As published in the August 1, 2015 Toledo Business Journal
Gary S. Insch, Ph.D.
University of Toledo
College of Business and Innovation
UT College of Business connects students with community
The Toledo Business Journal recently interviewed Gary S. Insch, Ph.D., dean of the University of Toledo’s (UT) College of Business and Innovation (COBI). He shared the following thoughts:
Toledo Business Journal: Can you share an overview of the College of Business and Innovation at the University of Toledo in terms of important resources and national recognitions?
Gary S. Insch: The most interesting thing about Toledo — I came here in July of last year — and what attracted me here was that we have exceptional placement rates and internship rates relative to other places I’ve been, and some of those other schools are fairly well known. There’s something about Toledo that allows us to interact with the business community at a much higher level than other places, and part of this is being an urban campus. There’s also something about Toledo, I think, where the alumni is very dedicated and the business community is very invested in the University, which is fantastic for me as the dean of the business school and somewhat unusual.
One of the things that has always been a challenge for me is we’re a little too humble about what we do here. Our students are generally first generation students. They’re generally working part or full-time and some of the quotes that I learned when I got here is that all of our students are “Ph.Ds” – they’re poor, hungry, and driven, in the sense that they know how to work. And when they get out employers like them because they don’t feel entitled. They feel like they came here to get a career, get an education, be prepared for their career, and they want to go out and work and be successful. That’s why I think the community has embraced the university because they recognize that what we do here is a little different than some of the other places that are much more selective and have a high price point.
Everyone at COBI is particularly proud of our relationship with the regional business community. Our own Business Career Programs office, which is a remarkable resource for our students, assists them by placing students in both internships and permanent career positions. Currently, we work with over 500 companies and we take great pride in stating that we have an 80%-plus placement rate upon graduation of those students seeking employment.
TBJ: What resources does the Global Business Development Institute (GBDI) provide to area companies?
GSI: Currently we have a program called GlobalTarget, which is where we actually have people who are interested in exporting or learning more about international trade. They come in and have a fairly intensive program of eight or nine weekends, 4 or 5 hours on a weekend. We keep it fairly small and so it’s fairly intense.
We also try to partner as often as possible with the Chamber and other places. When they have programs and come and ask us for help, we’re more than happy to help them. That’s probably the most direct help we provide, for a lot of smaller companies or medium size companies that are either currently in exporting and would like to expand, or they would like to learn more about how to do it.
One of the challenges of exporting is it seems really daunting until you start, and that’s not to minimize the complexity of it, but it is manageable. There’s a lot with communication the way it is now that it is a lot more manageable. Historically once your package made it across the border you would lose track of it, but now with the global system of technology you can track it from your door right to the factory if you wanted to and wanted to pay for it. That’s probably our biggest program in the GBDI right now, and that’s a fantastic program.
TBJ: How does the Center for Family Business assist area companies?
GSI: I think from the standpoint of real interconnectivity with the business area we probably have two centers that are really pretty prominent – The UT Center for Family and Privately-Held Business, and the Edward H. Schmidt School of Professional Sales (ESSPS). The UT Center for Family and Privately-Held Business was established in 1992 by an endowment from the Stranahan Foundation to serve the needs of family businesses. That is an amazing forum with 168 member firms where companies form affinity groups and have network sessions where they work together. They have confidentiality agreements, so they have free space so they can come in and talk about their problems, which are fairly similar for smaller type family businesses.
That has a huge community impact. If I was a small business anywhere around here, I would be a part of that because they have a lot of lectures and speakers that get together and discuss their questions. When you have a group of people who are struggling with the same questions, it’s nice to know, first of all, that you’re not alone and, second of all, some of them have answers and tried things that you have never thought of. It’s a very powerful collaboration and we don’t control it. Once the affinity groups are formed they kind of do their own thing…it’s an amazing center.
TBJ: What is the Center for Technological Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CTEI), and how does it serve students and area businesses?
