Rider's Financial faculty ranked

Mercer Business, May 01, 1996

Dr. Borokhovich applied real-world logic to academic activity as he described the true value of a prolific faculty. "The logical consequence of all this is the chain it creates," he said. "On the one hand, students go into colleges and universities to get jobs eventually. That's the bottom line. On the other hand, professors who publish regularly are on the cutting edge and they are admired by the practitioners in the business community. The simple ,truth i$ that the practitioners prefer to recruit from a university having high levels of research in modern methods, because they will be tapping into a group of students who have been trained to actually perform in the private sector."

Amen, says John S. Murphy, president of Rijnhaave Information Services, Inc., an international corporation providing information technology to trade and transport organizations around the globe. He has a strong financial background, having started his professional life as a certified public accountant, then moving into the private sector as chief financial officer of a multinational corporation before taking over at Rijnhaave. "Activities in business are not isolated events," he said. "Ours is a constantly evolving field. Changes in trends, business methods or patterns can have a lot to do with the future direction of a company in terms of its own operation or as it relates to its customers. It is important to recruit individuals who are almost there -- people who have a good grasp of financial trends and activities and who understand new methodologies as they development

Murphy ratchets up that requirement when dealing internationally. "The world is a very small place today," he said. "We are engaged in business everywhere and there are constant changes in the way we must proceed. Markets shift, regulation changes, currency issues rise and fall with the dollar and procedures evolve in terms of always improving technology. We need people with the background and training to come easily into our orbit. They usually do their jobs very well."

To that end Rider has developed an extensive internship program which gives students a firsthand look into their fields of interest, experience which often leads to employment after graduation. Students move into a multitude of Fortune 500 corporations, among them Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Merrill Lynch and all of the Big 6 accounting firms. Over 200 companies make on-campus recruiting visits annually, and they like what they see. An overwhelming majority of Rider' s graduates are placed every year; they move comfortably into the private sector.

The last word goes to the dean of Rider' s business school, Mark E. Sandberg, who has been in the forefront of its development into an institution having national standing. "There is an enormous amount of energy among our faculty -- it is inevitable that it would gain recognition far afield. We have departments made up of educators who have come into the university as high achievers. They mean to stay on top -- pursuing and publishing research is only a part of their contribution. They are a valuable asset -- for us and for our students."