Credit: David Michael Howarth

Dean Mitchell Koza of Rutgers' School of Business–Camden

In February 2006, Mitchell Koza was named the third dean of Rutgers’ School of Business–Camden after an aggressive global search. He previously served as director general and professor of international strategy for Cedep–INSEAD (the European Center for Executive Development at the European Institute of Business Administration) in France. Koza also held appointments at the Cranfield University School of Management, a leading European management school, where he directed Cranfield’s Centre for International Business; the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University; the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley; and UCLA’s Graduate School of Management. As the School of Business–Camden prepares to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its founding, Koza reflects upon his first two years as dean and looks forward to the business school’s next two decades of growth.

The School of Business–Camden is preparing to welcome its first-ever four-year undergraduate class this fall. How does the transition from an upper-division undergraduate program to a full, four-year program benefit the students and the school?

The four-year undergraduate program is the natural next step in our evolution as a comprehensive business school. When I arrived, it was clear that this would be necessary to propel our trajectory of growth, and I’m so pleased that Rutgers now offers immediate access to its business programs to top high school students in addition to our strong traditional base of transfer and upper-division students.

The degree to which we can attract the finest high school students to Rutgers, and more specifically to the School of Business–Camden, is the degree to which we can reposition ourselves as an elite public business school. The best students know up front that they want to major in business. They don’t want to have a two-year wait; they want to hit the ground running toward their goals as soon as they enter college. We’ll provide that experience.

There’s been nothing but positive response for this program from the business community, our faculty, high school counselors, and prospective students and their families. Students are intrigued by the opportunity to become part of a pioneering class and, moreover, to do so at Rutgers, where they know they’ll receive a world-class business education. Rutgers–Camden is part of a major research university and, as such, our students receive a cosmopolitan, global point of view. It’s the natural embodiment of our “Jersey Roots, Global Reach” message.

What do you see as Rutgers’ role in helping New Jersey to retain existing businesses and attract new organizations to the state?  How does the School of Business–Camden implement this role in southern New Jersey?

Look closely at the economic underpinnings of states with fiscal strength, and you’ll see that state’s public university working as a full partner to stimulate economic growth. New Jersey is no different. At Rutgers’ School of Business–Camden, we share the campus’s local ambition to develop our host city, and we are just as fiercely committed to expanding opportunities across our region and our state.

We apply the resources of our Small Business Development Center, our Family Business Forum, our Quarterly Business Outlook, our internship program, and so much more toward the practical needs of regional businesses. The business school consistently earns favorable feedback on these endeavors.

We also want to help businesses think strategically about their growth. If we are acknowledged and recognized as the premier center for business education in the Delaware Valley, then Rutgers–Camden rightfully emerges as a leading regional player that can attract businesses seeking highly qualified employees and the “thought capital” generated through faculty research. It’s not enough for Rutgers to be simply the best business school in southern New Jersey; businesses think outside of boundaries and value prospective partners who share their vision. Through preeminence in a major metropolitan region, such as the Delaware Valley, Rutgers can help businesses realize their wider ambitions. We do this through our M.B.A. program, our undergraduate program, and our diverse portfolio of deep connections within the business community.

You came to Rutgers after a long tenure as a leader in European business education. How does that experience advise your role as dean at Rutgers–Camden?

Business education today is not local. It’s a global phenomenon in which local issues are embedded. While at Cedep–INSEAD, I developed a rich appreciation for the clinical point of view. Research and clinical applications aren’t mutually exclusive. Business practice can offer feedback into the research agenda, making research rigorous and relevant.

Part of that relevance requires that the business community take a vested interest in the education of its workforce and society. While in France, I worked with INSEAD on a consortium model wherein 35 companies worked together and took strong ownership of programs that would train their managers and employees. Here, we’re now developing a specialized track within our M.B.A. program to serve the needs of the health care industry. Within this model, 10 to 15 health care organizations will send their employees to the Rutgers–Camden M.B.A. program. Within the track, students will work on issues confronting the sponsoring organizations, delivering immediate benefits to their employers.

Diversity is critical all over the world. We tend to think of diversity as an American phenomenon, but the world has a varied notion of diversity. In Western Europe, for example, there’s great sensitivity to representing different cultures.

The School of Business–Camden recently launched the Rutgers Institute for Management and Executive Development (Rutgers IMED). What are the goals for this initiative?

Rutgers IMED leverages the unique strengths and value propositions of our existing Small Business Development Center, William G. Rohrer Center for Management and Entrepreneurship, and Family Business Forum to nurture a new organizational entity with the ambition and achievement of being a significant bridge between Rutgers and organizations seeking strategic growth. The initiative provides tailored business development solutions for these organizations. It also provides the faculty with opportunities to work closely with businesses by applying their research acumen toward on-the-ground issues. We already apply these principles in our work with such clients as Lockheed Martin, Campbell Soup, Graybar, and Cisco Systems.

This is a significant model for serving the business community and for helping our faculty to sharpen the relevance of their research and teaching. It also represents a new revenue stream for the School of Business–Camden: an entrepreneurial effort to augment our fundraising endeavors.

The School of Business–Camden will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2008. Where do you see the school in the next decade or so?

We’ve come so far in the past two years alone, with the launch of our human resource management major, the creation of the four-year undergraduate program, and the launching of the Rutgers IMED, but that’s just the start. Our commitment to building the region’s preeminent center for business education means that we need to develop a significant new facility to accommodate faculty growth and new activity. We also need to grow our resources through revenue-generating activities, such as the Rutgers IMED.

We have all the requisite tools for success: an extraordinarily talented faculty, bright students, committed staff, an engaged alumni base, rich partnerships with business and community leaders, the strong support of the university for the development of business education on the Camden Campus, and the exceptional equity of the Rutgers brand, a continuing annuity for our graduates. If there was a ticker for higher education, then it would show that the share price of Rutgers’ School of Business–Camden is going up.