Building the B-school

New Mexico Business Journal, March, 2000

Dean Howard Smith says UNM's Anderson Schools of Management are taking a more proactive role in the business community. And graduating first-rate students, too.

Howard L. Smith, the dean of the University of New Mexico's Anderson Schools of Management 1994, enjoys a distinguished reputation as an administrator, teacher, and researcher, but he had other dreams in his youth. As a freshman guard for San Diego State University basketball team, he scored 37 points in his first game and averaged 22 points a game for the season, but he soon realized that his future lay elsewhere. "By the time I was a sophomore, I realized that there wasn't much of a demand for a six-foot player in the NBA," he says, so he left the team to concentrate on his studies. The decision turned out to be a fortunate one for him and for the University.

After graduating from SDSU, he received a scholarship to UCLA where he completed a special two-year program in comprehensive health planning, receiving his MS in 1973. He then went on to earn his doctorate at the University of Washington in 1976.

His first teaching position was at Northern Arizona University, where he quickly discovered he had a special gift for research and publishing. He spent two years as an associate professor at the University of Alabama, but his gaze remained fixed to the west; so when an assistant professorship opened at the Anderson Schools in 1981, he jumped. "I had offers from all over the place," he says, "but for me the U.S. ends at the continental divide."

Smith's list of books and other publications runs to several pages, and he remains in high demand as a consultant nationally and internationally, particularly in his area of special expertise, health care management.

His wife Debbie has recently concluded a 20-year career in health care, and she is now embarking on a second career in elementary education. The Smiths have a son, Geremy, who is attending college. Smith spoke recently with Ralph Odenwald.

NMBJ: How do the Anderson Schools of Management stack up against other business schools around the country?

SMITH: The school has always had a reputation for turning out strong graduates. Indeed, about five years ago, we were recognized as being one of the top ten value-added business schools. I just completed a survey of the deans of our fifteen peer institutions: the universities of Washington, Virginia, Iowa, South Carolina, and so forth. In this survey, which I sent out to the deans, we looked at the average starting salaries for graduates and undergraduates. At that time our undergraduates received average starting salaries of $34,000 annually. It's higher than that now. For the peer institutions, it was $31,000. At the graduate level, the average starting salary was about $50,000; it's now up to $55,000. So when students look at us, what they see is a relatively small business school for a town of 600,000 people. We have only 46 faculty. Harvard Business School, for example, has 174 faculty. We serve 1,600 students a year. Harvard serves 1,600 a year. My annual budget is right at $5 million. Harvard's annual budget is $176 million. I have 32 staff members. Harvard has 500 staff to support their 174 faculty. And yet, I have to meet the same accreditation standards that it has to meet. About three years ago, Harvard's annual cost per student was about $111,000. My cost per student is $3,000. So if you pay $111,000 and go to Harvard, you're going to come Out with a better professional network than we probably offer here; but in terms of value, the people coming here get a great education. National recruiters such as GM and Phillip Morris come to our campus because we turn out a very good graduate.

NMBJ: What does your typical student look like?

SMITH: At the undergraduate level, our typical student is 27 or 28 years old. It is a diverse student body: 40 percent Hispanic, maybe another five to six percent Native American, and some African Americans. It is a 50-50 mix of male and female. The typical student is probably working full- or part-time.

At the graduate level, our average age in the MBA program is almost 33. In our Executive MBA program, it is almost 36 years old. Executive MBA students attend classes every other Friday and Saturday for two years. It is for mid- or high-level executives who can't get out to take the normal daytime classes. Those students generally have advanced degrees--masters, M.D.s, Ph.D.s--and they are already in high positions and are improving their business skills.

NMBJ: So most of your graduate students are working and attending part-time?

SMITH: Absolutely. In the Harvards and Stanfords of this world, you re not working at all. You're going to school full-time. It creates a different sort of learning environment, of course, and it requires different approaches on the parts of the professors. In the end, we're still using the same electronic and case study techniques that the others are using, but there is a recognition that a cohesiveness may not be there except within the executive program.