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Welcome
As we embark upon Fall 2014, let me take this opportunity to
extend a warm Welcome Back (and simply A Big Welcome to some) to our students, their
parents, prospective students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the Business Board. Gear up! A full year of learning and
intellectual enterprise lies ahead.
Like you, I am excited to be here. We are embarking on what I believe will be an
impressive next few years of growth in students and programs in the School of
Business. Ours will be a world of
mainstream business education punctuated by strategic forays into niche
areas. Hence, our Masters of Accounting
has a forensic accounting concentration; we will elevate Marketing as an
undergraduate major in its own right; Entrepreneurship will play a large role
in our curriculum; and we are one of only a handful of schools that award
undergraduate degrees in Sports Administration.
At the graduate level, our online partnership with Hotchalk (www.hotchalk.com) continues to take
shape. As we revise our online curricula,
spillover effects will also help revamp our in-class and hybrid graduate
courses and experiences.
Our forays into niche areas beyond mainstream majors and
concentrations reflect our efforts at keeping our curricula and programs relevant
to the employment marketplace. At the
end of the day, a business degree’s value is best gauged by the quality of its
placements. We plan to fine-tune the
quality of our education to remain relevant to the demands that our
ever-changing economy places on our students and graduates. This cannot be a
one-time exercise, but a virtuous cycle of growth that is aided by the
students; faculty; the dean; the Business Board; our alumni; the University;
our accrediting bodies; and of course our community – both local and global –
around us.
Internships will be another area of focus for us this year and going
forward. Today’s successful intern is
tomorrow’s successful employee; and is a future successful alumnus for us. Internships enable both students and their employers
to gauge each other in an early and low-pressure setting, leading to more
successful jobs and careers. To that
end, I strongly encourage you, our students, to tune your browser to: www.internships.com/welcome/stu. One of the tools you will find there is the Internship
Predictor. This algorithm
integrates a cross section of items for assessing preferences in personality
traits, interests, and values. The results connect clients to congruent job
listings, recommended content for resumes, and deeper analysis of suggested
career tracks. I wish we had these tools when I was an undergraduate student!
We intend to have every undergraduate student experience at least one
internship during their course of study with us.
We are also actively growing our partnerships with institutions
abroad. Our location in Miami Gardens
gives us a ring-side view not only of the recently concluded World Cup; but of
the growth in nations like China, India, Brazil, Peru, and Panama. Panama, for instance, is gearing up to be the
Hong Kong of Latin America. The widening of the Panama Canal will allow for
larger container ships to pass through the Canal, bridging the continental divide
between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans.
The Port of Miami is expected to be a major beneficiary of this
expansion. We, in the School of Business
at St. Thomas, will look to develop programs that train students to achieve
gainful employment in this burgeoning area.
Study abroad programs will grow; as will international trips.
My faculty, staff, and I are always open to new ideas from you. Please do visit us on campus; and on the
Web. We are dedicated to the notion that
every student is an individual; with individual needs and aspirations. We are here to help achieve your goals and
aspirations, one student at a time.
Go Bobcats!
The Ex-Im Bank (With apologies to the popular song: Should it Stay or Should it Go?)
I take a contrarian view (it is important to have a position on things - don't you hate it when you are going out for dinner and your partner/guest has no opinion on where or what (s)he would like to eat?!) of the Ex-Im Bank. What is the Ex-Im Bank you ask? Well...read on (the following excerpt is from my column in the Orlando Sentinel).
The Ex-Im Bank of the United States (1) awards direct loans to foreign buyers of US goods, some
of dubious credit; (2) provides loan guarantees to banks that lend to foreign
buyers; (3) insures U.S. exporters and banks against foreign defaults; and (4) provides working-capital loans to smaller clients. Ex-Im picks and chooses
American companies to support based on their size; industry (it places restrictions
on high-carbon intensity projects); and their environmental record (10% of its
authorizations must go to renewable energy projects). There have even been allegations of graft
(the House recently launched a corruption probe of Ex-Im Bank). In a nutshell, Ex-Im sometimes awards loans
and guarantees that mainstream commercial lenders eschew. And it camouflages its cost of doing business
via the use of arcane accounting rules; ignores the opportunity cost of
capital; and employs a discount rate equal to the yield of U.S. Treasury
Bonds.
The Bank, however, does boast a miniscule default rate of
0.2111 percent. This, however, is only
made possible by the fact that close to 80% of the dollar-value of its loans
and guarantees goes to shore up titans like Boeing and General Electric. Hence, the dubious moniker: Boeing’s Bank.
What some of Ex-Im’s beneficiaries do with their loans and
guarantees is also equally telling. In February 2012, Delta Airlines along with
the ATA, and the Airline Pilots Association International brought an
unsuccessful lawsuit against Ex-Im for its $3.4 billion loan to Air India to
finance the purchase of 30 wide-body aircraft from Boeing. Air India, then already in the red, subsequently
crowded out Delta from its non-stop New York – Mumbai sector. In the lawsuit Delta alleged that Ex-Im had
allowed Air India to purchase and operate aircraft at a lower cost of capital
than was available to Delta. The ATA,
furthermore, countered Ex-Im’s claims of protecting American businesses
(Boeing) and jobs by declaring that only four of Boeing’s 17 critical aircraft
components are still made in the USA.
The others are outsourced abroad.
Ex-Im, I believe, is an anachronism in today’s world. It harks back to a time when American
companies engaged American workers, used American resources, built in America,
and exported abroad. Today we live in a world
of tax inversions where American companies like Walgreens consider moving to
Switzerland to shelter from US tax liabilities (Walgreens has since abandoned
this plan); Buick is the automobile of choice in China; and Toyota manufactures
in Kentucky. Today Boeing outsources
most of its critical components; and GE moves plants to Mexico funded by the
Ex-Im bank. The idea of a monolithic U.S.
manufacturer that Ex-Im claims to support is jejune; mostly a chimera that lies
in a heap at the bottom of old Youngstown.
Today’s commercial lending follows sophisticated free-market
principles that factor in risks and returns.
An Air India, swathed in red, should have to pay market-imposed premiums
to finance its purchase of Boeing aircraft; an Emirate Airlines ought not to
need Ex-Im to finance its purchase of wide-body jets from Boeing. And the U.S. taxpayer need not support a corporate
welfare dirigible masquerading as a decades-old sustainable business model.
Do you agree? Have an opinion - chime in.
Presence
Ever notice how some people stand-out in a crowd? May be it is in their gait; the way they talk; their enunciation and pronunciation; their choice of words; the register of their voice; their stance? Or may be it is the clarity of their thoughts; their decisive actions; their empathy for people; the way they relate to others? Or is it more superficial - the clothes they wear; the cut of their suits; the crease of their trousers; the shape of the shades covering their eyes?
The Wall Street Journal, a publication that every business student ought to have access to and ought to read on a daily basis and in an addicted manner, recently ran a nature versus nurture piece on it. Read it here:
Check back again for next month's blog. Remember, the Business Dean at St. Thomas University is an opinionated man. He will provide fodder for lots of discussions in the months ahead; and he wants to hear back from you.
Go Bobcats!
Som Bhattacharya
Dean, School of Business
St. Thomas University
