FALL 2007
VOL. 8 NO. 2

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Cover Story

Since 1938, tens of thousands of talented men and women have received an excellent business education at the University of Maryland’s business school. But now the school has come to a transformational moment in its evolution. It is time for the Smith School to complete its ascent to greatness.

The Smith School seeks to raise $90 million in private funding over the next seven years as part of Great Expectations, The Campaign for Maryland. This is a vital part of the school’s strategic mission, because our growth and vision far outstrip any expectation of public funding. In fact, only about 10 percent of the Smith School’s operating funds come from the state of Maryland. The growth Smith has experienced over the past 10 years has been privately funded—by revenue production, as the school has expanded its graduate level and executive education programs, and by the financial support of alumni and friends.

You can play a key role in Smith’s ascent to greatness. Your contribution to the Great Expectations campaign can help the Smith School of Business achieve its destiny as one of the world’s great business schools. You can give Smith School faculty and students the ability to better our world; providing students the opportunity to reach for the stars, ensuring our faculty are competitive.

The $90 million goal is ambitious, but so are the Smith School’s expectations: To become one of the top global business schools, as measured by the school’s stature in research and teaching, and the quality and placement of its students. As we look to the next 10 years, it is clear that the Smith School’s rise to greatness depends on recruiting and retaining the best students and the most accomplished faculty. And to do that, we need resources.

State funding is not and will never be sufficient to allow us to compete with the nation’s top private institutions. Private contributions from alumni and friends are not just important, not just necessary; they are crucial.

So far the campaign has raised $43 million and is on track to reach our halfway goal—$45 million—by September 30.

“The Great Expectations campaign will support the Smith School’s transformation from excellence to greatness,” says Dean Howard Frank. “We’re putting a stake in the ground. This is the moment when we say we are changed, we are never going back, and we are going to be one of the world’s greatest business schools. We already have the students, the faculty, the facility, and the leadership.

“In fact, in our pursuit of greatness we have done everything we can to increase all revenue streams, but it now requires significant philanthropic funding to move us to the next level. This campaign and this moment in time sets the stage for the future, and determines whether we can achieve our great expectations,” says Dean Frank.

The Great Expectations campaign will make it possible for the Smith School to achieve its true potential as one of the world’s premier institutions of business education in the 21st century. In order for the Smith School to continue to produce top business professionals for the region, the country and the world, we need you to participate. Be a part of our bright future. We are rising.

Bringing the Best Students to Smith

We must continue to attract the boldest and brightest young men and women of each new generation. Scholarships allow the Smith School to compete for the best students—and we are competing with the best schools. When students list what schools they are considering along with Smith, the names are impressive: Wharton, Michigan, Duke.

Many people understand the need for undergraduate scholarships. But graduate scholarships have become increasingly important as well. The Smith School has become well-known for producing not just cutting-edge management research, but also cutting-edge researchers. Funding for PhD students allows us to bring into the program men and women who produce ground-breaking research and go on to appointments at top schools in the United States and around the world.

There is also an urgent need for scholarships to support MBA students. We must be able to offer competitive financial aid to attract and keep students who want to attend Smith—and who we’d like to have—but who cannot turn down a greater financial aid offer elsewhere.

“We are losing some terrific potential students because of these resources issues, even though for them and for us the Smith School was the best possible fit,” says Dean Frank. “Our MBA programs have risen in the rankings and in respect, but as we rise, the competition gets steeper and we must offer more financial aid that is competitive with other top schools. Financial aid has become a critical piece of the puzzle for us.”

Smith alumni have been generous in their support of scholarship funds, and today 80 named scholarships exist. But the need is still much greater than what can be provided through currently available scholarship funds. That is why building the scholarship program is such a vital part of our Great Expectations campaign.

Many alumni choose to give back to the university as part of their estate planning process, but scholarship giving isn’t solely the province of older, established alumni. Foday Sackor ’07, who graduated just last May, is also ready to give back. “I went through without paying a dime, so I feel like I owe it to other students to give where I can,” he says. Sackor is just starting his career—he accepted an entry-level position with Accenture on his graduation—but he intends to make giving back a part of his life from the very beginning.

