Building a Brand Name

P. George Benson was named dean of the Terry College of Business last December and assumed day-to-day leadership of the college in July. Benson served as dean of the business school at Rutgers University for five years. Columns quizzed Benson about his early observations of the Terry College and what’s on the horizon.

Columns: You scrutinized the college before accepting this job. What did you see as the strengths and weaknesses?
Benson: I was pleased to find excellent faculty, and a student body that was very good and getting better every year. I saw tremendous value in the facilities. Within a year of the day I was offered the job, every square inch of Brooks Hall, Sanford Hall and our space in Caldwell Hall will be new or refurbished. Combine that with the sense of loyalty and commitment among alumni that you find at very few universities and you’ve got something special.
At the same time, I saw three glaring weaknesses that now form an agenda for the coming years. One is the relative lack of executive education. We’ve done very little to connect with the middle and senior levels of management. These would be non-degree programs--short courses and customized programs--done for business practitioners. Another weakness is in international programs. We have some minor exchange programs but no programs in which we offer a Terry College degree overseas.
The third area--and the one we will probably move on the quickest--is the lack of a marketing plan for the college. My predecessors here brought the college to the forefront of technology and research. What remains to be done is to let the world know what’s been built here.

Columns: During your transition, what kind of college culture did you find?
Benson: We have essentially an arts-and-sciences culture in this college. That is, we have a collection of relatively independent departments.
We need to establish a more unified culture and build an identity. In fact, the name “Terry College” should be thought of as our brand name. My hope is that eventually we will be referred to informally as Terry, like Tuck, Kellogg and Wharton are today.
While we need to develop a brand name, I don’t ever want us to be isolated from the university. We are dependent on the university, and it should be dependent on us. Often, a business school can be an entry point for the business community to much of the rest of the university.

Columns: If that’s the culture within the college, how will you go about defining and setting goals?
Benson: We are going to implement a strategic-planning process this fall that will hopefully yield a blueprint for our future by next spring.
We will be talking to literally hundreds of students, professors, staff and--just as importantly--business leaders, alumni and legislators in brainstorming sessions of 10 to 15 people in locations all over the state.
Based on these sessions, a faculty-staff committee will draft the strategic plan and then return it to all these people and ask them, simply, “Did we hear you?” This second round of feedback will influence the final draft of the plan.

Columns: You’re also changing the administrative structure of the dean’s office?
Benson: Yes, Jim Trieschmann is staying on as associate dean for faculty and research. Very soon I’ll be adding an associate dean for academic programs.
I am also expanding the staff in development, communications and alumni relations and eventually will put in place an associate dean for external relations. This is consistent with what has already occurred in the top 20 or 30 U.S. business schools.

Columns: What are your thoughts on enrollment growth?
Benson: We’re accessible at the undergraduate level. In fact, at 4,500 students we’re very accessible. My concern is more at the M.B.A. level where we have only about 150 students.
To be a big-time player in the business school market, we need to be turning out more M.B.A.s. Michigan has over 800 full-time M.B.A. students, and Indiana has over 600. It would help access, of course, but it also would bring more corporate recruiters to Athens, which would help our graduate placement nationwide.

Columns: You’ve been here just a few months--what has most surprised you?
Benson: I’ve been living in metropolitan areas--Minneapolis and the New Jersey/New York area--for the last 22 years. It’s been a long time since I’ve lived in a college town. I grew up in one--Lewisburg, Pa.--where my father was a statistics professor at Bucknell University.
I’d forgotten how strong the sense of community is and how rewarding life can be in a college town like Athens.