November 28, 2008
New Mexico Business Weekly
Today’s MBA Anderson students get conflicting perspectives
by Thomas Munro Special to NMBWProspective managers and entrepreneurs are increasingly turning to enrollment at the University of New Mexico’s business school to weather the current economic hurricane, but they are finding there another version of the same storm in miniature, as professors hotly debate its causes and cures.
Michelle Arthur, assistant dean of enrollment management and regents’ professor of management at the Anderson School of Management, says total graduate student enrollment is up a modest 2 percent from 2007, but the number of new students enrolling in fall 2008 soared 22 percent from the year previous.
“It is pretty dramatic, and actually not that surprising,” Arthur says. “We seem to be countercyclical with the economy.”
She says that periods of economic strain see more students choosing to stay in school rather than face an uncertain work force. Others escape to graduate school when they find themselves unemployed.
This is reflected in the composition of the Anderson student body, which has historically been dominated by part-timers looking to move up from current positions. This year, Arthur says, the number of part-timers is declining, while the number of full-time students rises.
But students looking for a respite from market turmoil might not find it at Anderson, where the economic crisis is the unavoidable starting point for many conversations.
O.C. Ferrell, professor of marketing and creative enterprise scholar at Anderson, says students in his undergrad and MBA international marketing programs are as nervous as anyone in the general public.
“I don’t think it’s just our students – everyone is concerned,” he says. “You’d have to be hiding under a rock not to recognize that there are things going on that should scare us.
“I have students who’ve already taken jobs with Goldman Sachs who don’t know if the jobs will be there when they graduate,” he says.
They get limited consolation from Ferrell, who calls the crisis “an economic meltdown unlike any we’ve ever seen.”
Ferrell emphasizes that his specialty is business ethics, not economics, but his international expertise gives him a sobering perspective.
“I don’t think economists who say we should just let everyone go bankrupt have any idea of what could happen next,” he says. “We could have major social disruptions — people out in the streets. This might be the worst depression we’ve ever had.”
Allen Parkman, professor emeritus at the Anderson school, who teaches the economic survey course in the executive MBA program, might be one of the economists Ferrell is calling out, and he’s not shy about his views either.
“The economy grew in the first two quarters of this year, although unemployment was creeping up, maybe from the real estate sector,” Parkman explains. “But low and behold, in September, to sell an ill-advised program, Paulson and Bernanke tell the average man in the street the sky is falling, which is B.S.
“Bad news seems to sell better,” Parkman says.
Ferrell and Parkman capture the competing perspectives on the crisis and its cures. Ferrell sees it as, in large part, the product of lax and out-dated regulation, with government intervention now a necessity.
Parkman, on the other hand, is most concerned about low consumer and business confidence, and worries that the piecemeal bailouts and rapidly changing intervention plans further corrode confidence rather than allowing the economy to weed out bad actors through bankruptcy.
The two also have differing take-away messages for their students.
Ferrell emphasizes the importance of every business person taking responsibility for the ethics of his or her behavior and looking beyond immediate gratification toward the establishment of long-term value.
Parkman urges his students to protect their personal wealth by keeping a cool head, staying in the market and living within their means. He warns them, as business people, to be prepared for a more difficult lending environment as massive government borrowing muscles out more speculative enterprises.
The Anderson School of Management
MSC05 3090
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
(505) 277-6471
www.mgt.unm.edu