Liberal arts education still needed in the workplace

Dennis M. Hanno has been working in his new capacity as president of Wheaton College in Norton for nearly three months, and will be inaugurated Oct. 17. He will then begin charting the school’s future under his tenure. Profiled in his college’s quarterly as devoted to hard work and leadership, he has inherited the school’s liberal arts approach to higher education and some common challenges.

PBN: You came to Wheaton from Babson College, a school known for fostering entrepreneurship. How will this expertise come into play in your new role at Wheaton?
HANNO: At Babson, not only did we teach entrepreneurship, but the institution itself was very entrepreneurial and I think that’s something institutions of higher education need today. At Wheaton, the people here are already entrepreneurial, so it’s just about increasing the focus on innovation.
What’s unique about Wheaton is, we’ve got a brand new science center with maker spaces where students are actually building new things.

PBN: You also had a strong connection to Africa through the Babson-Rwanda Entrepreneurship Center. Why Africa? And will you be bringing any of that to bear in Norton?
HANNO: When I was at UMass, I got involved through a nursing program working in a community in Ghana, West Africa. What we were working on was creating a more entrepreneurial culture in that part of the world. That work has spread to several other African countries and I usually spend about five or six weeks a year working in Africa with young adults helping them become more entrepreneurial. In January, I’ll be taking my first group from Wheaton to Rwanda.

PBN: What about the liberal arts education do you consider critical when preparing students for the world of work?
HANNO: I think the world needs liberal arts education now more than ever. If you just pick up the newspaper and read about the problems of the day, [the] Ebola [virus] in Africa, discord in the Middle East, it takes people working together and people approaching problems from different perspectives to come up with new and creative solutions and that’s what liberal arts education is all about.
PBN: Wheaton’s ranking in the U.S. News & World Report list is 69th among its peers. Where can the school improve?
HANNO: We need to attract more students to Wheaton. The rankings are based on selectivity so we need to expand our reach. We do well in what our peers and guidance counselors say about us, but we need to cast a broader net to get students from across the country and outside the country.

PBN: The cost of educating Wheaton students is approximately $46,000 a year in tuition and fees. What is Wheaton doing to make the cost more manageable?
HANNO: We devote a significant amount of our resources to financial aid to help offset that cost. The discount rate is 40 percent. We just completed a fundraising campaign where we raised $137 million, of which $50 million will go toward scholarships. And we’re trying to control costs as best we can. The rate of growth of our tuition increases has slowed; we’ve been averaging about 2-3 percent a year. Before 2009, the rate of growth was 5-7 percent.

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PBN: What is your favorite social media tool? HANNO: Instagram. I love the visual nature of it. I’ve been “Instagramming” a lot of the photos of the campus because it is incredibly beautiful.

PBN: You grew up on a farm and embraced education as a pathway to something different. What about your history as a young student would you change if you could?
HANNO: As a student myself I don’t think I took enough advantage of the opportunities that were there for me outside the classroom. I never traveled outside the country until I was 35 years old. I hardly ever spoke to a professor outside of class. When I think about all the things students have available to them today, I’m a vocal proponent of those types of opportunities – traveling, networking.

PBN: Share an initiative you are planning to introduce at Wheaton.
HANNO: One of the things we’re talking about right now is increasing the activities we have for high school students on campus in the summertime. It’s such an incredible campus with so many resources they can take advantage of, it brings a whole new population of students here to see what a great place this is.

PBN: What external economic-development changes are critical to the success of your graduates and college graduates in the future?
HANNO: A place like Wheaton prepares students for the innovation generation. Organizations are increasingly focused on adaptable members. Places like Wheaton are at the forefront preparing students to function in those organizations. The future of what’s happening in the workforce is innovation and knowledge-based. •

INTERVIEW
Dennis M. Hanno
POSITION: President of Wheaton College
BACKGROUND: Dennis M. Hanno spent much of his early adult career as a certified public accountant from 1977 to 1985. The birth of his first child led him to a career switch, working as an accounting professor, and then, dean of the undergraduate school of business at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1998. His management skills, plus an interest in shaping future leaders, led him to lead Babson College before being named president of Wheaton in February. He started in his new role in July and will be inaugurated Oct. 17.
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in business administration, University of Notre Dame, 1977; master of science degree in accounting from Western New England College, 1981; Ph.D. in management from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1990
FIRST JOB: Working with crops and cows on farms
RESIDENCE: Norton
AGE: 59

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