Sackor wants to endow a scholarship to help students transferring from Montgomery College to the Smith School, just like he did, and hopes to persuade some of his recent fellow graduates to join him. Sackor came to the U.S. from a refugee camp in Ghana, escaping ethnic violence and war in his native country of Liberia. The Smith School has given him the opportunities he dreamed of—including the opportunity to be the first person in his family to graduate from college—and he is eager to give the same opportunity to someone else. “Even if it is only $500, I know that it will make a difference for other students the way it made a difference for me,” says Sackor.

Matthews joined Hershey in 1972 after serving five years in the United States Marine Corp as a Captain/Naval aviator. During his tenure with Hershey, he saw the food giant grow from $250 million to $5 billion. After being named VP of sales in 1989, Matthews dedicated himself to developing Hershey’s next generation of leaders. “Developing human capital is one of the key elements that I took away from my business school education,” says Matthews.

“Developing people was a primary goal I tried to accomplish at Hershey. There’s an old Chinese proverb: If you want one year of prosperity, grow wheat; if you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees; if you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people. I was diligent about growing our employees at Hershey, and am now enthusiastic about the opportunities for growth that can come from a scholarship,” says Matthews.

Milt and his wife Becky have endowed two scholarships: one to the Smith School, and one to the University of Maryland men’s track program, recognizing the important effect both communities had upon his life. Matthews says that being a Maryland alumnus has given him a sense of family and loyalty, much like his feelings toward the Marine Corps and Hershey.

“Maryland’s education provided me with unbelievable opportunities. Scholarships are there to provide others an opportunity to pursue their own dreams,” says Matthews.

Miguel Dieguez & Milt Matthews ‘68, (right)

Spotlight: Miguel Dieguez, MBA candidate 2008

Miguel Dieguez is an impressive guy. A lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, Dieguez provides leadership and management to a large contingent of Navy engineers. But two years ago he realized that he needed to bring his skills to the next level to be most effective for his team and to position himself for advancement. So he began looking for MBA opportunities in the Washington metropolitan area.

“I selected the Smith School because the faculty and students seemed to have a close relationship, and I knew it was the best business school in the region,” says Dieguez. While his commitment to attending the Smith School was high, the financial aspects were a burden, especially because his wife is currently finishing a law degree. The Navy is paying for part of his degree, but the Milton Matthews Scholarship will allow Dieguez to spend more of his energy on his education and less worrying about his finances.

Few other business schools can match Smith in the area of research production. In the 2007 Financial Times MBA rankings, the Smith School was ranked #5 worldwide in research, a ranking based on the number of faculty research articles published in world’s top academic journals.

But rankings and statistics are a small measure of the impact this research makes on a global scale. Smith research influences everything from the way that the FAA allocates airport runway space to the way eBay aggregates seller reviews. From healthcare technology to high finance, the Smith School is pursuing research that affects the way people live and do business.

The extraordinary scope and scale of this research is driven and fueled by our phenomenal faculty. Brilliant, original and creative, they provide the impetus for the school’s prodigious research output. They are superstars in their fields, academic innovators who are advancing business thinking and education.

Smith faculty are so respected, and their research and teaching skills so valued, that they are a frequent target of raiding by other top business schools. To succeed in its quest for greatness, the Smith School must retain top tenure-track faculty and continue to attract the best in the business. The school has a very competitive salary profile but needs additional endowed positions to compete with the academically elite private business schools, and compensate for the high cost of living in the region, as it pursues future top-level recruiting.

His son Allan Edelson, a director with Deutsche Bank Berkshire Mortgage Inc., recently endowed a scholarship in honor of his father’s life and commitment to the school, which has gone from strength to strength in the years since Edelson’s retirement. “I think my dad would be very happy and proud to see how well the school is doing. He was always interested in the entrepreneurial aspects of business, so I think he would also be pleased at what a strong entrepreneurship program the school has developed,” says Allan Edelson.

Charles Edelson helped shape the business aspects of the business school, creating a workable accounting system and serving as assistant dean of administration for a number of years. Edelson shared his professional expertise with colleagues, too. “He freely gave his advice to faculty, and many of us, myself included, had Charlie do our tax returns,” says former dean Rudy Lamone.

And if “Charlie” did your tax returns, you were guaranteed that they would be beyond reproach. Edelson’s commitment to ethics and his reputation for ethical behavior was so well known that one student reported, “When I have a moral dilemma I think to myself ‘What would Professor Edelson do?’”

