Biz students search for wisdom in information

NEW AGE OF LEARNING: This is an artist's rendering of a data-analytics classroom in Providence College's Arthur F. and Patricia Ryan Center for Business Studies. / COURTESY PROVIDENCE COLLEGE
NEW AGE OF LEARNING: This is an artist's rendering of a data-analytics classroom in Providence College's Arthur F. and Patricia Ryan Center for Business Studies. / COURTESY PROVIDENCE COLLEGE

Sylvia Maxfield, dean of Providence College’s School of Business, knows there are myriad pressures weighing on business students entering the workforce and encountering, many for the first time, the fast-paced, information-driven whirlwind that is 21st-century corporate employment.

“It’s easy to get lost in data, the pressure of the next profit opportunity. …You have to be resilient, capable of reacting positively to change … and absorb tons of information and synthesize and extrapolate ends from [it],” she said.

Seventy-nine percent of PC’s 2015 business school class responded to a survey that found half of those queried were employed full time.

The nature of the new workforce, she explained, “requires us to change how we see business education. It’s not about traditional disciplinary topics, it’s about aspects of behavior, demeanor, collaboration and teamwork.”

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Providence College has put an emphasis on preparing its students for this environment. Ground broke last October on the Arthur F. and Patricia Ryan Center for Business Studies, a state-of-the-art facility to help better achieve the goal of preparing business students for the rigors Maxfield stressed. The building features a Bloomberg terminal and three active-learning classrooms. Project completion is expected in early 2017.

The Bloomberg terminal, which provides a user-friendly experience when accessing data through Bloomberg channels, was donated by Russell Jeffrey, founder and CEO/CIO of Providence Investment Management LLC. A former PC Investment Forecast Forums keynote speaker, Jeffrey donated what Maxfield called “a ridiculously expensive piece of technology” because, “he was impressed with the school and students.”

She explained neither Jeffrey nor his children are alumni of the school; the act was pure philanthropy.

Building off the terminal’s real-time capabilities, PC is constructing three active-learning classrooms, designed specifically for data analytics. These rooms, explained Maxfield, are built without a front so an instructor can roam among small groups and facilitate discussion.

“The active-learning pedagogy is meant to have students prepare themselves for the fluidity of the modern workplace,” she added.

Similarly, Bryant University is opening its newly completed Academic Innovation Center this month.

“This is the most entrepreneurial generation … in the history of the United States. It’s important for us to provide them an environment based on innovation, creative thinking and have the classroom set up like a corporate environment,” said Bryant Provost Glenn Sulmasy.

The interdisciplinary nature of the school’s ethos helps students battle the information overload, said Sulmasy, who estimated today’s students have access to five times more information than previous generations.

“But, that’s just information – we want to provide wisdom,” he said.

One of the ways the school instills that wisdom is through its applied-analytics program. Available to undergraduates and graduate students, the program shows how analytics can be applied across multiple fields. Graduates then enter the workforce with a certificate of analytics from SAS, a North Carolina-based software producer.

It’s “innovative, international and quite intense – that’s what students want and what we feel … helps prepare them to succeed,” said Sulmasy.

University of Rhode Island’s Maling Ebrahimpour, dean of the College of Business Administration, also knows the value of graduating students who can compete in an increasingly global workforce.

“When I was a student I was competing with the kid sitting next to me – now students are competing with people from all around the world. … We, as an institution that provides these type of graduates, have to make sure we provide students who can compete in this global market, and it’s not easy,” he said.

Through URI’s strategic innovative MBA, companies present problems to students and faculty that, for reasons ranging from time to funding and beyond, they cannot solve on their own. Then, together, students and faculty solve the problem in the parameters of the current market.

This teamwork, said Ebrahimpour, helps URI students and faculty remain “current and on top of the market.” •

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