Welcome to the premier issue of the Carroll Connection: Graduate Edition.
We launched the Carroll Connection earlier this year with stories about life at the Carroll School and the ideas flowing among faculty, alumni, students, and others. Now we are introducing a twice-yearly edition geared specifically to you—alumni of the Carroll School of Management Graduate Programs.
Undoubtedly much has changed in your lives since you earned your M.B.A., M.S.A., or M.S.F., or perhaps a doctorate from one of our Ph.D. programs. Much has changed at the Carroll School too.
Over the past decade, our top-ranked faculty has grown dramatically in size as well as in quality. And yet, we’ve retained the intimate, student-focused environment that you remember well. We’ve piloted and launched new academic programs in areas ranging from analytics to entrepreneurship.
At the moment, we’re experimenting on several fronts—for example, bringing management simulations into the classroom, with Professor Scott McDermott’s DNA of Business course (profiled in this edition). Next fall, we’ll welcome our first crop of Ph.D. students in accounting, adding to our doctoral programs in finance and organization studies.
These and many other innovations have bolstered our School’s reputation nationally as well as internationally. At the Carroll School, we don’t live by the rankings, but they do throw light on the overall progress we’ve made. For example, in our graduate programs we are now ranked #12 for finance, #14 for entrepreneurship, and #16 for accounting (by U.S. News & World Report). Likewise, out of 237 programs, our part-time M.B.A. weighed in at #37 in this year’s U.S. News survey. And just this week, Bloomberg Businessweek announced that our full-time M.B.A. ranked #48 in its survey "Best Business Schools 2016."
And we’re doing all this the Carroll School way. We aren’t just training our students for narrow specialties and tasks within their organizations. Any business school can do that, and of course we teach the hard skills too. But we’re also preparing students to step up more prominently and effectively as leaders. We’re sending them back into arenas that increasingly demand greater innovation, bolder ideas, and smarter processes. They’re ready.
In this issue, you will read about many things including what's going on with your fellow (and future) alums. We look forward to sharing this evolving story with you, and hearing more about yours. Feedback is gratefully and enthusiastically received by way of e-mail to me.
There’s much to tell.
Andy Boynton ’78, P’13
John and Linda Powers Family Dean
Carroll School of Management