Lamone remembers that Edelson was very involved with students on a personal level, and they adored him. “He was very respected and loved by his students, because he cared,” says Lamone. “He always had time for his students.”

Some of those students went on to become Smith School faculty, including Gary Bulmash, Tyser Teaching Fellow, and James Bedingfield, professor emeritus of accounting and former chair of the accounting and information assurance department. “I had Charlie for income tax accounting, which was probably my least favorite subject in accounting,” Bedingfield recalls. “But he kept the class interesting by relating the regulations to incidents from the tax problems of entertainment and political figures. He was a great instructor.”

“He was very happy to see students do well,” adds Allan Edelson. “And many of them went on to become partners in the Big Eight accounting firms.” Allan Edelson never took a class from his father, but he was privileged to see an entirely different side of the Smith School than most students. “The university was such a huge part of my life growing up,” he says. “The faculty here were like my extended family.”

Allan Edelson hopes the Charles B. Edelson Endowed Undergraduate Scholarship will encourage intellectually curious kids to pursue a career in business—whether in accounting, finance or entrepreneurship—that will improve both their lives and society at large. “Universities are among the most important institutions we go through in our lives, so supporting and strengthening them is important for our children and our society,” he says.

“This gift is part of our commitment not just to the Smith School, but also to the profession of accounting,” says David Kessler ’85, principal with the Reznick Group. Accounting is one of the Smith School’s most popular majors for undergraduates, with 561 students in 2007.

The Reznick Group and the Smith School enjoy a mutually beneficial partnership. Two of the organization’s founders, David Reznick ’59 and Stuart Fedder ’59, graduated from the University of Maryland and remain involved with the campus. The organization was founded in the Washington, D.C., region 30 years ago. Since then the firm has grown to enjoy a national reputation for excellence and integrity. It is now the 17th largest accounting services firm in the United States, with a workforce of about 1,300 employees.

The organization recruits heavily at the Smith School. “We benefit from having high-caliber students coming out of the Smith School,” says Kessler. This year the firm hired 45 Maryland graduates for its Baltimore, Md., and Bethesda, Md., offices—up to 40 percent of their total hires for both offices. The firm counts 90 alumni among its work force, and 14 of these are principals with the firm.

“Our founders could never have imagined the incredible success we have enjoyed, part of which the Smith School made possible with talent, says Risa Guber, national principal for human resources. “The school’s blueprint on our landscape is incredible.”

Kessler says it is the Smith School’s combination of rigorous academics, practical experience and active mentoring that makes its accounting graduates such desirable hires. But the Reznick Group also helps shape the new generation of accounting professionals through its involvement with the school’s ethics focus. Leslie Mostow, principal with the Reznick Group, is a frequent speaker at the school’s ethics classes.

Kessler says that supporting the Smith School is one way the Reznick Group enhances the future of accounting, particularly in the mid-Atlantic region. “Ultimately, we are investing in our future when we invest in the Smith School.”

You might be surprised at the many ways research at a business school can affect people’s lives. Research at the Smith School is changing the way business leaders think and work. But it is also having an impact on the way you travel, the way you shop and the way you manage your health.

The Smith School’s 11 research centers and Netcentric Research Laboratories are tackling the issues that will define the business environment of the future. The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship is promoting and supporting the ground-breaking ideas and nascent businesses that will provide economic growth and prosperity in the region for years to come. Increased funding for the centers and laboratories will continue to make this possible for years to come.

Technology Partnerships

Technology is integrated into the fabric of every Smith class throughout the curriculum in a way few other schools are able to achieve. Innovative coursework integrates the traditional pillars of management education with the latest and most advanced technological tools to produce leaders who are able to hit the ground running out in the real world. Through partnerships with leading corporations such as SAP, Reuters, Oracle, and Sprint Nextel, the Smith School enables students to gain hands-on experience with the software applications used by organizations throughout the world. Upon graduation, Smith students are already adept with the software programs they will need in their first jobs. This competitive edge is one of the reasons why Smith grads are so strong in the workplace.

Imagine that you receive a phone call from your elderly mother, who has a question about one of her medications. Because you have been given authorization by your mother to view her health records, you are able to check on the prescription in question. You also see that it is time she visited her cardiologist. You go online to schedule an appointment with your mother’s doctor, and at the moment you set up the appointment, your mother’s insurance company automatically receives a notice to start the referral paperwork.

