• Strong online education programs: “The key is to have quality online programs. There’s connections you can have across the nation and overseas that may be interested in having a program tailored to their needs.”

• Making programs stand out: “Really think about what makes you unique in your various programs. If you had three or four things you could list as a few points of pride of your program — find out what makes your program distinct. I think it helps in terms of fundraising, in terms of differentiating yourself from different programs.

• Recruitment and retention of diverse, high-performing students: “The key is to retain. A lot of universities are dealing with that retention rate when graduation comes around.”

• Finding a student’s passion early on: “Catch them early on to align what they’re passionate about to a program.”

• Connecting the business school to the business community: “A business school cannot be a business school without connection in the business world.”

• Applied research: “[Conduct] research that applies real problems in our community, the real problems of our city, the real problems of our region and do the analysis to help them make decisions.”

• Leading by example: “If I’m your dean, I believe I’m your dean to help you be successful. By helping you be successful, I’m helping the program and the school be successful. In order to do that, I need to be a positive role model, and I have to lead by example.”

• Relationships with faculty: “I try to get to know my faculty in particular. If I know what the strengths of my faculty are and what their expertise is in, so if I’m out in the corporate world, we can get them hooked up with the appropriate people,” he said. “It will improve their teaching and improve their research.”

• Hands-on learning: “I think that when you can have that impact as a student where you’ve already given that advice to a business, it’s meaningful not only for the business, but for the students to understand they can impact real people in the real world in which they live.”

• Student businesses: “I think in the materials I’ve seen, one of the things that really impressed me was the student businesses in Acorn Alley, and that’s somewhat unusual. There are other institutions around the country that offer student-based businesses, but to be able to connect the town with the university, I think that’s a fabulous idea.”

• Preparing students for the global economy: “We have a global economy. You can imagine when [students] come back to the states, how competitive they are having experience not only studying abroad but working with international organizations.”

• The importance of a strong dean: “What I always thought I needed to be was a face of the business school to the university community. I paint a face of the college of business that really focuses on what I believe the key contributors are.”

• Paying for your education: “We need to make sure we create a value-based education that prepares students for not only the jobs that they’re going to take on after graduation, but that prepares them for a career for which that can continually grow and develop.”

• Advising and student retention: “There are two parts in student success that are critically important. The first is retention. Students have to stay in school. The second is they have to finish in a timely manner. Advising is the cornerstone of both of those efforts.”