SBA changes name to School of Business
DIEGO LUNA | BUSINESS EDITOR | THE USD VISTA | @diegotothemoon
Photo courtesy of sandiego.edu
Dean Alonso Gómez brings his international experience to USD.
Recent rankings by Financial Times magazine have put the University of San Diego School of Business in the spotlight in recent weeks. However, the preparation for continuous improvement begins with outstanding and sometimes eccentric leadership. Dean of USD School of Business Jaime Alonso Gómez, PhD., has tremendous goals and aspirations for all USD students and graduates, and in doing so hopes to establish positive changes for all Toreros.
Dean Alonso Gómez first came to USD in 1993, but during this time he was also dean of the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico, or Monterrey Institute of Technology for short. Gómez founded the business program at Monterrey Tech which subsequently became good friends with USD.
Gómez has been the dean for the USD School of Business for the past six months and is very enthusiastic about the school’s future.
One of the changes students may or may not be aware of is the name change of the school. Dean Alonso Gómez has confirmed that the name will no longer be USD School of Business Administration, but instead University of San Diego School of Business.
The University of San Diego School of Business Administration has cradled this name since 1972, but will now be dropping the word administration.
Dean Alonso Gómez explains the reasoning behind this name change.
“Yes, we dropped the word administration because the word administration is now associated with computer packages and computer systems,”Gómez said. “In reality the School of Business engages in leadership, management, strategy, and also into tools and methodologies for our professionals to be highly competitive, in addition to being well rounded persons with integrity and ethics. The School of Business actually describes in more robust ways who we really are and what we do.”
This choice came from a petition from the board members and constituents from the San Diego area, and it was a consensus-based decision. Dean Alonso Gómez bounced all these ideas among faculty members and the provost, and it was unanimously concurred that the School of Business should change its name.
Rebranding the entire SBA line will take time. It will definitely not happen overnight, but there have been some notable changes including changes in the official stationery and the web page.
Some students may have even seen the new Snapchat geofilter that can be found near and outside of Olin Hall.
Junior Michael Rodriguez, a finance major, believes this change should have been made when the school opened.
“Why did USD wait until 2016 to change the name of its business school?” Rodriguez said. “Seems like it should have always been named as the School of Business.”
Dean Alonso Gómez has mentioned many other noteworthy initiatives USD’s School of Business plans to implement in the near and distant future.
USD is particularly good at three things: entrepreneurship, international mobility, and business education.
Dean Alonso Gómez mentions that USD School of Business needs to merge all three components.
“It will be very difficult to be No. 1 in all three categories,” Gómez said. “We want to be number one in the combination of the three factors.”
Dean Alonso Gómez explains how these individual factors can fortify and synergize the three most important recognitions the business school has in order to have a positive spiral.
“If you have two molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen, individually they are gases but when you put hydrogen and oxygen together, and you have an electric spark, you will have water,” Gómez said. “Water has the capacity to satiate thirst, produce life, it has many what we call, emerging properties, which are not found in the individual components. Water is a systemic harmonious combination of individual elements, but water is much more than a linear addition of each of the parts.”
In essence, Dean Alonso Gómez wishes to create an upward spiral by combining the three primary components in order for them to collaboratively yield a more valuable business degree. Increasing the value of the USD business degree is at the frontline of the initiatives, this is because it is intended to be an entry card to the business world.
Another program Alonso Gómez is implementing is a double degree program, just like the one he created at Monterrey Tech.
This program is for undergraduates as well as graduates.
If an undergraduate student spends two years with USD and studies abroad for one year in either Milan, Italy, Comillas, Spain, or Dublin, Ireland they would have a valid European degree and a degree from USD.
This double undergraduate degree will increase the degree’s value allowing students to pay the same amount of money and put in the same amount of time. In fact, this program has been available as of Spring 2016.
At the graduate level, the MBA program will have international regional advisory boards in Europe, Latin America, Middle East, and Asia. The purpose is to increase internship, networking, and entrepreneurship opportunities.
USD’s primary mission is to fortify and maximize the value of the more than the 2,400 degrees USD issues annually. A USD education fosters well-rounded individuals with an integrity-based profile that the world needs and many companies in the world want.