On fire breathing dragons and tough meetings
March 8, 2013 wasn’t just another day. That day, the rubber met the road at an important meeting with our executive advisory board about new proposals we were making to improve our academic programs – a day when our plans and next-step groundwork would either play well or come flying back in our faces. There were a few fire-breathing dragons around the table, but in the end, we found areas of consensus on many issues. Now our work is cut out for us in order to report back with major progress at our next EAB meeting.
By Michael Goul, Chairman, Department of Information Systems
March 8, 2013 wasn’t just another day. That day, the rubber met the road at an important meeting about new proposals we were making to improve our academic programs — a day when our plans and next-step groundwork would either play well or come flying back in our faces. And before getting to the ‘good’ stuff, we had to report back on what we’d done since our last meeting. We needed to show we did the things we were told to do. In these meetings, if you leave something out, you pay. There’s loads of organizational memory here.
I know what you’re thinking. This was probably a meeting with the W. P. Carey School’s Dean Amy Hillman — maybe even the university’s President Michael Crow. Could there be anyone as tough as them? Maybe not, but the group we did meet that day came close. We met with industry leaders — members of our Executive Advisory Board (EAB). And if you think a meeting with an advisory board is a cakewalk, I am definitely here to tell you otherwise!
We began by introducing our board members to the guests at our meeting: students in our MSIM and CIS programs, leaders of student clubs like DISC http://www.asudisc.org/ and faculty members. Next, two undergraduate student teams presented projects done with local organizations — projects that the students had completed as part of their capstone IS course taught by Professor Tim Olsen. One team investigated the potential of gamification for innovating training programs at AVNET, and the other worked with the Arizona Chapter of the Society for Information Management on a new website design and experience. Both student groups did an excellent job discussing what they learned and the EAB responded favorably.
But I knew those board members were chomping at the bit to tackle the agenda.
First, we talked about what we accomplished since our last meeting, thanks to their guidance and assistance. We succeeded in laying the foundations for the new Master of Science in Business Analytics (MS-BA) program to be taught by our department in collaboration with the W. P. Carey School’s Supply Chain Management Department. We reviewed detailed website analytics and heat maps to attest to growing interest in that new program by potential applicants from all over the world. We contrasted those analytics with those from our MSIM program, which showed us that the MS-BA is on the right trajectory. The school’s marketing team had done an excellent job in getting the word out, and new students have been actively applying for the Fall 2013 start date.
We next discussed the MSIM degree and provided operational details on the interleaving of on-site and online scheduling. We reviewed undergraduate CIS enrollment trends and provided demographics on enrolled MSIM students.
Then we got to the big question. The one the board was waiting for.
Our undergraduate program has grown steadily since the dotcom enrollment trough, but not enough to meet today’s demands from our diverse and increasingly large set of recruiting stakeholders. If one goes to Dice.com and types in the term, “systems analyst” loads of jobs pop up. I just tried it and the total was 11,228. But how should we grow our program to meet today’s demand?
We recognize the nuanced need for graduates versed in analytics data stores, dimensional modeling, predictive analytics, big data, data streams and so on. Should we add a new Bachelor of Science major related to the growth in big data and analytics and keep our current, growing program? Dice has 4232 jobs in my search today on the keyword ‘analytics’ and another 2514 when I searched for “big data” jobs. And that’s just Dice and a few relevant keywords.
Or maybe we should consider two tracks in our current undergraduate degree — one of them the current program and another related to analytics? Maybe we should matrix those two tracks — one sub-track in each for those who want to work in consulting and another systems development? Should we be offering analytics certificate programs for all majors instead of or in addition to a dedicated analytics program? How would all of this fit with the curriculum in new MS-BA?
Some universities are finding entering students are most interested in writing software for video games and/or smart phones/pads. Responding to those interests might attract students who otherwise won’t go into the IS field. So, should we rethink our approach to what those early programming experiences ought to be in order to attract more students? Can learning to code video games translate to effective business software development?
What about reaching out into the high schools — to explain that IS careers are not all off shored? Or is it the parents of prospective students who need to hear that message? Do we send executives to the high schools or will the prospective students respond better to recently graduated peers? Is Facebook the right platform for something novel to reach out to prospective ISers?
Well, these are difficult questions and issues, and opinions varied among our EAB members. That’s as it should be given their respective perspectives and needs. An EAB meeting is not the Game of Thrones, but there were a few fire breathing dragons around the table!
In the end, we found areas of consensus on many issues, but we have our work cut out for us in order to report back with major progress at our next EAB meeting.
Meetings with these corporate leaders are challenging, but we have a common goal: solid careers for the students we all care so deeply about. That passions are worn on sleeves during the heat of discussion is a wonderful indication of our mutual level of commitment to current and prospective students. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
Thanks, EAB. I don’t know what we would do without you.