GSI: We’re partnering with other areas across campus to help commercialization, which is a major focus going forward. Sometimes helping companies develop ideas and helping them commercialize them is kind of a disconnect in academia — sometimes you have a chemist who comes up with a great new whatever and it’s really cool, but he or she doesn’t know what to do with it beyond that, so there’s this drive both by the federal government and the business community to add value to what the university does to help those ideas get commercialized. That sometimes can come back and be helpful for the university because they get a patent for something.
So what this group does is we have a lot of opportunities to help other companies, we often have companies contacting us for certain ideas and we help them with a business plan. We are reconnecting with the LaunchPad Incubation Program and Rocket Innovations to try and help work with small business to help develop new ideas. We have two buildings that are incubators right next to the engineering building where we actually have space for startup companies to start to grow. We work with them very closely and try to make that connectivity even greater so when someone calls us we know how to work with them.
We can work with businesses to help them solve some of their problems, and at the same time our students are getting a real world experience and applying some of what they are learning in class instead of just reading about other cases. It’s very cool.
TBJ: Can you share information about the Edward H. Schmidt School of Professional Sales (ESSPS)?
GSI: The ESSPS was formed in 2000 and endowed in 2002 as the first professional sales major in the country from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). It is one of the top university sales programs in the world, with over 200 students, a world class curriculum, professional certifications, and multiple corporate, university, and international elite partnerships.
Employers have a huge need for sales, and we have a fantastic ability to help train students. We have a lab downstairs with actual videotaped interactions, students can watch themselves and learn what they’ve done. When you get out of here, you know how to do things, you don’t just know about things.
I wasn’t a convert of the professional sales angle before I got here, but now that I see this lab and get a better sense of what they’re doing, what has really surprised me is how many companies want this type of training for their people. What their gap has always been is someone who can go out and can sell, which is not just being obnoxious, but is understanding what the customer wants, listening, finding what you’re really looking for, and helping you understand the products that we have to help you be successful — that whole partnership kind of aspect to it. Of the students who are seeking employment, we have almost a 100% placement rate, and they actually have more jobs than they do students in some areas. It’s an amazing program.
TBJ: Can you discuss the COBI Business Innovation Competition including the cash prizes to students?
GSI: This program has been in place for five years, with great results. It is designed to encourage and support entrepreneurial thinking across the entire university.
The spirit of entrepreneurship is critically important to the ongoing success of every university and every community. This business competition truly reflects our emphasis on supporting innovation, fostering creative thinking, and nurturing the entrepreneurial environment which is so essential for the economic growth of this region.
This competition is open to all students, faculty, and staff. UT alumni can also participate, but they must be part of a team that includes current faculty, staff, or students. Entries sometimes come from teams consisting of individuals working together from both engineering and the health science campus.
It is important to note that the prize money is not awarded to individuals, but to the incorporated business, so entrants are already seriously pursuing their ideas by the time they enter the competition. First place is $10,000, second place is $5,000, third place is $2,000, and fourth place is $500.
Furthermore, corporate America is also looking for innovative thinking from their employees, so intrapreneurship within the corporate business structure is also important today.
COBI reserves the right to not provide a particular cash award if no qualified proposal is received. In addition to cash prizes, selected awardees may receive assistance in areas such as intellectual property and business consultation.
The sales school is very good and very hands on. A lot of students go into sales competitions where they learn about a project and present it. A lot of our students participate which is great national exposure and training. In fact, next year, in February I think, we’re going to have our first national sales competition here with 25 schools who are currently signed up to come. Our sponsor is 3M, which donates their product and then they give you all their material on the product so that students have time beforehand to learn about the product so that they can go in and be knowledgeable. 3M is being very generous to be our major sponsor.
I talk to employers and one of their biggest complaints is that all of our best students are taken by the time the employers get to campus and attend one of the COBI sponsored job fairs. That also plugs into why we have such great connectivity with the business community because they’re coming in and talking to our classes. We have classes of freshmen and sophomores where we bring in speakers all the time so the kids get exposed to all the different kinds of occupations. We have real business people doing everything, they do our mock interviews, in fact we have kids walking out of mock interviews where they were there just to practice and they walk out with internship offers because they were with a person who was a real recruiter and they grab them there. We have etiquette dinners where every table has one or two business people that the students want to talk to about internship opportunities.
