On the Record - What Business School?

New dean Durnin hopes to put SCSU's business school on the map

Business New Haven
TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2011

Ellen D. Durnin, Ph.D. was appointed dean of the Southern Connecticut State University School of Business in November 2010. Durnin was recruited by interim SCSU President Stanley Battle from Western Connecticut State University, where she was dean of graduate studies and external programs. In May Gov. Dannel P. Malloy approved $3.9 million for the renovation of SCSU's former student center into a 23,000-square-foot headquarters for the School of Business. It was the final allocation for the $6.6 million project. The new facility is expected to open for the autumn 2012 semester. With a new dean and new facility on the way, BNH spoke with Durnin about the present status and future direction of the school of business. Durnin emphasized the importance of the new facility but also the involvement and expansion of the faculty, of which she had been member for seven years earlier in her academic career.

How do you view the reputation of the SCSU business school in the larger business community?

When I came in I told faculty and staff that I was engaging in a listening tour. I was going to talk to students, faculty, alumni, employers and find out what they thought about our school, what they knew about us, recommendations they had. I came back, had a school meeting and said, 'The good news is we don't have a bad reputation. The bad news is we have no reputation. They don't even know we're here.' I actually had a person out in the business community, who when I introduced myself and said my title, argued with me and told me Southern didn't have a school of business.

How big is the business school?

We have over 1,100 undergraduate students, we have over 200 MBA students, over 6,600 alumni of the school, and 85 percent of them stay and work in Connecticut. We're one of those best-kept secrets. Based on all of what I heard, we started to talk about who we wanted to be and what we wanted to be. I sent a survey out to the faculty and asked them to rank their top priorities for the school, and those would be our priorities. The first thing that came back was, 'Get us out of this building.' It's been on the OSHA list to be knocked down for about 10 years. We put brochures together and mailed them out about the conditions here.

Wasn't there a plan to create a new space?

We had half of the funding and the other half hadn't been released [by the state Bond Commission]. We put together a nice campaign to students, employers, alums and legislators, got it on the Bond Commission agenda. Our new interim president, Dr. [Stanley] Battle, has been a very strong supporter. When he offered me the job, I said I had two conditions. Number one, we have to work to get them out of that building; and two, we have to support their desire to go for AACSB [Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business] accreditation.

It shouldn't been a tough sell in terms of the current facility?

My first week here I invited [Battle] over and took him on what we call the Tour of Horrors through the building. He said, 'Dr. Durnin, we're getting you and your faculty out of here.'

What would be the impact of AACSB accreditation?

It virtually guarantees a number of things. One of the things they look at is the caliber of faculty you bring in. Are these faculty scholars who continue to be engaged in their field? They have to show they're maintaining currency in their disciplines, and they have to be publishing at a certain level within a certain time period. They have to have certain types of degrees. So there's academic preparation but also the maintenance of currency in the field.

Is the faculty on board for this?

The faculty understand the importance. It's going to be a lot of work, and it's going to be a lot of things they're going to need to step up and do. The AACSB look at other things that are important: library facilities, technology, curriculum. There are core competencies AACSB says business schools should be helping to provide.

What, for example, is a core competency?

Critical thinking skills, written and oral communications, business ethics, things like that. You have to show that these things are woven throughout your courses, your curriculum, that you assess them regularly.

How big is the accreditation hurdle?

Accreditation is a five- to seven-year process. We have a group of faculty that received training and presented to the school, and that's what we're focusing on this year. The good thing about accreditation is that it supports everything we should be doing in initiatives like curriculum review and reaching out to the business community. It gives us the resources to do the things we want to do. I don't look at accreditation like something separate from what we're doing.

What is the role for the business school in helping to foster a culture of entrepreneurship on campus?

Many of our students come from backgrounds where they're the first ones in their family to go to college. They don't have that belief that they're going to go into a corporate setting. Many come out [believing] they're either going to be an entrepreneur, or they're going to go into a small to mid-sized entrepreneurial organization. Knowing that, and knowing that they tend to stay in Connecticut, it really becomes important for us to say, 'What are the skills that they need?' So we have courses in entrepreneurship, courses in how to write a business plan, how to get funding, at the undergraduate and at the graduate level.

Can you point to anything currently to help build that culture?

