Change in Course
by Marc Schwartz
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Celebrating its 80th anniversary as a school in the 2002-2003 academic year, The McCombs School of Business is collecting stories about its history and culture, told through interviews with faculty, staff, business partners, donors, and alumni. Before publishing out "Heritage Project" in book form, we plan to publish excerpts from it on our web site, and in the McCombs School Magazine. The following piece is an excerpt from Chapter 2, which details, the first inflection point in the School's evolution to a national business education powerhouse.
From today’s vantage point, perhaps no single event has had a more lasting impact on The University of Texas at Austin’s rise to excellence than the 1958 report of the Committee of 75.
The report, which savaged UT for failing to live up to the expectations of its founders, created a pivotal moment in the life of the University. The challenge it presented to University leaders became an opportunity for them to create an atmosphere receptive to change and focused on academic growth. Their creative and resolute actions during one of the University’s darker hours helped spark an arc of activity that carried UT—and the School of Business—to new heights, impressive accomplishments, and hard-won respect.
The CBA in the 1950s
For most of the 1950s, the College of Business Administration was led by Dean William Spriegel, whose leadership had helped the school achieve a degree of prominence it had never before known. When he retired in 1958, his successor, John Arch White, inherited a school that seemed to have come of age. But there were more growing pains ahead.
Even as the CBA flourished, the nation’s business schools as a whole came under close scrutiny from a pair of academic reports released in 1958. Both the Gordon-Howell Report and the Pierson Report blasted business schools for having overly narrow, trade-focused curricula; for employing poorly trained faculty and attracting academically inferior students; and for implementing simplistic teaching and research methodologies.
The two reports were an academic bombshell, rudely jolting many of the nation’s top business schools out of a comfortable complacency. The shockwave quickly reached Interim-Dean White’s office.
While White and the CBA leadership absorbed the ramifications of the Pierson and Gordon-Howell Reports, another jolt hit even closer to home: the Committee of 75 delivered its findings on the state of The University of Texas at Austin.
The Committee of 75
When the UT System was established in 1883, its founders committed themselves to creating a “university of the first class” that would serve the whole people of Texas. That special status carried with it special obligations, of course, and as a public institution UT was used to scrutiny. Still, as it celebrated its 75th year it had cause to feel proud of its accomplishments and optimistic about its future.
The Board of Regents decided to mark the occasion with a top-to-bottom evaluation of the University. It appointed 75 prominent Texans to undertake a painstaking 18-month review of the state of the institution. Simply put, they were to answer the question: “Is UT living up to its obligation to be a ‘university of the first class?’”
The answer, delivered in a concise 45-page report to the Regents and UT President Logan Wilson on December 6, 1958, extinguished the University’s celebratory mood. Headed by UT alumnus Rex G. Baker, Sr., the Committee had pulled no punches.
It rated the University’s undergraduate programs satisfactory, but said they clearly fell short of the quality needed for a distinguished university. The overall graduate program fared no better. “There are probably only a few of the instructional departments which belong among the top 20 in the nation,” the Committee ruled. But the Committee reserved its harshest verdict for the research program, saying that “it clearly represents one of the greatest single weaknesses of The University.” And without a strong research effort, the report said, UT would never reach national prominence or fulfill its mission.
Basically, the Committee found a university that after 75 years of operation had become a respected regional school, but hardly a national leader in higher education. With a handful of exceptions—including the CBA’s nationally-acclaimed accounting program—UT offered its students an average education at best, not the “first class” one both the framers of the Texas constitution and UT’s founders
had mandated.
Fortunately, the Committee’s purpose was not to criticize, but to encourage change. Its report carefully examined how and why the University fell short and offered concrete recommendations to help transform it from a state college to a national educational leader.
Faculty, Facilities and Finances
The three issues that most affected the CBA were the Committee’s reported findings on faculty, facilities and finances.
Essential to becoming a “university of the first class” was UT’s ability to attract and retain distinguished faculty members, said the Committee. Excellent teachers would in turn attract excellent students, and contribute significantly to the body of research the University was expected to generate.
