As a business communication scholar and practitioner, I tend to view my work in the Mendoza College of Business through a narrative lens. As defined in the communication discipline, narratives give meaning and assist individuals as they seek to understand their interactions with the world in which they live.

From this perspective, in my new role as academic director for undergraduate studies, I’m entering into an already existing narrative that continues to evolve in response to the demands of the current historical moment. As with most narratives, an undergraduate curriculum narrative shifts over time by competing and converging to shape meaning and ongoing communicative engagement.

Narratives are powerful because they encourage a shared language that creates coherence and a sense of truthfulness to the story. For example, the most recent iteration of our College’s mission, vision and goals statements describe our responsibility to “provide an unsurpassed educational experience that contributes to the formation and preparation of undergraduate students who will meaningfully contribute to the world.”

The seriousness of this task is announced in the phrase, “unsurpassed educational experience.” To meet this weighty charge, the current narratives of the undergraduate curriculum coalesce around the ideals of being Student-Oriented, Integrated and Innovative.

The new Business Core curriculum offers greater flexibility and expanded choices as students discern their plans of study. Students will have more opportunities to specialize in a secondary discipline to further explore their academic interests and career aspirations. The newly approved Accountancy-Finance double major serves as one example for students to acquire a strong foundation in the fundamentals of accounting and finance while also offering the flexibility to pursue additional interests in more depth.

Designing an integrated curriculum is important to Mendoza because it demonstrates a commitment to simultaneously pursuing analytic excellence while emphasizing a focus on ethics and Catholic social teaching. These commitments interplay with the business disciplines that serve as the foundation of our students’ learning.

Lastly, the new Business Core curriculum is designed to encourage course innovation. For example, departments have additional opportunities to develop minors that would be open to all business majors, cross-disciplinary minors that depend on courses across multiple departments, as well as cross-College minors. The recently launched Foundations of Business minor and the recently approved Business and the Common Good minor represent just the beginning of the possibilities for course innovation and cross campus collaboration. The College’s investment in experiential learning endeavors and study abroad immersions will provide additional course innovations.

Implementing these ideals each and every day would not be possible without Mendoza’s departmental directors of Undergraduate Studies, and our operations and student advising teams. These teams provide the curricular insight, logistical expertise and student support that are central to the learning experience. We are fortunate to have the finest professionals working in these roles across the College.

Although promoting this narrative that is attentive to being student-oriented, integrated and innovative is a community effort, the academic director serves an important function here for protecting its purpose. One of the most significant ways to protect this narrative is through a systematic process based on business accreditation standards. The Assurance of Learning activities involve assessing student learning and ensuring that student learning goals align with the learning activities featured in the course. Our College’s commitment to Assurance of Learning is demonstrated in many ways, from the faculty members who design and deliver courses to the various undergraduate curriculum committees that ultimately review the learning goal assessment reports.

Over the next year, I will be working closely with our directors of Undergraduate Studies and various stakeholders to prepare the necessary deliverables for our next accreditation visit. All of this work is done in the spirit of creating the best possible learning occasions for our students.

Former dean Carolyn Woo once discussed our business curriculum in terms of being “worthy of our students” and “worthy of our students’ parents’ sacrifice.” By promoting and protecting our undergraduate curriculum narrative, we are able to meet the challenges that curricular changes often bring and rely on our shared commitments when competing interests arise. I look forward to contributing to this ongoing narrative as we strive to make our curriculum “worthy.”

Amanda G. McKendree, Ph.D.

Associate Teaching Professor of Management
Academic Director for Undergraduate Studies
Arthur F. and Mary J. O'Neil Director, Fanning Center for Business Communication

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

As the kids say these days, it’s been a minute. I have learned this means it’s actually been much longer than a minute. For me, it’s been just over 14 months since I joined Mendoza.

I’m grateful for the past year working alongside many of you in the College. I have learned so much and continue to grow in my understanding and appreciation of our important work. And, wow, can we work! The list of accomplishments from this past year is a powerful display of productivity across the College.

Last year’s priorities, as I shared in my first Exchange entry, highlighted three areas of focus and I’m pleased to share that we made significant strides in each. Just to mention a few:

And yet, there is also still much left to do. But before I jump to this year, I believe it’s important to acknowledge some changes that occurred recently. The Marketing & Admissions teams joined the team-of-teams we call the Mendoza Experience & Engagement Team (MEET). This group of staff are led by nine high-performing, experienced and collaborative functional directors (in photo order left to right, top to bottom):

Collectively, and in close partnership with Kara Palmer and Carol Elliott’s teams, this group of leaders is responsible for the experience that our students, faculty and staff realize daily.

Dean Cremers is putting a special emphasis on the alignment of our OKRAs coming out of the strategic planning process and that’s leading to greater alignment across the College. I’m giving special attention to ensure my priorities mesh well with those of Kara Palmer, Craig Crossland, Kristen Collett-Schmitt and Ken Kelley. While I note these as my priorities, below, I share significant portions of them with Kara, Craig, Kristen and Ken and I will be contributing to their priorities as well.

My renewed priorities in the coming year are:

As you might imagine, there’s actually quite a bit of detailed work planned across the College so we will be sharing those plans and updates throughout the year. 

Also, today, Amanda Rink and I welcome Emily Marrese to Mendoza as our newest teammate and Senior Administrative Assistant. Emily comes to us from the Provost Office with over 12 years of experience at Notre Dame. Emily will sit directly across from me in the Dean’s suite. Please reach out to Emily (epaul1@nd.edu) to welcome her as well as to find some time on my calendar if you would like to connect with me on anything.

Gratefully,

Rob 

Happy fall!

