Danny Arnold succeeds the retired Ron Bottin as dean of MSU's College of Business Administration. On April 1, Arnold brought to the job more than 20 years of business school leadership experience, including time at Mississippi State and New Mexico State universities. The last five years, he was dean of the business school at Frostburg University in Maryland. At MSU, Arnold oversees 4,800 business students, including more than 400 Master of Business Administration candidates.
Q: What brought you to MSU?
A: They hired me at Frostburg to get (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business accreditation), and we did that in the third year. I got a real charge out of the accreditation process, but it got to the point where I said, 'OK, with what kind of job do I want to finish my career?' When I began to do my research into schools that had caught my eye, I was pleasantly surprised by what I found about COBA at Missouri State. Of the dean positions that were available last year, this was by far the best one in the country.
Q: What is your impression of the College of Business Administration?
A: What I thought initially, and what I still think, is that it's an excellent quality school. (Former Dean) Ron Bottin did an excellent job in his 17-plus years of moving the program onward, so the base that I have inherited is outstanding. At the same time, there are a lot of interesting and challenging things that we might be able to do. I don't want to disparage my former schools, but to get them to acceptable quality, I had some heavy lifting to do. That is definitely not true here.
Q: Will the current recession change business education?
A: Not in terms of the fundamental way that we teach business. Business is cyclical - there are ups and downs, and history is full of those both for the U.S. and worldwide economy. What you need to do to be ready for a downturn may be slightly different now, but you still have to teach good business practices. Maybe we'll teach a more cautionary approach to investments, but that's probably the only change I can see.
Q: Are there business basics that could have helped prevent the current situation?
A: Ten years ago, the stock market was climbing and climbing, and there were mature adults out there that were investing in the stock market like it was a poker game and had never seen a downturn in the market. We're supposed to teach theory and applications; maybe one of the things we ought to focus on is that there are downturns. The point is there are several things that conspired to help create this economic downturn.
Q: How has globalization changed business in the classroom?
A: It's dramatically different. When I started teaching in the 1970s, the global economy hardly existed. There has always been trade - since the Phoenicians several thousand years ago - but the United States was so dominant. We outproduced, outsold and outmarketed everybody, and nobody else was really relevant. That has dramatically changed. Everything is different. The majority of our courses are taught differently now because you have to consider the international component. It's not just the U.S. being the big boy in the market anymore.[[In-content Ad]]Interview by Jeremy Elwood.