If you are interested in learning more about joining our W. P. Carey School IS Department Executive Advisory Board, please contact Michael Goul or Dan Mazzola.
March 8, 2013 wasn’t just another day. That day, the rubber met the road at an important meeting about new proposals we were making to improve our academic programs — a day when our plans and next-step groundwork would either play well or come flying back in our faces. And before getting to the ‘good’ stuff, we had to report back on what we’d done since our last meeting. We needed to show we did the things we were told to do. In these meetings, if you leave something out, you pay. There’s loads of organizational memory here.
I know what you’re thinking. This was probably a meeting with the W. P. Carey School’s Dean Amy Hillman — maybe even the university’s President Michael Crow. Could there be anyone as tough as them? Maybe not, but the group we did meet that day came close. We met with industry leaders — members of our Executive Advisory Board (EAB). And if you think a meeting with an advisory board is a cakewalk, I am definitely here to tell you otherwise!
We began by introducing our board members to the guests at our meeting: students in our MSIM and CIS programs, leaders of student clubs like DISC http://www.asudisc.org/ and faculty members. Next, two undergraduate student teams presented projects done with local organizations — projects that the students had completed as part of their capstone IS course taught by Professor Tim Olsen. One team investigated the potential of gamification for innovating training programs at AVNET, and the other worked with the Arizona Chapter of the Society for Information Management on a new website design and experience. Both student groups did an excellent job discussing what they learned and the EAB responded favorably.
But I knew those board members were chomping at the bit to tackle the agenda.
First, we talked about what we accomplished since our last meeting, thanks to their guidance and assistance. We succeeded in laying the foundations for the new Master of Science in Business Analytics (MS-BA) program to be taught by our department in collaboration with the W. P. Carey School’s Supply Chain Management Department. We reviewed detailed website analytics and heat maps to attest to growing interest in that new program by potential applicants from all over the world. We contrasted those analytics with those from our MSIM program, which showed us that the MS-BA is on the right trajectory. The school’s marketing team had done an excellent job in getting the word out, and new students have been actively applying for the Fall 2013 start date.
We next discussed the MSIM degree and provided operational details on the interleaving of on-site and online scheduling. We reviewed undergraduate CIS enrollment trends and provided demographics on enrolled MSIM students.
Then we got to the big question. The one the board was waiting for.
Our undergraduate program has grown steadily since the dotcom enrollment trough, but not enough to meet today’s demands from our diverse and increasingly large set of recruiting stakeholders. If one goes to Dice.com and types in the term, “systems analyst” loads of jobs pop up. I just tried it and the total was 11,228. But how should we grow our program to meet today’s demand?
We recognize the nuanced need for graduates versed in analytics data stores, dimensional modeling, predictive analytics, big data, data streams and so on. Should we add a new Bachelor of Science major related to the growth in big data and analytics and keep our current, growing program? Dice has 4232 jobs in my search today on the keyword ‘analytics’ and another 2514 when I searched for “big data” jobs. And that’s just Dice and a few relevant keywords.
Or maybe we should consider two tracks in our current undergraduate degree — one of them the current program and another related to analytics? Maybe we should matrix those two tracks — one sub-track in each for those who want to work in consulting and another systems development? Should we be offering analytics certificate programs for all majors instead of or in addition to a dedicated analytics program? How would all of this fit with the curriculum in new MS-BA?
Some universities are finding entering students are most interested in writing software for video games and/or smart phones/pads. Responding to those interests might attract students who otherwise won’t go into the IS field. So, should we rethink our approach to what those early programming experiences ought to be in order to attract more students? Can learning to code video games translate to effective business software development?
What about reaching out into the high schools — to explain that IS careers are not all off shored? Or is it the parents of prospective students who need to hear that message? Do we send executives to the high schools or will the prospective students respond better to recently graduated peers? Is Facebook the right platform for something novel to reach out to prospective ISers?
Well, these are difficult questions and issues, and opinions varied among our EAB members. That’s as it should be given their respective perspectives and needs. An EAB meeting is not the Game of Thrones, but there were a few fire breathing dragons around the table!
In the end, we found areas of consensus on many issues, but we have our work cut out for us in order to report back with major progress at our next EAB meeting.
Meetings with these corporate leaders are challenging, but we have a common goal: solid careers for the students we all care so deeply about. That passions are worn on sleeves during the heat of discussion is a wonderful indication of our mutual level of commitment to current and prospective students. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
Thanks, EAB. I don’t know what we would do without you.
If you are interested in learning more about joining our W. P. Carey School IS Department Executive Advisory Board, please contact Michael Goul or Dan Mazzola.
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