2012 - College of Business - Washington State University

2 WSU COLLEGE OF BUSINESS
A MESSAGE
FROM THE DEAN
Dear Friends,
Not everyone can see opportunity, and it often takes hard work to get to that vantage point.
Even those that see opportunity cannot always act upon it to the advantage of their organization
and its constituents. Our job in the College of Business is not only to see opportunity,
but to leverage it to the benefit of our operations, while also fostering such a mindset in
future business leaders. I’m pleased to say that 2012 has been a year of significant progress
in these objectives. The successes of our faculty, staff, and students are certainly rewarding
to witness after weathering the last four years of economic setbacks. Not having wasted a
good crisis, we are positioned better than ever before to serve our land grant mission with a
recently refreshed strategic plan and implementation of revenue generating initiatives that
allow us to take better control of our own destiny. Throughout this issue, you will encounter
evidence of how we are addressing our primary strategic priorities of research, inculcating
professionalism, fostering innovative thinking, and further developing our global impact.
The cover story outlines our efforts to revise our curriculum, generate revenue, and foster
research productivity. You will discover how we’ve dealt with challenges in each of these
areas by creating new efficiencies and realizing synergies. Each section illustrates how we
practice the foundational principles we teach students regarding being nimble, innovative,
and entrepreneurial. You may find the “Roads to Revenues” section particularly interesting
as it tells the story of our recent collaborative partnership with EmbanetCompass that
allows us to develop new, innovative products for online education and generate enough
revenue to fund nearly all of our research grants over the past three years. As I write, WSU
is announcing expansion of operations to include a Global Campus, an expanded online
presence. I’m happy to say that the College of Business has been delivering online degrees
for almost two decades, and we form the backbone of this University-wide effort, comprising
a huge share of online enrollments for our institution overall and modeling innovative business
and delivery mechanisms.
Our feature stories bring you the latest information on cutting-edge topics researched by
our outstanding faculty members and doctoral students. We continue to build our national
and international reputation by conducting quality research and training future scholars
and educators. Other stories in this section take you around the world as we showcase our
new international internship program and bring you back to the Palouse with examples of
how our students are working with local and regional businesses to improve their best practices.
We’re especially proud of our Senior Living Program students who recently won
a national award recognizing their innovative thinking and business acumen with a realworld
application.
A call to action from Bob Wolfe, our National Board of Advisors chair, introduces our College
Affairs section, which highlights special events and includes profiles of students, faculty,
and award winners.
In closing, I hope you share my enthusiasm for the progress we are making in the College
of Business. I extend my heartfelt thanks to each of you for your role in contributing to our
reputation as one of the best land grant business schools in the country.
Best,
Eric Spangenberg, Ph.D.
Dean and Maughmer Freedom Philosophy Chair