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A Triad Partnership for Success
When Burlington's LabCorp experienced the need for management executives to hone their leadership skills, the company turned to Elon University's Love School of Business for help. A struggling small business in Stokesdale sought assistance from students of High Point University's Earl N. Phillips School of Business for ways to better market its products. And Wake Forest University's Babcock Graduate School of Management will soon be providing scholarships to key executives at the new Dell Computer manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem.
Across the Triad, the region's six degree-offering schools of business are working hand-in-hand with businesses large and small to grow the local economy. While workforce training programs have traditionally been the domain of community colleges, business schools have also partnered with local employers to address the business education needs of area corporate management at the university level.
And the universities recognize that their success is directly tied to the fate of local business enterprises.
"We are extremely conscious that we are a citizen of this community and as the community grows so do we," said Dr. Quiester Craig, dean of the School of Business and Economics at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro.
Each of the half dozen University programs has developed its own mission, unique character and niche in relation to the Triad businesses.
 In the undisputed furniture capital of the world, High Point University's Phillips School of Business partnered with the home furnishings industry to create a one-of-a-kind furniture marketing education curriculum. Students learn marketing and interior design skills in a building financed by the industry. Many work internships at the semi-annual International Home Furnishings Market or with local furniture businesses.
Winston-Salem State University's business school dean Dr. Arthur King has participated with Idealliance, a twin city research park, and the Triad Entrepreneurial Initiative to encourage and support new start-up ventures.
Entrepreneurship around the work is a major focus at Wake Forest's Babcock School, whose Angell Center for Entrepreneurship has been ranked in the top 10 entrepreneurial programs in the country by program directors, faculty members and alumni.
"We pay attention to make sure our programs are relevant overall," says Andrew Brod, director of the University of North Carolina Greensboro's Office of Business and Economic research. The Bryan School of Business and Economics course offerings emphasize globalization and information technology as two of the leading concerns of 21st century business.
"The School of Business and Economics on the campus of North Carolina A&T State University offers a Master of Science in Management (MSM) degree with a major program in transportation and logistics especially designed for this community," said Dean Craig, because of the importance of transportation, logistics, and supply chain management in the makeup of the area's economic base.
In Alamance County, Elon University's Love Business School offers a strong program in leadership skills, both in executive education certificate courses and degree-related classes. The University is also developing a program designed to train executives of non-profit corporations.
Despite their varied specialties, the Triad business schools conduct many similar outreach programs to the business community. For instance, all the business schools work with local employees to place students in corporate internships.
"We have a large number of students who spend a semester working for a company as part of a class assignment," said Dr. Patricia Divine of Wake Forest University's Babcock School. While on the job Babcock students focus on specific issues and deliver presentations on how companies can improve.
UNCG's Bryan School is a good example of the way the business school programs interface with the local business community on several levels.
The Bryan School has a Business Advisory Board to work with Dean James K. Weeks to (among other things) provide feedback to our MBA, undergraduate and other graduate degree programs," explained Dr. Sheldon Balbirer, the Bryan School's MBA program director.
In addition, the school conducts focus groups with evening MBAs - working professionals who attend class at night - as a means of getting feedback on all aspects of the program, including things that we need to be doing. "The school also offers a daytime program that places students in real-world corporate environments to find skills and knowledge,'" he said.
The MBA program also offers a daytime option targeted towards younger students with little or no work experience. This option places students in internships and real-world consulting projects to give them the practical skills and knowledge to compete in an increasingly complex world.
"Business schools build reputations one student at a time," Dr. Balbirer feels.
Area schools offer flexible course schedules designed to accommodate traditional full-time students as well as those who hold full-time jobs during the day. Courses lead to Bachelor's, Master's and even Doctoral degrees in a variety of business specialties. Certificate programs are also available in executive education specialties.
Student internship placements can lead to permanent job opportunities as students graduate and entire the job market.
"We are an importer of talent for North Carolina," maintains Dr. John Burbridge, dean of the Martha and Spencer Love Business School at Elon University.
Although the bulk of Elon's business school students are from out-of-state, half of those who earn degrees remain in North Carolina.
The economic environment encountered by graduates of Elon and the other universities will certainly continue to be impacted by the concentration on business education in the triad.
As evidence of the continued importance of academic preparation for business managers, two of the universities are looking forward to the completion of new buildings to house business education classes.
Elon University's 60,000 square-foot Koury Business Center will be a "major classroom for the University," said Dean John Burbridge. Expected to be completed in the fall of next year, the facility will quadruple the space available to the business departments, and allow programs to be consolidate into a single classroom building.
Also due to open for the fall semester of 2006 is the new home of the Phillips School of Business at High Point University. It will be situated across from Norton Hall of the HPU campus.
Little is enthusiastic about the future of the Phillips School and predicts that demand for HPU business programs - both MBA and undergraduate offerings - will continue to grow at a rapid pace.
"The coming years," he says, "will also bring growth in the international business, supply chain management, finance, and marketing/sales areas." Little is looking forward to increased partnerships between the Phillips Business School and the expanding Triad business community.
Elon's Dean Burbridge predicts "we'll continue to see a great deal of interest in our undergraduate programs, especially in accounting, and our executive leadership programs.
At the Winston-Salem State University School of Business, Dean King is in the discussion stage for a degreed program supply chain management "to support industrial development s in the area such as expansion by FedEx and Dell." Work is also under way for a master's degree program in healthcare administration in conjunction with the School of Health Sciences to "serve the management needs of the health care industry in the triad."
The Bryan School at UNCG will be "looking to grow our daytime program," said MBA director Balbirer. He added that a new dual-degree program will be launched this fall to pair an MBA degree with a MS in gerontology to educate long-term care managers. This is the first program of its kind and builds on the traditional nursing and health care strengths of the Women's College."
"This is the first program of its kind, but it goes back to our women's college day with the emphasis on nursing and health care," Dr. Balbirer explained.
"Our objective," he added, "is to do things that no one else is doing .We're going to be looking at post-masters work in health care management and doing things to leverage the strength of the university as a whole."
The delivery mechanism for business education will also receive attention from UNCG.
"I think we will see more distance learning, customizing delivery rather than content," predicted UNCG's director of business and economic research Andrew Brod.
Combining online learning with in-person classes will continue, Brod suggested, and "it will be a challenge for business schools to keep pace."
A&T University's Dr. Craig believes "the lecture method of teaching is often inadequate and agrees that distance learning and greater student engagement and interaction will take on a more important role in the future. Students, he said, "will have to understand more than the job they are doing. They will have to understand how they work together with others as part of a whole."
Dr. Craig recalls the story of an adult student who had constantly lectured his son about the importance of a college education. Knowing his father had never finished college, the son finally asked, "Dad, when did you graduate?" The comment led to the father's enrolling at A&T's School of Business.
No matter the route to business education, the opportunities for lifelong learning in the Triad are sure to remain varied and plentiful, and the destinies of the business education schools will continue to be intertwined with the local business community.
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