Last Tuesday, we held a very special event in the College – the O’Hara’s Heirs Deans Panel featuring a conversation between Mendoza deans Carolyn Woo, Roger Huang and myself. We originally planned the event for 2021 to celebrate the College’s Centennial and the launch of the new updated edition of O’Hara’s Heirs: Business Education at Notre Dame, 1921-2021, but it was pushed back several times due to COVID restrictions.

Brett Beasley, who wrote the three new chapters to the updated edition of the book on the College’s history – originally authored by ND Magazine editor Kerry Temple – served as moderator. If you weren’t able to attend, the video of the event is available. Following are a few select highlights of our conversation that I found most interesting or helpful in understanding our shared history and how it shapes our vision for the future, slightly edited:

BRETT: What does it mean to you to define success {as a College] and to define it on our terms, so to speak?

DEAN WOO: That phrase, “our own terms,” was a particular way of succeeding that really honors God, that really brings other people along. I didn’t believe that the only role of a business school was to change [our students’] earning curve….On the day on this stage when Tom [Mendoza] was celebrating with us the College becoming the Mendoza College of Business because we received this big endowment, Tom said, “I give this gift and all I ask is in return is that one day, when I’m sitting in a bar and some kid comes around and says, ‘Oh, I went to Mendoza College of Business,’ and I asked the kid what his experience was, the kid will say, ‘They treated me well and they brought me along to understand the purpose of doing good in business.’” So even our big donor … had a sense that at a place like Notre Dame, in the end, it’s really how you live your life. And as a professional in business, it’s living in a way that is true to what we proclaim we believe.

DEAN CREMERS: You want to think about how much do [our students} actually contribute, how well do they cooperate, and how well do they compete, in that order. I think we have good indicators for those three. The main indicator that students are great contributors is by how much our alumni give back. They recognize what they have received and so they contribute in so many ways back to the University and to our students through our programs. When I talk to key companies who hire many of our students, they tell me that if there's one thing that sets our students apart, it’s that our students see what’s at stake and they’re great team players. Great cooperators. It goes without saying that they’re great competitors.

You can also extend that to our faculty. For our faculty, I would say that we define success in a broader way than some of the other top business schools. I like to think that we ask for more of our faculty. We ask our faculty to be top researchers. We also ask them to be top teachers, and we're asking them to really be part of the community, serve their department, their school, the University and also their professional associations. I think we are very intentional about all those three aspects, the way we think about faculty success.…We care deeply about all those three things. I think that we should be proud of that. It’s what distinguishes us.

BRETT: If you had to set a goal for the next 100 years of business education at Notre Dame, what would it be? What will the next frontier be? What's your moonshot for the College to consider?

DEAN CREMERS: I think my moonshot directive would be to be more global, especially to be more focused on the Global South. There's a really small proportion of our students and faculty from there. We have some, but we have very limited access to the Global South. That is something that I see we have a big responsibility to and so much to learn from and be enriched by. It's also, I think, in practical terms, very much where the Holy Spirit seems to be causing the most growth in the Catholic Church.

DEAN WOO: I think for me the moonshot was a human thing, sort of like how do you optimize the welfare of people? Not so much as optimize the conveyor belt and put people behind it to maximize speed. How are they winning together? We also accept growth as the only alternative. Did you go into any course where you didn't have to sort of maximize growth? Like, how do we grow? We never say, we shouldn't grow. Now we find ourselves where we understand that there are boundaries.

I'm not against growth, but I think that the first question is, how should we grow? Then there is [the second question], which is, how should we flourish? So, anyway, my moonshot would be a whole body of research that starts causing people to rethink the premises as they exist.

DEAN HUANG: When we first became No. 1 in the undergraduate program under Dean Carolyn Woo, we'd show up at meetings with the undergraduate schools and we were mocked. They mocked us for the sort of education that we provide for our students….When the effect of the 2008 [recession] didn't abate so it was going to keep on having an impact on universities and on the world, very soon things changed. Initially, when we tackled things like Catholic social teaching, Ask More of Business and so on, when you Googled [those terms,] we were the first university to show up. Then, as other schools started adopting at least lip service and the trend picked up, it was hard to find Notre Dame as being a leader. There were a lot of imitators. In my mind, that's a good thing, except for the fact that most of them are probably providing a lip service degree. So, for the next 99 years, [my moonshot] is for this lip service to go away and there's actual buy-in by other universities for the sort of things we do over here.

BRETT: I'd like to just close by asking you to share a fond memory of your time in the College, whether it appears in the book or not, but something that continues to stick with you.

DEAN WOO: My very first week at Notre Dame, I went to see Father Hesburgh. He wanted me to understand what the University of Notre Dame was and what it meant to him. He told me two things. He said, "At all times, just evoke the Holy Spirit. Just say, ‘Come, Holy Spirit.’" The second one was to understand that we work in the name of the Blessed Mother, and just good enough is not good enough. I used to start my work every day by going to the grotto. I would say, "Father, Son, Holy Spirit and Blessed Mother, today is a work day. We need to all show up.’"

DEAN HUANG: I will tell you the story about something that Brett wrote in the book … that has to do with … when we offered the MSBA program in Chicago. It turns out that in the good old United States, you cannot just start a program in another state. You have to go through hoops. A lot of local and state hoops. We already had done a program in Chicago, so we thought, well, we can just start another one. Turns out that no, you cannot. We had recruited all these students. Uh oh, we're in deep trouble now. We have all these students who have accepted, and they've paid, and they are coming, and yet we cannot offer the program.

Well, we have no choice, let's bus them over here. Let's provide them with good coffee on the bus so they’ll complain less. Afterward, I met the students and I was ready for another ribbing. To show you how much we knew, they were all very appreciative. They enjoyed the time, they enjoyed the coffee and the time to network with all their classmates, and also they appreciated the opportunity to be among all of us here as part of the bigger community. The bigger community with all these buildings, all these students. They were able to see all of the school here. That to them was very, very rewarding.

DEAN CREMERS: I think that my best memories are when we all get together, which happens often. The commencements are always very special and so many staff go the extra mile. Many faculty show up, the students are there with their parents. It's a very special time. More complex but also fond memories were when I saw the incredible commitment during very difficult days of COVID. At some point, we had these daily emergency meetings. Every day. Everyone was always there. We had long conversations about these impossible circumstances. How can we still serve our students? How can we serve our faculty and our staff? I was so proud of us as a community, that we somehow, even with all the difficulty, made things work and we came through it. In 2021, we taught 95% of our courses in person. It was very difficult and not at all perfect. At the same time, we showed up, and that shows such a commitment, such a strong community.

I am thankful to all of you for the role you play in building our community. If you didn’t receive a free copy of the updated O’Hara’s Heirs, you can pick one up in Faculty Support.

In addition to Brett, Dean Woo and Dean Huang, I also want to thank Jean Meade, Beth Smith, Carol Elliott, Brandi Wampler, Zara Osterman, Jeremy May, Frank Mark, Brandan Weisser and Landen Thompson for their help in organizing and supporting this special event.

Yours in Notre Dame,

Martijn