We have a number of exciting events coming up, including the Fireside Chat With Dean Cremers featuring guest speaker Dr. Willis Lonzer at 3 p.m. on Thursday (October 6) in the Jordan Auditorium. Dr. Lonzer is the general president of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the first intercollegiate Greek-lettered fraternity for African American men. The Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity is an important and ongoing partner with Mendoza in developing young leaders, which includes hosting programs such as the Inclusive Leadership Immersion in 2021 and the Solidarity Summit taking place in the College today and tomorrow. Please consider attending the Fireside Chat on Thursday.

I’m glad to highlight a selection of Mendoza research papers recently published in top academic journals:

Brad Badertscher, Deloitte Professor of Accountancy
Assurance Level Choice, CPA Fees, and Financial Reporting Benefits: Inferences from U.S. Private Firms (Journal of Accounting & Economics)
Many U.S. private firms choose either a financial statement compilation or review rather than the higher assurance provided by an audit, yet little is known about these choices. Brad and co-authors find that assurance choices are associated with bank debt, trade credit and internal information reliability. They explore economic aspects of assurance choice and find that CPA fees more than double for each increment in assurance, yet the financial reporting benefits are similar for audits and reviews.

Ken Kelley, Edward F. Sorin Society Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations

Sample Size Planning for Replication Studies: The Devil is in the Design Psychological Methods (Psychological Methods)
Research in the social sciences has been under fire over the last several years for supposed “failures to replicate.” However, formally designing studies for the purposes of replication has not been considered much. Rather, research for replication studies have been planned as is there were primary studies, which the researchers argue is problematic for several reasons. The article details four ways to design replication studies and does so for estimating magnitude or showing the existence of an effect. The paper suggests that a well-designed replication study will help with the supposed replication crisis and help to build a more cumulative literature.

Yoon Son, Assistant Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations

Effectiveness of Integrated Offline-and-Online Promotions in Omnichannel Targeting: A Randomized Field Experiment (Journal of Information Management Systems)
Leveraging omnichannels has become a new norm of strategic marketing in the retail industry, with many vendors foregrounding the value of customers who wish to maximize their shopping experiences across all channels. Using a randomized field experiment design, the researchers provide empirical evidence of an offline direct experience effect and reveal short-term channel substitution behaviors among online-only customers. They further examine omnichannel conversion behaviors after exposure to online promotion and develop different coupon discount schemes based on responses to the previously offered offline initiative. Finally, the research detects significant patterns of post-treatment omnichannel migration and confirms the effectiveness of integrated omnichannel promotions in fostering a shift to omnichannel shopping.

Jun Yang, Assistant Professor of Finance
Bank Stress Testing: Public Interest or Regulatory Capture? (Review of Finance)
The research tests whether measures of influence on regulators affect stress test outcomes. The large trading banks – those most plausibly ‘Too Big to Fail’ – face the toughest tests. Supervisory stress tests have a greater effect on large trading banks’ portfolios; the large banks respond by making more conservative (initial) capital plans; and, despite their more conservative capital plans, the large banks still fail their tests more frequently than other banks. In contrast, while Jun and co-authors find little evidence that political or regulatory connections affect the quantitative element of the stress tests, these connected banks do face less scrutiny under its qualitative dimension.

Thank you to Brad, Ken, Yoon and Jun for their contributions to Mendoza’s research efforts.

Yours in Notre Dame,

Marti

I hope your fall semester is off to an excellent start and you are enjoying the traditions of Notre Dame football weekends and long-awaited fall weather! On July 1, I began my term as the inaugural associate dean for innovation and inclusion here in Mendoza. This new role is part of the leadership changes organized around areas at the core of our Mendoza mission, which are faculty and research, academic programs, and innovation and inclusion.

Since I officially began this role, I’ve had many conversations with colleagues and students about it. Questions revolve around what is meant by “innovation,” how I will be able to influence inclusion, and most importantly, how innovation and inclusion are connected. All of these questions are excellent. Let me start with “innovation,” which is critical for the success of business school programs and their graduates. A survey of the current landscape would suggest that some of the best business schools have been willing to adapt, change, and re-envision their mission around such topics as experiential learning, corporate social responsibility and sustainability, the global mindset, flexible curriculum and alternative credentials, and lifelong learning. Additionally, it’s clear that the best business schools are also innovating with respect to diversity and belonging efforts, which is where I believe the two areas I oversee intersect.

The good news is that Mendoza is very active in most of these areas already, notably in areas like experiential learning where we offer such transformational experiences like Business on the Frontlines. However, Mendoza has an opportunity for greater alignment with the Notre Dame Board of Trustees’ Task Force Report on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategic framework. This framework focuses on increasing representation, strengthening our culture of inclusion and belonging, holding ourselves accountable, being a force for good in the world, and committing adequate resources. In that spirit, please let me share with you a few of my goals and related initiatives for the academic year 2022-2023 that reflect Mendoza’s commitment to innovation and inclusion.

In the space of innovation, my top priority is special curricular projects within our undergraduate and graduate programs. I have also been tasked with reimagining our non-degree offerings, narrowly considering programs that reflect the College’s academic strengths and talent and lead to opportunities for our degree programs. The Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (UFV-Madrid) Capstone Integral Leadership Program, championed this past summer by Sam Miller, is an example of non-degree programs we are open to pursuing in the future.

With respect to inclusive excellence, it was a joy to learn in my new role how much our faculty and staff are already supporting students through individual action, whether it be advising or intentional efforts in and out of the classroom. The following is a brief accounting of my DE&I goals that will help further the work that is already underway and expand impact:

Thank you in advance for your support as I transition into this new role. Please consider this an open invitation to reach out to me if you would like to discuss anything related to my role or innovation and inclusion in general.

In Notre Dame,

Kristen