Joyce J. Elam

By bringing together universities that serve diverse students, recruiters from industries the schools target, and academics from leading business schools, the Management Education Alliance (MEA)—an organization that helps business schools with significant African-American and Hispanic-American populations prepare graduates for successful careers in management—fulfills its mission.

Along with eleven other universities, Florida International University, represented by the College of Business Administration, is a core school member of MEA. A number of firms and corporations, including Deloitte and United Parcel Service, in addition to supporting business schools—Harvard Business School (HBS) and the Wharton School among them—are an integral part of the group.

Annual meeting precedes Modesto A. Maidique Campus session for deans.

Clifford Perry

“The purpose of the annual meeting, held in January, is to transfer best practices in teaching and case study pedagogy, business school administrative processes, and preparation for corporate recruiting,” said Clifford Perry, associate dean, Landon Business School. With Executive Dean Joyce J. Elam, he will attend this year’s January conference. “We also are able to secure spots for faculty members to attend some of the other events the organization sponsors, such as executive education programs or case study facilitation held at the supporting business schools.”

The 2007 annual meeting will take place in Miami. Following this two-day event, which a Harvard professor will facilitate and which corporate recruiters and business school deans will attend, the college will host a two-day deans’ workshop. At last year’s workshop, which the college also hosted, attendees broke into panels and discussed the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business’ (AACSB) accreditation standards for strategic management, quality of instruction, and assurance of learning. The 2007 deans’ workshop will focus on civic engagement and service learning, ways to support learning outside the classroom, and opportunities for revitalizing the BBA degree.

Faculty members benefit from college’s involvement.

Through the college’s membership in MEA, members of the business faculty may secure spots in executive education programs in their field. These sessions take place at various graduate business schools during the summer, as do case teaching seminars, hosted by HBS.

Many members of the faculty have participated in both these developmental options, among them Sungu Armagan and Aya Chacar, assistant professors, and Carolina Gómez, associate professor, Department of Management and International Business; Krishnan Dandapani, professor, and Ken H. Johnson, assistant professor, Department of Finance; Christos Koulamas, chair, Department of Decision Sciences and Information Systems; and John Wreiden, distinguished senior lecturer, School of Accounting.