To aid the recruitment of such exceptional professors, the Committee of 75 recommended major salary hikes for all faculty, a suggestion particularly applauded by Business School faculty. For years they had worked well below market value, and often were held to the University simply by a love of Austin, a joy in teaching, and a hope for the future. Professor C. Aubrey Smith remembers considering job offers during the Depression, when his salary had been slashed 25 percent.
“All the opportunities far exceeded my salary at the University of Texas,” he remembers.
Smith opted to stay in Austin, but was forced into part-time accounting work to help make ends meet , and he was by no means the only one. Although salaries had significantly improved by the late 50s, often professors still made considerable economic sacrifices to remain at the CBA.
The Committee recognized that salary alone would not suffice, however. Premier faculty would require premier facilities: “It must be recognized that inadequate physical facilities can seriously hamper and frustrate scholars in their teaching and research efforts.”
The CBA had long suffered under less than ideal physical conditions: cramped classrooms, a shortage of office space, even exile to dismal temporary pine shacks during the worst periods of overcrowding. Even as the Committee of 75 was preparing its report, a Building Committee chaired by then Associate Dean White was signing off on architectural plans for the massive new Business-Economics Building (BEB).
The Committee of 75’s recommendation on facilities struck a particular chord with the CBA. It had outgrown previous homes, and even if that prospect remained in the distant future given the size of the new BEB, the need to remain technologically current was pressing. Even in the late 50s, CBA administrators had begun to realize the significance of the computer, but adding the requisite equipment —and keeping it modern—was no small expense.
The third of the three “f’s” —financing the changes —was therefore also of special interest to the school. The Committee offered a radical departure from tradition by suggesting that the University solicit funds from the private sector instead of relying wholly on public monies. This was a bold, unprecedented move that frankly ran counter to public opinion; most Texans in the 1950s thought that it was fairly distasteful for a state school to go hat in hand to private donors.
“The University of Texas does need the money from these private sources—indeed, must have it in dramatically increased amounts if we are to have a university ‘of the first class,’” the Committee wrote. “Our investigations show that no state university has yet attained eminent status without this type of support...a first class investment is required to produce a first class university.”
The Committee particularly wanted the people of Texas to feel that in making philanthropic donations to the University, they were investing in the state’s future. Given time, they said, aggressive fundraising coupled with intelligent investing could help catapult UT into the top tier of universities.
Lasting Changes
Following the release of the Committee of 75’s report, the CBA leadership implemented a number of changes that continue to impact the McCombs School of Business.
In May of 1960, the CBA’s Advisory Council convened for the first time. Initially composed of 15 prominent business leaders, it met semi-annually to help the School’s leadership strengthen ties to the business community. The Business School also took steps to improve communications with alumni through updated mailing lists and the publication of a college newsletter.
Performance standards were raised, and Dean White added an Honors Plan—all of which was a prelude to a general curriculum overhaul. And, most significantly, White pushed for the creation of a new Graduate School of Business.
Although UT had awarded MBAs since 1920, PhDs (in business administration) since 1930 and MPAs since 1948, the graduate programs were administered by a broad University-wide graduate school with its own dean. While the system worked well for most liberal arts disciplines, it had definite shortcomings as it applied to business education. White argued that graduate education in business more closely resembled the structure of law and medical schools, and as such would benefit from a separate graduate school.
It was an opportunity for UT to stand with the front rank of innovative, accomplished schools. “As of the present time, there is no graduate school of business in the Southwest,” White wrote. “None exists between St. Louis and the west coast.”
White’s proposal meshed well with the Committee of 75’s emphasis on graduate work and research. In the fall of 1964, the Graduate School of Business became operational, granting 80 MBAs, eight MPAs and 19 PhDs during its first year.
In 1966, John Arch White retired from the deanship. His successor was Dr. George Kozmetsky— the kind of leader whose accomplishments tend to eclipse those of his predecessors. But even as Kozmetsky envisioned a new era for the Business School, he built upon the foundation laid by John Arch White and the men and women who rose to the challenge of the Committee of 75.
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
