolls 110 students in each entering class and the Texas MBA in Dallas/Fort Worth enrolls 80. Students in the three working professionals programs average seven years of work experience on entry. The Texas Executive MBA enrolls a class of 70 seasoned executives each year. Students in this two-year program come in with significant managerial responsibilities and more than 10 years of work experience, on average. The Texas Executive MBA in Mexico City rounds out the portfolio and enrolls approximately 45 students each year.
A unique “Plus” program brings students a rich array of opportunities to enhance their communication skills (through communications coaches), their technical skills (through an array of hands-on workshops), and their consulting skills (through live engagements with organizations of all types). The McCombs Global Connections courses offer students the chance to immerse themselves in business practices around the world. Destinations on each continent allow them to gain a truly global perspective. All of this is strategically interwoven into a leadership focused curriculum centered on theoretically-grounded and practically-relevant market-based concentrations. Upon graduation, Texas MBAs take positions in banking and corporate finance, strategic consulting, and marketing, as well as a variety of other areas, and they join a 16,000-plus group of talented alumni worldwide.
Ph.D.
The McCombs School offers five Ph.D. programs—in Accounting; Finance; Information, Risk and Operations Management (IROM); Management; and Marketing—each providing candidates the opportunity to learn from, and work side by side with, some of the world’s leading scholars in the discipline. All programs are highly ranked nationally; the Public Accounting Report ranked the program in Accounting No. 1.
McCombs’ Ph.D. programs emphasize cutting-edge theoretical and empirical research and encourage students to push the boundaries of knowledge. Admission standards are exceedingly rigorous (approximately 5 percent of applicants are admitted) and students are provided with substantial financial support. Students work one-on-one with faculty members and have access to specialized financial and other business data bases, state-of-the art-computer facilities and a behavioral research laboratory. A significant proportion of students publish research papers while still enrolled in the program. Recent graduates have accepted positions at Duke, Harvard, Northwestern, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
International
The McCombs School boasts an international atmosphere that provides significant global opportunities for its students and faculty. A member of the prestigious Partnership in International Management consortium, which works to make available international opportunities for members’ graduate students, McCombs hosts international MBA students on exchange and double degree programs that each year involve over 10 percent of the MBA population. Moreover, 60 percent of graduating MBA students have participated in the Global Connections program, which combines a half-semester of studying a country or region with a two-week study tour to the region.
In the BBA program, where the students are largely Texas based, McCombs draws on its network of 35 partner schools around the world to provide international study opportunities. At present, 25 percent of undergraduate business students participate in these programs, with about 150 partner-school students coming to McCombs to interact with our students.
A significant amount of McCombs Executive Education programming is international, with faculty engaged in training programs around the world, from Spain to Singapore to Sakhalin Island. All students receiving the Executive MBA degree participate in a short international study component, and opportunities for international short-term study are provided for all students in the three working-professional MBA programs.
Since 1990, McCombs has successfully competed for U.S. Department of Education funding for a Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER). CIBER provides central coordination for the school’s international activities, while maintaining the partner network and providing funding for faculty research and conferences that increase both the international focus of the school and the school’s international profile among other universities.
Opportunities for Further Accomplishment
Despite its strong reputation and accomplishments to date, McCombs has set for itself an ambitious and aggressive agenda for its future, the culmination of which will be recognition as among the world’s premier schools of business. The school expects to play a leadership role in defining the key questions facing the world of business and in formulating policies and developing practices in response to those issues. Further, McCombs plans to be at the frontiers of pedagogy that will educate the business leaders of the future to meet the challenges of a global economy.
The AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center
Opening in August 2008, The AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center will be among the premier facilities of its kind. Featuring state-of-the-art classroom and conference rooms, it will also include 297 hotel rooms, a variety of dining facilities, an 800 seat divisible ballroom, and a 300 seat tiered amphitheatre. Under a 25-year partnership agreement, AT&T will equip the center with the latest innovations in voice, broadband, wireless and television services. The Center will provide the opportunity for the McCombs School to significantly expand its ability to offer comprehensive, first class programs to corporations and business leaders from across the globe.
Collaboration with Other Campus Units
The University of Texas is one of the largest and most comprehensive research
universities in the world, with highly-ranked departments and programs spread
across campus. A recent ranking placed seven UT doctoral programs in the top ten
in the nation and 22 departments in the top 25. The Times of London recently
rated UT the second best public university in the U.S. and the eighteenth best
university in the world.
The UT campus houses more than ninety research units. The quantity and quality
of UT programs offer an extraordinary opportunity for collaboration that the
McCombs School has thus far only begun to exploit. The following are five
promising examples on which President Powers and Executive Vice President Leslie
hope the next Dean will build.
IC² (The Institute for Creativity and Capital)
IC2 is one of the country’s leading organizations devoted to technology transfer. As an interdisciplinary research unit of the university it focuses on both the theory and practice of wealth creation throughout the world. Most notably, the Institute sponsors the Austin Technology Incubator. This laboratory for technology transfer has produced over 150 companies, four of which have gone public and many others of which have been privately acquired. Since 1989 firms nurtured by IC2 have generated more than $1 billion in revenues and more than 10,000 jobs. The Institute also offers a degree program that leads to a Master of Science in Technology Commercialization.
