Next fall, acknowledging a wave of interest in the entrepreneurial spirit, the Ernest C. Trefz School of Business at the University of Bridgeport will offer an undergraduate entrepreneurship minor to complement majors in everything from engineering to psychology to design.
“It is designed to encourage students to start their own businesses,” business school Dean Lloyd Gibson said. “This is a new tack and we are expecting a big impact. Even corporations want entrepreneurial skills, the ability to take ownership of a concept. These are important skills for all students.
“Everyone is an entrepreneur of their own business, their own career, their own life,” he said. “Entrepreneurial skills will prove important to anyone, no matter what they”™re doing.”
Gibson likened his dean”™s job to that of CEO of the business school, although he continues to guest lecture.
- Dean Lloyd Gibson of the Ernest C. Trefz School of Business at the University of Bridgeport. Photo by Bill Fallon
“We are a business,” Gibson said. “Some may bristle at the idea of an academic institution being run like a business. But we must operate efficiently. We must offer great customer service. And we must offer a quality product that we”™re improving all the time.” Later, he said, “Any good organization needs to continually improve, I believe.”
On a recent Friday afternoon, Gibson was to lecture an undergraduate class of business and nonbusiness majors on socially responsible corporate behavior. His talk would feature three parts: knowing what it is, deciphering its evolution, and tangibles about its current state “and what you can do about it.”
This was to be his fifth presentation on the topic ”” all of them interactive and each one updated and new. “I keep it up to the minute,” he said.
Gibson was in the banking industry for 28 years prior to becoming dean of the business school in 2012. He spent half his banking career in commercial banking and half as president of three different community banks, the last one in Chicago.
The school broke ground on an upgraded, expanded facility in November 2013 and dedicated it last September in the name of Bridgeport businessman Ernest Trefz, whose family business interests include multiple McDonald”™s restaurants and the Bridgeport Holiday Inn.
Gibson said the refurbished building is used by all departments. Its remade Lena Hiatt Jacobson lecture hall can accommodate 134. Its acoustics and comfortable seating have made the Jacobson hall a popular lecture and meeting venue irrespective of topic, Gibson said.
The remade Raymond J. O”™Hara lecture hall holds 70 at widely spaced workbench-desks. Gibson said the school was offered both a more cramped design for O”™Hara hall and the space-friendly layout it eventually chose. Gibson said the school felt expanded space and fewer numbers were more conducive to learning. “Our focus is on smaller classes and more student interaction and engagement,” he said.
The undergraduate Bachelor of Science business program now has 300 students. The most popular undergraduate fields of study are accounting, which has about 80 majors, and finance, with 60 majors. They are followed by international business, with 30-plus undergraduates, and marketing, with 20-plus students. A smaller number studies management and industrial relations.
Another 250 students are enrolled in the school”™s MBA programs, which feature six concentrations: accounting, finance, marketing, international business, management and human-resources management. Two new MBA concentrations to be rolled out this fall are analytics intelligence and entrepreneurship. Four new professors have been hired to handle the increase.
Forty-five graduate students are enrolled in the school”™s online MBA program. International students ”” about 60 percent of the school”™s MBA candidates ”” by design take classroom classes and are not part of the online program.
Gibson said UB, which just celebrated a campuswide International Week, provides opportunities via its global catchment area.
“It”™s clearly an advantage, clearly a strength, to have such diversity,” he said, noting he recently taught a class with students from 10 different nations. A total 80 nations ”” led by China, India and Saudi Arabia ”” are represented among UB”™s total enrollment of 5,400. Gibson said, “We have the most diverse campus in Connecticut and one of the most diverse campuses in the U.S.
“You can talk about culture all day long,” he said. “Our teams are working with each other from around the world.” Although UB runs a downtown Stamford campus, all of its business school classes are taught at the Bridgeport campus, Gibson said.
Gibson said business schools commonly want several years of experience between the undergraduate degree and MBA studies. UB takes a different approach, recognizing that a mix of fresh and seasoned faces creates a solid learning environment, particularly given today”™s app-, screen- and data-driven technological divide that favors the young.
Additionally, the school seeks professors with both academic and real-world business experience. Gibson said the Trefz school”™s four new hires for the fall possess 70 years”™ business experience between them. He identified incoming business senior lecturer Elena Cahill, who will teach entrepreneurship, as “a successful serial entrepreneur and attorney.”
Regarding the uptick in entrepreneurial interest and its coming “minor” degree status, Gibson said, “Many of our students come from entrepreneurial families. We”™ve had so many inquiries. We know there is a demand.”
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