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Statement from the Dean
2001-2002 Annual Report
In the three months since I became dean of the Haas School of
Business, I have learned much about this extraordinary school
through my many meetings with steadfast supporters like you.
Please let me add my sincere words of gratitude for your financial
and other support of Haas over the past year. And of course,
I want to encourage you to again be generous to Haas in the
months and years ahead. The school is superb; it could be even
better, I would like you to know my thoughts on how that can
happen, and to ask for your ideas in return.
I have been deliberately spending a large portion of my first
months getting to know everyone at Haas: The students first
of all, our exceptional staff, our tremendously accomplished
alumni, and our world-class faculty. I’ve instituted
bi-weekly “Town Hall Meetings” with all students
from all of our degree programs. The statistical profile of
Haas students places them among the very best business school
students in the world — and I have found them to be
every bit as sharp and stimulating as the numbers indicate.
And it is clear from my interactions with the school’s
impressive alumni that they are eager to help Haas in any
way they can. If the prerequisite of a great organization
is a foundation of talented, dynamic individuals, the Haas
School is fortunate to posses this asset in abundance.
Moreover, the school has benefited greatly over the past
decades from the outstanding leadership of former deans (with
whom I have consulted regularly) Earl Cheit, Richard Holton,
Ray Miles, William Hasler, Laura Tyson, and Benjamin Hermalin.
These visionaries have built a remarkable school that competes
with the best.
From the day I agreed to become dean, I have been absolutely
convinced of the need to see the school take its place among
the handful of dominant business schools in the world. Haas
will be a preeminent source of ideas, knowledge, best business
practices, leadership, and talent for the United States’
and the global economies. These ideas fit squarely within
the UC Berkeley mission and tradition of Nobel-level scholarship,
top-five ranked
academic programs, and public service that aims to make a
real difference in the world.
As any great business school must, we present our students
with a leading-edge management education that teaches them
how to create wealth and value. But we will also offer our
students lessons in the importance of sharing what they create
for the benefit of others. We teach the value and honor of
community service as an essential component of a fulfilling
career. By emphasizing these distinguishing characteristics
in our curriculum,
we reaffirm the core values of the Haas School and UC Berkeley.
Haas’s student body is small in size — the smallest
within our competing group of top schools — and it will
remain so, to continue to treat our students as individuals.
However, we must increase the size of the faculty in order
to stay competitive. One of the agreements I obtained from
Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl before I took the deanship
was the authorization, consistent with campus procedures,
to hire more than 20 full-time faculty members over the next
several years. These positions will improve the faculty-student
ratio, and enable us to offer more and a greater variety of
elective courses. New faculty positions also give us the flexibility
to hire people into rapidly expanding fields of knowledge,
such as biotechnology. Since business schools teach to the
market, it is critical that our faculty reflects the latest
trends in the economy and business. I am especially eager
to hear from alumni and friends with advice on which areas
of potential growth deserve particular attention in our faculty
hiring.
Because of the widening ethics scandals that have rocked
corporate America over the past year, one of my first acts
as dean was to expand the school’s already significant
activities in the area of corporate social responsibility
and business ethics. The country and the world are demanding
to know if recent lapses in business ethics are symptomatic
of a system-wide failure. Our great universities and business
schools – with Haas in the forefront – must play
a major role in reaffirming the moral and material worth of
America’s economic system and leading the effort to
discover ways to correct the problems.
May I call upon you regularly for your help and advice in
these efforts? In all my meetings, I have felt the tremendous
sense of pride in our school. Morale is high, and everyone
is genuinely enthusiastic in wanting to make Haas even better.
This is an auspicious base from which to take our step into
the very top rank of business schools. That is our goal; not
so much to achieve rankings for their own sake, but to bring
world and national attention to the substance of what we do
at Haas.
Thank you for welcoming me so warmly into the Haas School
family. It is a joy for me to be part of it.
With kind regards,
TOM CAMPBELL
Bank of America Dean
Walter A. Haas School of Business
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