From Sunday’s
Palm Beach Post, an article on the Lynn University College of Business new
building, written by Emily Roach.
By Emily Roach
Palm Beach Post
Staff Writer
BOCA RATON —
As it revises
its business curriculum, Lynn University is building a compatible home for the
College of Business and Management, one with an open and bright design that
reflects the school’s mission of collaboration and innovation.
The
34,000-square-foot, platinum-level LEED certified International Business Center
is expected to open next spring. The new curriculum, which Dean Thomas Kruczek
said incorporates writing, critical thinking, presentations and seeing the
organization as a whole, kicks off with incoming freshmen this fall.
“I think those
are some of the core pillars of our College of Business, so we tried to
incorporate those into our classes,” Kruczek said. Practical preparation for
employment and the core principles “get them ready to be able to get that job
when they leave here.”
It’s quickly
evident how excited Kruczek is about the $14.5 million building. A poster board
of the design sits in the middle of his office, and his window overlooks the
mostly empty space where ground work has started.
Accounting for
47 percent of the student body with its 1,000 students — 800 undergraduate and
200 graduate — the business school is an integral part of Lynn.
The new
building has gained a lot of interest, and been fully funded by donations. A $3
million challenge grant was met at the groundbreaking last month.
Students will
be able to see into, and out of, the new building with its open,
multiple-window design. Inside space will be set aside for a Venture lab, where
budding entrepreneurs will develop their own businesses with the help of
faculty and community advisers, as well as team rooms and a technology
classroom.
Again, it all
complements the new curriculum.
In addition to
the traditional classes like economics and accounting, students are required to
take courses that will help them develop a career.
During their
freshman year, business students will learn about being an entrepreneur and
developing their own brand. Sophomore year features career preparation. Junior
year advances to professional career development and juniors and seniors have a
required internship.
“We want our
students when they come here to have a sense of what the business world is
like,” Kruczek said. “So when they get out of here, when they’re ready to
leave, it’s not a surprise,”
Groundbreaking
last month was a huge affair, with VIPs, beribboned shovels and a flight
overhead by the school’s associated Burton D. Morgan School of Aeronautics
airplanes.
Kruczek is used
to the handshaking, as he works to build relationships with local businesses
and business leaders.
“They wanted me
to be an outward-facing dean,” Kruczek said.
Business school
alum and advisory board member Jeremy Office recently engaged the MBA students
in a project for his Delray Beach business, Maclendon Wealth Management. Office
said he has worked with universities across the country and had dozens of
interns. While he thought young business-minded students could help determine
if his clients want him to use social media, he was “leery” of the time
commitment and ultimate outcome.
“I was
overwhelmed with the quality and thought they had put into the effort and
assignment,” he said.
Successful
projects between the school and local businesses expose Lynn to more people in
the community. And they help the advisory board’s efforts as Office described:
“to develop bridges within the community.”
In fact, the
new business school will have space for businesses to work at the school.
Office credits
Kruczek with pointing the school in this direction and said university
President Kevin Ross also is steering the curriculum in an important direction.
“They are doing
things in very small, measured steps that are opening up opportunities and
paths that have not been available to students in the past,” he said.
Celebrating its
50th anniversary, Lynn has revamped its entire curriculum in recent years. And
with the prestige of hosting the final presidential debate last year came the
reality of spending hundreds of thousands to upgrade technology, specifically
the wireless network. This fall incoming freshman will get an iPad-mini
downloaded with course materials.
As a small,
private college, Lynn can be responsive to changes in academia and the business
climate.
Part of
Kruczek’s mission meshes well with the undergraduate Dialogues of Learning, a
recent curriculum emphasis that incorporates liberal arts ideals and writing
and reading into most classes. Kruczek said employers have stressed that
graduates need to be better writers, better presenters and better team members.
They need to be able to view their organization as a whole, he said.
“Business
schools across the country are going through a transition,” Kruczek said.
The president
of the college’s accrediting body, Dennis Gash, agreed. The changes are aimed
to supply graduates that have skills employers want.
“We have
noticed that over the years that business schools and management schools have
been transitioning from more theoretical curricula to more hands-on
experiential curricula,” Gash said.
The 229-member
International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education just re-accredited the
business school last year.
Gash said
employers want graduates who can “communicate effectively and work in team,
especially cross-functional teams.”
In other words,
employers want people who know enough about all functions of the business that
they can function in a global business environment, working on teams with
people around the world.
Lynn’s
international student body makes that even easier, Kruczek said. Recently in
class, he heard students talking about wages not just in terms of U.S.
conditions, but in the various countries around the world that were represented
by the students.
And the new
business world is very entrepreneurial. So it helps that Kruczek has overseen
entrepreneur centers at other universities as well as being an entrepreneur
himself.
Features of the
International Business Center
34,000 square
feet
11 classrooms
12
collaborative rooms
2 conference
room
1 entrepreneur
center
2 recycling
stations
Here is a link to the story at the newspaper’s website: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/business/lynns-business-school-rebuilds-curriculum-as-new-h/nXHJm/
