Olaf Growald
In the seven months since Daniel Pullin started as new dean of TCU’s Neeley School of Business, he estimates he’s had more than 200 one-on-one conversations about Neeley’s positioning. Pullin was dean of the Michael F. Price College of Business at the University of Oklahoma since 2014, where graduate enrollment grew by 50 percent in five years. He sat down for a Q&A with us.
Learning by listening. “What I’m hearing is that the future of Fort Worth is going to be stronger if TCU and the Neeley School are open to collaboration in the way we prepare the next generation of leaders our workforce needs and in talking about the greatest business issues of our time and how we can be co-creators of knowledge. It could be a micro-challenge that's a specific business opportunity for a company. It could be thinking in partnership with organizations like the Fort Worth Chamber about how we catalyze the entrepreneurial ecosystem of our community. We could be talking about what TCU and the Neeley School can do to be a part of the conversation when we’re attracting new companies to come to Tarrant County.”
Bearing fruit. “We're celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Richards Barrentine Values and Ventures business plan competition in April. It’s the largest undergraduate business plan competition in the country. We'd like to see it become largest in the world. We’re going to have students from 60-plus universities in the world competing. We want to take advantage of this talent and show them a pathway to build their companies here.”
Neeley, as part of Fort Worth's strategy to boost the number of adults with degrees. “We’re thinking about the way we leverage the Neeley School of Business as a horizontal across all of TCU, not just as a vertical silo. A few years ago, we launched a very successful business minor. We’re in the process of deep conversations about crafting an interdisciplinary entrepreneurship minor.
“We’re also launching a program through our accounting department next summer, a one-week boot camp for underrepresented high school students, in partnership with the Fort Worth ISD.”
Easing the path for Frogs. “We discovered, by listening to our students, that many were forgoing the job interview or maybe borrowing ill-fitting clothes. We were disappointed and surprised to hear that, but it makes all the sense in the world. So, at our last board of advisors meeting, we had this real conversation. Through the generosity of a number of donors, this spring we're going to launch a program that will provide the capacity for students in need to go and get that proper business suit and have opportunity to receive counsel from professional clothiers.
“Another thing we discovered was that one of the threshold requirements to move from being a pre-business major to a full business major is that you have to pass a series of Microsoft software certification programs. Well, the way you pass those is by taking a preparatory course, and they can be expensive. We had another conversation; we’re going to launch in the spring a need-based scholarship program.”