Spotlight: Arjang Assad, Senior Associate Dean

Having been at the business school since 1978, long before it was the Smith School of Business, Arjang Assad has seen a lot of change. But that’s okay, because he likes change. Without a doubt, the most significant transformation Assad has seen during his 25 years at the business school has been the tremendous growth during the last seven years. “It’s not just in the numbers,” he says, “but also in the quality and professionalism of the faculty, the staff and the students.” Early changes during his time here included the evolution of the Decision and Information Technologies Department, which was a merger between the two areas of management science/statistics and information systems.

After completing most of his undergraduate and graduate studies at MIT in the field of chemical engineering, he received his PhD from the Sloan School in management operations research. Joining the business school as a new faculty member in 1978, Assad spent 20 years rising through the ranks of professorship, assuming the position of chair of D&IT in 1998. Towards the end of his tenure as department chair, he felt his amount of “on-the-job-learning” was leveling out. “I had been exposed to almost every issue involved in being a department chair,” he says. Now as senior associate dean, he is exposed to new issues and new challenges. An analogy he suggested is that of using a different set of muscles. “When you use your muscles in a particular sport they become very flexible and well-used. When you switch sports, however, you often use a different set of muscles, and that is what I am doing in my new position,” says Assad. In addition to getting to know more of the administrative staff throughout the Smith School, Assad has enjoyed learning about matters that affect the administrative staff that are different from issues involving faculty.

What does “Leaders for the Digital Economy” mean to a pioneer of information technology? “The school is the leader,” Assad says, “and we are supporting the school in its goal to become leaders for the digital economy. We lead on the innovation path in doing things others can learn from . . . we are not a follower, doing things after others have proven them to be useful.”

What is Assad’s role of integrating the convergence of information technology with the academic programs at Smith? “This topic is very dear to me, and has been stated by Howard Frank to be a top priority,” Assad says. He enjoys intellectually engaging faculty on the topic. He encourages his colleagues to incorporate technology into their teaching and course requirements, in order to make the students’ experience different from that at other business schools. “We must continue to do more,” he says, “such as introducing the use of BlackBerry devices into the academic program.”

When asked about some of the new ideas he has in mind for the Smith School, or areas on which he especially hopes to focus, Assad says he intends to remain close to the faculty, many of whom have been his colleagues for a long time. He also plans to work on information technology instruction, teaching enhancement, and building a relationship with our adjunct faculty.

As far as advice for new professors joining Smith, Assad says, “The reason they chose to join us is because they want to excel as faculty with respect to their peer group. They want to shine. So, do whatever it takes, but make sure the Smith School benefits from your trajectory toward that goal.”

When spending time outside of Smith, it’s not unusual to find Arjang Assad browsing in a bookstore, as he is an avid reader of all subjects. He also greatly enjoys movies and foreign films or films produced in other countries. Most of his family resides in the U.K. and Iran.

Assad says that when he was a faculty member and deans were elected, he always felt that they should be accessible and interested in the entire school. As senior associate dean, he wants to meet his own requirement that he has placed on others before him. He states, “my office is always open, and I am always approachable.”

▓ Carol Cron, Smith Newslink Inside

Spotlight: Executive MBA

Second Year of Excellence in Smith EMBA Program
Eighteen months ago, although already armed with a master’s degree in chemical engineering from John Hopkins University, Eric Gwin was set on pushing himself to hit the textbooks again. In February 2005, this technical assistant to the president of Constellation Energy Group, Inc., graduated with an Executive Master’s of Business Administration (EMBA) from the Robert H. Smith of Business, together with 20 classmates.

The Smith School is celebrating another year of excellence as its second group of executives graduate from the EMBA program. The Smith EMBA program has been carefully designed to emphasize technology’s value to business practices, giving a competitive edge to students in all fields.

For Aleksandra Skoric, managing director of Small Business Project, Inc., the Smith EMBA program has offered her a safe harbor to experiment with different facets of entrepreneurship through leadership development classes and business simulation exercises. Like Skoric, Sol J. Ross, an assistant to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, felt that the Smith EMBA Program has given him the base tools to make solid decisions using imperfect information.

The Smith EMBA program has also been a good source of networking for Rosa Mariduena, budget officer with the International Monetary Fund. “In the long run, I have gained confidence through my course work, as well as a network of resources,” she said.

As part of the curriculum, each student is required to work with three or four other EMBA students on a Marketplace Stimulation Exercise, a capstone component of the program. This four-and-a-half-day “business war game” allows the students to apply their learning directly by competing against each other in running a company for two years in compressed time. Each team will take its company through the business life cycle from start-up, to development, to growth, to near maturity.

Skoric felt that the Marketplace Stimulation Exercise was a wonderful integrative approach to all the facets of the EMBA program: marketing, production, finance, leadership, human resources, negotiations, and R&D. “The simulation is moving so fast, that as a member of the group, one needs to learn to command all individual departments. It accentuates importance of the team work, systems and collegiality,” she said.

To commemorate their graduation, the Robert H. Smith of Business held a special reception for its 21 graduating students and families on Friday, February 11. The students will also join graduating Smith students from other programs at the school’s spring graduation ceremony in May 2005.

▓ Kenneth Ng, MBA Candidate 2006, Smith Media Group

Human Resources

Ordering Business Cards Online
Faculty and staff wishing to order business cards can now do so online! Fill out a simple online order form, which will be processed and sent to Anne Stevens. Allow 3-4 weeks for delivery. The form can be found in the Faculty Services section of the Smith School Web Site (Smith>Departments & Offices>Administration>Faculty Services)
http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/admin/businesscard.html

University of Maryland "FYI Digest" E-mail
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Collegiate Readership Pilot Program
In cooperation with the University of Maryland Student Government Association, from Monday, February 21, through Friday, March 18, daily newspaper editions of The New York Times, USA Today, and The (Baltimore) Sun are available at no charge in Rudy's Cafe! For more information about the Collegiate Readership Pilot Program, visit: http://www.usatodaycollege.com.

Faculty Up Front

►Don Riley, professor of information systems, was co-organizer (with William Chang, NSF) of the U.S.-Africa Workshop: IT Activities for Enhancing Collaborative Research in Africa, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and held in Arlington, VA, January 27-28, 2005.  Riley was conference co-chair of the Chinese American Networking Symposium (CANS 2004): Toward Next Generation Advanced Networks held at Florida International University, Miami, FL, Nov. 30 – Dec. 2, 2004.

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