Responding to it is another matter though. David Gautschi, Ph.D., dean emeritus, and Joseph Keating, S.J., Professor of Marketing at the Gabelli School of Business, says businesses have a key part to play in the challenge.

Two years ago, he and international energy executive David Nagel launched Forum2100, a video streaming website that features talks by primarily private-sector leaders who share the latest research and trends in the field of energy development.

Gautschi said he became interested in energy while on sabbatical at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), a research institute and university in Lausanne, Switzerland. He became convinced that energy sources that emit less carbon are within our grasp.

“The more I studied this, the more I realized we have the technology we need; it’s people who are in the way. Businesses just need to figure out a way to move the dial and become agents of change,” he said.

After meeting Nagel, a former vice president at BP America, the two decided to produce a series of TED-talk style lectures, free to anyone with an internet connection.

The first “Business & Energy Talk,” as they dubbed it, featured the founders of AirMiners.org, which is dedicated to a business-based approach to capturing carbon dioxide, sequestering it, and turning it into products. It was broadcast on the Zoom platform, which allows viewers to submit questions that Gautschi could ask the speakers. It was archived on both the Forum2100 website as well as YouTube.

In all, 13 talks have been held. The most recent was Jan. 21, when Gregory Nemet, Ph.D., professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, delivered “How Solar Energy Became Cheap: A Model for Low Carbon Innovation,” also the title of his 2019 book.

Gautschi said the goal of the talks, which have featured topics such as the potential use of ammonia as fuel and the role of energy in sustainable development in Africa, is to shift the current discourse, which too often demonizes industry as the root cause of the problems we currently face.

“You can go anywhere in the world, to any economic system, any political system, and you will run into businesses. It’s the cockroach theory. You cannot suppress them. You can see one? Boom, here comes another hundred,” he said, laughing.

“Since it’s so persistent, my hypothesis is, there must be some kind of redeeming value to this form of human activity. So let’s see if we can find instances of people trying to do good things, and behold, there’s a lot.”

Reframing Familiar Conversations

Although some of the talks are heavy on the technology, most are about new business models and new ways of framing the problems, he said.

The issue reminded him of the path he took when contemplating ethics in business. Although there have been many robust conversations about what an ethical business looks like, he said, he noticed that the topic only seems to really resonate when there’s an economic downturn like in 2001 and 2008. So maybe the better, more timeless question to ask, he realized, is “What is the purpose of business?” The issue of sustainability, he said, could likewise be examined through that larger lens.

“

The same sort of thought pattern brought me to this whole issue of sustainability. I don’t know what people are always inferring when they use the word, of if they even know what they’re talking about,” he said.

“So you have somebody like Greta Thunberg, who I think is a brave young woman, and her emotions and her arguments are certainly legitimate. But there is nothing that is pointing to a path of action that could resolve the problems. So that’s what led me to think, ‘I can’t talk just about sustainability, because it means it’s just an emotion.’ We need to talk about what’s fundamental to sustainability, which is energy. Energy is everything.”

Viewership for the lectures is still modest, with 200 subscribers worldwide receiving updates on the newest talks. Live talks have received between 25 and 75 views, although archived versions have received additional views. Gautschi is encouraged by the response he’s gotten from viewers so far though, and also notes that it has informed Innovation in Business and Energy, a class he taught last semester.

Learning Outside of the Classroom

Deirdre Coolidge, GABELLI ’20, took the class as an elective, and although energy was not her main interest, she found the topic to be so interesting that this semester she’s spending her Saturdays auditing Gautschi’s class The Real Green Deal.

“I have kids, and I’m really concerned about the future for the world, and what we’re leaving behind,” said Coolidge, who markets annuities for New York Life.

“One of the things I learned in his class is, our country is energy independent at this point. So, I want to know, why aren’t we making better decisions? If we’re operating from a position of strength, why aren’t we investing in green technology and working toward a better system for our aging infrastructure?”

The forum was a great way explore the topic beyond the classroom, she said, adding that the episode that highlighted the Swiss-based startup Softcar was particularly interesting to her.

“The talks are completely on topic, on point, and you could drill down a little deeper with these webinars. They’re great opportunities to build your knowledge base outside of the classroom.”

The next Forum2100 lecture, is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 18, at 11:30 a.m. It will feature the owner of searCH4power, a firm working to harness excess methane generated during oil production to power bitcoin mining.

That was the message of Business with Purpose, a panel discussion held Wednesday, Feb. 13, at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus.

“Everyone says we need to maximize shareholder value, and that apparently means today. But that’s an ephemeral goal. If you actually thought about the longer-term shareholder value, you have to take into account the environment,” said Paul Johnson, senior advisor at financial services consultant Harbor Peak, LLC, and adjunct professor at the Gabelli School of Business.

“These are shadow liabilities that are unrecognized from an accounting perspective, but they are going to come home to roost.”