TBJ: What benefits occur when the business community in our area and the faculty and students of the College of Business and Innovation work closely together?
GSI: Tremendous short and long-term mutual benefits occur when the business community works with the college and its faculty. Experiential learning allows students to learn directly from area business experts conversing with them in their classrooms and at student business organization meetings.
We just gave a presentation to StartUp Toledo about how we can work with start-up companies. We have faculty who are always looking to get involved, because companies provide data for our research. And, if I want to stay relevant, I want to be working with companies, symbiotic in that way. There’s some value and we want help in certain ways in the area, so we encourage the business community to come and talk to us. We may not always be able to help all the time, or the faculty may not have the time to help you at that particular moment, but we have faculty whose livelihood is researching and teaching business, so if they can’t help you they may know the name of someone who can.
The other area that’s important to us and area businesses are internship opportunities and co-op opportunities for students. They have a need in their company but can’t afford to hire someone at the going rate, but would like to have someone come in and help in the sales or marketing areas, or accounting or finance, or other areas of the business. There’s a mutual benefit in the fact that you have someone there who can help do these certain tasks, those people also learn about those tasks. They’re using their skill sets and you’re getting the value of their enthusiasm and desire to learn. A lot of people have gaps in their workforce and they don’t think about possibly using an intern or a co-op student to do that, which a lot of times turns out to be useful, and if they do a great job then the company may come up with the resources to hire them in a more permanent capacity.
TBJ: Can you discuss the Executive MBA program and share some factors that set it apart from other programs?
GSI: The UT COBI 12-month executive MBA program is one of the most accelerated MBA programs in the country. The curriculum is designed to enhance the ability of professionals and executives to effectively lead change and growth in today’s ultra-competitive environment.
First of all the selection criteria is that you have to have five years of significant or meaningful managerial experience. It’s also cohort-based, so the same group goes through together, and as the group progresses they become more cohesive and get more willing to share their ideas.
It’s a 12-month program so you can get it done in a year, but it is very intensive. We also make it clear that these are working professionals so they don’t have tons of time, but COBI has been very good at adapting to technology so they’ve reoriented the program to a hybrid format so instead of coming every weekend you’re only coming in one weekend a month and doing all the other work through online and distance learning. Sometimes it’s asynchronous where you’re watching lectures and turning in assignments. Sometimes the professor gets online through the WebX class, which is taped, but the majority of the students actually sit with the professor and he talks about whatever is going on so they can ask questions back and forth. We’re trying to help working professionals get a really deep experience, but also be very conscious of their time constraints.
The faculty that teach are exceptionally strong. We put our best professors in front of these students, and frankly the learning environment is so different because you’re with people who are walking the walk and talking the talk, so you’re getting real world conversations rather than theoretical conversations. For someone who wants to turbocharge their career without stepping out of their career, this is a real strong way to get that next credential to boost their career. It’s one year, which is painful yet doable, and graduation is just awesome to see these people. Some of them are getting promotions while in the program because their company sees what they’re doing and they’re implementing things and doing things that they’re learning in our program.
TBJ: Are there any other issues that you would like to address?
GSI: One thing that’s interesting as the university is going through a transition. There are a couple of areas we are trying to build synergy across campus, and one of those is the area of entrepreneurship and technology transfer. We’re trying to find ways to coordinate the efforts of many different pieces, if you look around campus there are lots of different areas where somebody is doing something with entrepreneurship.
Another big area that has become one of my focuses is that we actually have four nationally, if not internationally, renowned scholars of leadership in the college. We’re working with Clint Longenecker, a distinguished university professor who has been with us for a long long time, and he’s now becoming the director of what will become a center for Leadership and Organizational Excellence.