We've started to engage the business community. The business school is a sponsor of Startup Weekend New Haven [November 11-13 at the Grove in New Haven]. At the master's level, the Connecticut Venture Group puts on a graduate business planning conference. Last year we sent a team that did well. We did something similar last year for the first time through APICS, which is the production and inventory control society, and they have a competition. We have an undergraduate class in supply chain management. We sent two student teams to compete against the whole Northeast. One of our teams placed fourth. I believe strongly in those kinds of experiential opportunities for students.

The MBA program is pretty large - what's the student makeup?

Two hundred students. Most of them are part-time, most are working and putting themselves through school. Many are using it to advance in their careers or to go someplace else when they graduate. The MBA degree is usually a generalist degree - you're getting some accounting, some economics and finance, some marketing, some management. The idea is that you can then step into an organization and they can give you the specific training. Some believe in the MBA, but some want something more focused, like an M.S. in taxation. We do the broad-based degree here.

What is the school best at?

We're best at taking students who are bright but don't have the financial resources to go to the top schools, and giving them that life-changing opportunity. Maybe they weren't the star student in high school, but they've got the ability. Some of them have a very clear direction - they want to major in accounting and be a CPA. Others want to go into finance and be certified financial planners or work on Wall Street. Very specific. Those kids track themselves right from the beginning. Then there are others who are not quite sure, and those are usually the ones that end up in marketing or management.

Finance is a tough choice today.

We have a program - the Finance Trading Team. A university foundation has given the kids $100,000 a year of real money to invest in the stock market, and they do a fabulous job. They're out-performing the market. They come in with their suits on to class, sit, discuss the market - very, very professional.

How are students coming out of the business school finding the job market now?

I believe our students are doing much better than the general trend right now, but I really want to get my hands around that. There hasn't been that tracking of where they go. That's one of the things I'm working on this year. One of the things I started this year was the Business Student Resource Center. We got some funding to do it on a start-up basis this year and have a faculty member go out into the business community and create internship opportunities for our students. On my listening tour, students that had internships said it was the most valuable thing they did. And employers tell the kids, when they graduate in many cases, they've got a job. I see the center becoming the heart of the business school, offering academic advisement, technical support and there's a value to the alumni.

What would you like the business community to know about how they can benefit from what you're doing?

I would like them to feel that Southern's school of business is their go-to school of business for whatever their needs are, whether it's interns or hiring or training for their employees. We have the new building, that can be a place [where business people can interact with faculty and staff]. There will be seminar rooms, trading rooms, meeting spaces. If they say, 'We need to train our employees on SAP' [accounting software], we can say, 'We'll put together a workshop for you. We have certified faculty. Come to us.'

You're meeting a lot of former Southern graduates. What is their feeling about their alma mater?

I had a very successful alum in here a few weeks ago. He was telling me about his experience, and he said when he was here, 'I was a dim bulb, but there was a professor here who saw a glimmer and helped me and nurtured me.' He's a CEO of a very successful corporation today and has endowed a scholarship in that professor's name to honor him.

Looking at the new' building, it doesn't look large enough for 1,300 students.

No teaching in this building - it's faculty offices. We have [classroom] space here and there all over campus. When we move in it will give us some instructional space, but still not enough. The back of the building is vacant and is not part of this project. But we're already saying to Dr. Battle [that for] Phase II we need the back of this building. Then we can expand and put everything together, and it truly would be the hub for the business students. The other challenge: We have about 35 faculty, but a number of them are close to retirement age. A number are on special appointments; it's not a tenure-track line. We can only have them for up to two years. I just put in a request for 16 more faculty lines. Some of them would replace retirees or people who are going to leave us because they're special appointment. I'm not going to get 16 new lines this year, but hoping that over the next few years that will happen. That also helps us to bring in people with new ideas and new energy.

We don't see the faculty of most area colleges being very engaged in the community or with non-profits, for example. How do you get that kind of authentic involvement by the faculty?

Some of them do some consulting and are engaged that way. Some haven't been; that's why I'm pushing things like getting involved with New Haven's Economic Development Corp. [or] Connecticut Venture Capital. They can make connections with people who can come in to be guest speakers or can mentor students, or job placement. They've got a lot going on, but I'm trying to show them the value of being more involved. Every month we bring in someone from the business community. Recently we had Mark Volchek, one of the founders of Higher One, come in.. He said he's willing to come talk to classes or work with students. He said, 'I need to hire - I know your students stay here.'