Digitizing personal health records promises to reduce health care costs, improve patient outcomes and give ordinary people more control over their own personal health management. Digital records can link everything in the world of personal health care, from the medical to the financial.

So what kinds of technologies will make digital health records not just possible, but readily accepted and easy-to-use? What are the other opportunities that information technology offers for improving patient safety and quality of health care, while at the same time reducing costs?

The Smith School’s Center for Health Information and Decision Systems (CHIDS) is addressing this pressing problem in research projects ranging from the investigation of mobile computing in hospitals to legislation related to health IT and its impact on the health care industry. There is a huge range of barriers to digitizing health records, from the purely technological issues that have to do with interoperability, databases and information security to organizational, behavioral and economic issues. Ritu Agarwal, Robert H. Smith Dean’s Chair of Information Systems, and director of CHIDS, is working in the center with a team of faculty and students to explore these issues, which may someday make it easier and more affordable for you to manage your own health.

Construction and Renovation

The Smith School’s technologically advanced home in Van Munching Hall has helped the Smith School differentiate itself as much as its innovative curriculum and phenomenal faculty. But space is continually an issue, as the school adds additional faculty and graduate students, and additional executive- and graduate-level programs. With the final stages of North Wing construction now underway, the school anticipates having additional space for undergraduate classes; more and better quality space for faculty and doctoral students; and increased and more flexible space for Executive MBA and custom executive education programs.

The North Wing expansion is predominantly funded by private donations, and in recognition of donors’ generosity, rooms in the North Wing will be named for donors. Naming opportunities still exist, including five classrooms, an executive meeting room, and a conference room. For more information on how your gift can leave a legacy, honor a loved one and contribute to an excellent learning environment at the Smith School please go to www.rhsmith.umd.edu/give.

Other schools may put up PowerPoint slides of this software in the classroom, but Smith School students actually use the software to solve problems for dummy corporations and practice on simulated supply chains. The supply chain program is built around the software, showing how it is used to drive business decision making—and giving students the chance to use it. It’s an example of the Smith School’s commitment to integrating technology into the classroom in a way few other schools have achieved.

Thomas Corsi, Michelle E. Smith Professor of Logistics and co-director of the Smith School’s Supply Chain Management Center, also appreciates the increased marketability that familiarity with the software brings to students. “Corporations regard experience with this software as a significant advantage for our students in hiring decisions. When corporations hire Smith graduates, they know there will be a very short learning curve. Because our students understand how these programs work, they are able to be effective much more quickly.”

It’s a win-win situation for SAP as well, says Heather Czech Matthews, SAP’s regional director, University Alliances-America. “The big benefit for us is in providing educational value for the communities we do business in, and providing an educated work force to our customers and partners.”

Reuters300Xtra is a very sophisticated, highly configurable tool that is perfect for those doing theoretical or highly analytical financial work, but in consequence users need a fairly thorough understanding of the software in order to use it effectively. The Smith School gives students significant hands-on experience with the software from the start of their business education. “Students use the system right from the first finance course, which is taken by all Smith students,” says Chuck LaHaie, director of finance technology and applications at the Smith School. “They do research on a corporation, using the software to retrieve financial data, history of prices, projected growth rates, stock market indices, and corporate bond data, and then write an analysis of the corporation.”

“The Smith School is the largest academic environment using the software,” says Tom Browder, vice president of Reuters Training. “Other universities with whom we work tend to only have about 10 terminals running the program. The Smith School has 60. It’s the largest Finance Lab I’ve ever seen.”

The partnership has had benefits for Reuters as well as the Smith School. In 2004 school faculty, in partnership with Reuters training staff, developed a Reuters 3000Xtra certification course which was recently expanded into a full-year program. This certification, which is unique to the Smith School, gives finance students an important edge when seeking employment on Wall Street or with financial services firms. Now Reuters is thinking of offering a Smith-Reuters co-branded training program for its clients using the modules developed for the school’s certification course.

“We’ve also been bringing in interns from the school,” says Browder. “It’s the first time Reuters has taken interns in its client training branch. We were so impressed that we just hired one of the interns full-time.”