A related Center, The Herb Kelleher for Entrepreneurship, is housed in the McCombs School of Business proper. It is dedicated to funding faculty research and entrepreneurial programs for students. Both this center and IC2 are among the sponsors of McCombs’ Moot® Corp. competition. This challenge has been widely acknowledged as the Super Bowl of MBA business plan rivalries.
The Jackson School of Geosciences.
The Jackson School of Geosciences (JSG) recently received a $300 million gift which should allow the JSG to seriously pursue its goal of becoming the preeminent geosciences program in the United States. Over the next five years, JSG, which includes the Institute for Geophysics and the Bureau of Economic Geology, will hire 30-35 new faculty and scientists in order to realize its vision of making a lasting impact on the geosciences. The Jackson School has already reached out to the McCombs School for purposes of pursuing shared interests in sustainability and environmental ethics.
The Strauss Center for International Security and Law.
Another relatively recent addition to UT’s portfolio of opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration is the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law. Housed in the prestigious LBJ School of Public Affairs, the Strauss Center was established in fall 2007, will be funded with a $25 million capital campaign, and is dedicated to increasing public understanding of all manner of global challenges. The Strauss Center was created explicitly to leverage the talents of academic disciplines across the UT campus in order to promote research on pressing challenges and opportunities in global affairs.
The Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies.
The Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS) is a multidisciplinary institute under the umbrella of UT’s College of Liberal Arts. LLILAS was established 70 years ago and integrates more than 30 academic departments at UT. It sponsors six research centers and hosts the world’s foremost electronic gateway to Latin American research, which receives 4 – 5 million hits per month. LLILAS sponsors the Benson Latin American Collection, the largest university research library for Latin American materials in the United States in number of volumes.
The University of Texas School of Law.
Like the McCombs Business School, the UT School of Law provides quality education to a large number of students. Its research faculty consistently ranks among the top 10 law school faculties in the nation. Their interests in such topics as corporate governance and finance, the regulatory environment of business, intellectual property, and energy and environmental issues make collaboration between the two schools a natural fit. Thus far, the schools have made several joint appointments, and professors from both schools have worked together on numerous research projects. The new Dean, however, will have the opportunity to facilitate many more such strategic collaborative efforts.
Advantages of Austin and Texas—Opportunities to Collaborate with Industry
The McCombs School enjoys the good fortune of being situated in Austin, the capital of Texas and by all measures, a wonderful place to live. Austin is the 16th largest city in the United States and in recent years, the third fastest growing city. Sporting a highly educated population, it often is ranked at the very top of lists of “Best Places to Live” and “Greenest Cities.”
Austin’s economy is strong and diverse. The city is the center of Texas government, but is also blessed with a strong network of independent, locally-owned firms. Nicknamed “Silicon Hills” (or “Silicon Gulch”), the Austin area hosts operations of many high tech companies, including, Dell Computer, IBM, Freescale Semiconductor, Apple, H-P, AMD, Applied Materials, Cirrus Logic, Cisco, e-Bay/PayPal, Intel, National Instruments, Samsung, Silicon Laboratories, Sun Microsystems, and United Devices. Austin is also home to Fortune 500 companies Temple-Inland and Whole Foods Market, and financial services companies such as Dimensional Fund Advisors.
The State of Texas contains three of the nation’s ten largest cities (Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas) and six of the largest twenty-one (add Austin, Ft. Worth, and El Paso). Among American cities in which the headquarters of Fortune 500 companies are located, Houston ranks second, just behind New York City. Dallas ranks fourth and San Antonio is tied for fifteenth.
While providing the social and economic opportunities of a sprawling metropolis, Austin remains a city of lakes, hills, live music, and cosmopolitan culture, defined by its gregarious personality, endless opportunities for growth, and celebrated quality of life.
The lure of the Southwest, the large population in Texas, the concentration of top companies, and the overall strength of the Texas economy combine to provide many opportunities upon which the McCombs School, as Texas’ most-prestigious school of business, is well-positioned to capitalize. The McCombs School’s recent significant expansion into the executive education markets in Dallas and Houston illustrates some of what can be accomplished. President Powers and Executive Vice President Leslie seek to appoint a Dean who will be particularly entrepreneurial and strategic in expanding the reach of the McCombs School of Business into a variety of national and international venues.
A Bright Future: The University Endowment Campaign
The University is fortunate to have loyal supporters, especially among its alumni and friends. In its last capital campaign, the University raised $1.63 billion for student scholarships, research facilities, professorships, campus improvements, expansion of faculty, and the like.
The McCombs School will soon be enjoying the fruits of UT’s next major capital
campaign which is set to be launched in 2009, with a goal of raising more than
$2 billion. McCombs will share in both the challenges of raising these funds,
and the benefits that will flow from them.