Books

New Book Offers Insights for Business School Leaders
Chapter by Smith School Dean Howard Frank

Ever wonder what goes on inside the mind of top business school deans?Business School Leadership Strategies, edited by E. Fournier (Aspatore, Inc., 2006), provides an insider’s perspective on the ins and outs of the business school management and the strategic thinking behind operating a business school. The book discusses the roles of administrators, professors and students as well as the importance of striking a balance between intellectual growth and being a profitable institution.

Dean Howard Frank discusses the importance of bringing a business mindset to the challenges of educational administration in a chapter titled “Transforming the Role of Dean: From Caretaker to CEO.” He describes the Smith School’s parallel leadership structures that accommodate the needs of both the academic and the business sides of the school, as well as some of the strategies that have proved essential to creating the Smith School’s globally recognized programs.

In the following excerpt from the book, Frank explains why fundraising is essential:

If you look at a major public business school, there is no difference between it and a private business school in terms of cost structure. If I am going to compete for faculty, I am going to compete for the best faculty, and these individuals have the choice of going to either a public or a private school. We are going to pay them the same as if they were going to the top private institution. If I am going to create a building, the fact that it is sitting on the University of Maryland ground does not make it any cheaper to build than if it were sitting on Harvard or Wharton ground. Nobody cares about public versus private when we are heating the building.

Business School Leadership Strategies is available for purchase at bookstores.