Building the B-school

New Mexico Business Journal, March, 2000

NMBJ: Although, as you point out, the natural environment in New Mexico is delightful, the economic environment has been pretty stagnant here of late, despite the fact that much of the rest of the country's been booming. Why is that?

SMITH: Well, as we've seen with this new economic development initiative--the economic cluster group approach--that has recently been ongoing here in Albuquerque, other cities have approached difficult problems such as taxation or labor supply or education of labor and met them headon. When Boston, for example, or Charlotte, N.C., come up against a problem, the business community and the community at large figure out a way to get around that barrier. If there's a concerted effort to get over, under, around, or through the wall. I think here in New Mexico we have a tendency to let the obstacle stymie us instead of saying, "Why don't we come together to get around this?" In these other communities, there is a tendency for individuals to leave differences behind and come together in building a consensus for getting around obstacles, particularly in the industry clusters or sectors. We need to do more of that.

NMBJ: Who needs to take the leadership role in that?

SMITH: In the business community, I think there are diverse groups that are providing leadership: the Association of Commerce and Industry, the Economic Forum. There is this new Economic Initiative group, a board of directors and cluster groups of business people. I think one of the main things is learning the technique of networking with one another--not as competition, but in collaboration to solve problems. Together we're more powerful than we are individually. That's sort of a new mindset for this business community.

NMBJ: What do you see for the future for your school?

SMITH: That's a good question. There's so much promise. We turn out a great graduate for extremely low cost, and I expect that will continue. The faculty is better than it has ever been. We attract superb individuals from the leading Ph.D. institutions in this country. The teaching quality is extremely high, and we monitor it closely. The challenge for the schools in the future will be distance and electronic education, as it will be for any business school. How we fit into that, given the limited resources that we have, is, of course, the problem. To go back to Harvard, for example, when the new dean stepped in there, he threw $11 million at technology enhancement. Well, that's two and a half years of my entire budget. But we will figure out ways to continue to deliver extremely high quality education. We'll do what we do best. We'll focus and we will have to continue to not try to be everything to everybody.

Beyond teaching

Just what does the business school offer the business community? Here's a look

The Small Business Institute

In cooperation with the Small Business Administration, this on-campus Institute provides direct consulting services to small businesses from across the state. Using student teams under direct supervision of a faculty member, small businesses are offered confidential consultations on topics ranging from business and marketing plans to recommendations for preparing requests for funding from the SBA, banks, and venture capitalists.