In June, the University of Connecticut opened its newest “learning accelerator” at UConn Stamford, with one project involving the formation of a student-run advertising agency.
Want to put up a really effective billboard for your business school? How about moving the whole kit and kaboodle to Stamford?
It sounds tempting, doesn”™t it ”“ having an MBA school a train ride away from New York City and LaGuardia?
It would presumably open up UConn”™s recruiting (for both students and professors) to a far wider pool, possibly to include the part-time and executive MBA programs that are a cash cow for the schools that run them.
The benefits for Stamford would be obvious ”“ yet another, signature institution to add to a growing list, populated by a crowd of useful imports that might think about putting down roots in Fairfield County, whether upon graduating or later in their careers.
There are, of course, a couple of huge problems ”“ none greater than the ingrained, glacial pace at which universities contemplate undertaking major change.
Practically speaking, an MBA and executive MBA program centered in Stamford would create a conundrum for any undergraduate business majors. Would they pursue their studies here with a comparatively limited campus life compared to what they could have in Storrs?
It would force the relocation of professors who live in the Storrs and Hartford area, and presumably like the lifestyle.
“You want me to what?” we can just hear some tenured professor breathing in his best Jack Nicholson.
Still, few know the psychology of Manhattan MBA students and instructors better than incoming UConn School of Business Dean John Elliott, who previously was dean of the City College of New York”™s Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College. The program is the largest in the United States with more than 18,000 business students, including undergraduates. Before that, Elliott was a longtime Cornell University accounting professor and administrator.
Cornell, of course, is in the midst of among the most dramatic academic expansions of recent times with a new technology studies campus in New York City in conjunction with Technion, four hours from Cornell”™s Ithaca campus. If you want to study high tech at Cornell, you now have a big choice before you.
A more relevant example, perhaps, is Rutgers University in New Jersey, which has its flagship undergraduate campus in Piscataway and a portion of its MBA program centered in Newark 40 minutes north, and an easy hop from Manhattan.
If you were shelling out $64,000 for a UConn MBA, nearly $100,000 if you live in New York, where do you think you have the best chance of accelerating your business career ”“ Storrs or Stamford?