Johnson was joined by the Gabelli School’s David Gautschi, Ph.D., the Joseph Keating, S.J., Professor of Marketing; Michael Pirson, Ph.D., associate professor of management systems; and Julita Haber, Ph.D., clinical assistant professor of communications and media management.

The discussion, which was moderated by Sertan Kabadayi, Ph.D., professor of marketing and chair of the marketing area at Gabelli School of Business, was sponsored by the graduate student club Fordham Net Impact.

A Critique of Short Term Thinking

Johnson said the term “long-term” needs to be reintroduced into discussions involving business.

Facebook exemplifies how not to do things, he said, as it puts too much emphasis on growth at any cost, without any consideration for users’ concerns about data collection, privacy, and disinformation.

“You no longer have any customer that would take a bullet for the business. The U.S. is looking at whether or not [Facebook] should be regulated, and no user is going to stand up and say ‘Hold on a second, this is really precious to me,’” he said.

Gautschi, who is also dean emeritus of the Gabelli graduate school, noted that the business world got a black eye in 2007 when the financial markets took a nose dive. This was not new though; in 2001, companies such as Enron, Parmalot, and Global Crossing were found to be operating in unethical, and in some cases, criminal ways.

“The fundamental purpose of business is to generate value and to distribute it. One of the problems that we have is we have a lot of things that are of value. Unfortunately, they’re of negative value, Gautschi said, as he detailed nearly a century of shady behavior in the business community.

“They’re called negative externalities, and they have just been ignored. They need to be brought into the calculus of decision makers within business.”

We Need Problem Solvers

Pirson said it doesn’t help that Americans subscribe to the belief that says we need someone like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs to save us.

“We need a lot of problem solvers, and whether they’re leaders or not doesn’t really matter to me,” he said.

“We’re all on this planet, we all need to problem solve wherever we are. It just matters what kind of problems we want to solve.”

Panelists diverged on how to address short-sightedness. Pirson noted that psychological research shows that humans are innately terrible when it comes to predicting the future.

“It’s easier to actually focus on the current problems and solve them, and see what develops. Nobody predicted the internet. Nobody predicted that Trump was going to win,” he said.

“So, I don’t know if we’re going to do ourselves service by saying we’re going to be long-term problem solvers of some sort. Maybe those long-term problems won’t even exist because we won’t exist.”

Gautschi, who spoke at length about the ways that California utility Pacific Gas and Electric failed to adequately plan for challenges such as climate change, pushed back.

“I will not disagree that beings are limited in their abilities to think long term, but damnit we’ve got to start doing this,” he said.

“The trick for business people, in particular, is to figure out how to adapt.”

To Minimize Blind Spots, Embrace Diversity

One way to adapt? Embrace diversity, said Johnson. If you gather together the broadest possible group of people to give you input, you minimize the number of blind spots you’ll have. Then, you need to create psychological safety where anyone can propose even the craziest ideas without fear of retribution, he said.

“You give me a group of diverse people, average capabilities, and I will crush any group of experts on the planet in any topic, as long as we have some sort of domain expertise,” he said.

Whereas Gautschi, Johnson, and Pirson addressed business from an institutional perspective, Haber, who was the first person to teach a class where students can ride bikes, said it’s important to consider the individual as well. Three-quarters of Americans’ health problems can be traced back to stress, she said. We spend 50 percent of our time in front of a screen, and the average person touches their smartphone 2,600 times a day.

“I see it with my students. What a difference over the years. I give them a five-minute break, and nobody talks,” said Haber, who had all the attendees stand up and stretch with her.

“Loneliness is the new smoking. We’re afraid to say it. ‘Oh my god, I’m not a loser, I can’t admit it.’ This is something that happens, but it happens undercover.”

David A. Gautschi, Ph.D., dean of GBA, said graduate schools closely watch the Businessweek rankings because they are one of the original ranking sources for higher education business programs. MBA applicants often rely on theBusinessweek ranking when choosing a graduate school.

Gautschi called the ranking a “breakthrough” with ramifications both inside and outside of the University. He credited improved selectivity and a jump in GMAT scores from 587 in 2010 to 647 in 2012 with the GBA showing.

“This will assist in both faculty and hiring and the school will also be taken more seriously by our peer institutions,” he said.

GBA set out to improve rankings as an imperative for the school, and established a task force chaired by Iftekhar Hasan, Ph.D., the E. Gerald Corrigan Chair in International Business and Finance.

“We want to use this as our beachhead and keep moving up,” Gautschi said.

There is an inside joke amongst veterinarians: What do you call a veterinarian who can only treat one species?…Physicians.

Author and cardiology professor Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, M.D., shared the joke at Fordham’s Consortium on the Purpose of Business on Sept. 29, where she discussed her book Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing (Knopf, 2012).

In it, Dr. Natterson-Horowitz draws parallels between humans and animals.

From diseases such as cancer, to risky behavior by adolescent males, the parallels between humans and animals are too striking to be ignored. Dr. Natterson-Horowitz said she found animal research applicable to human beings on substance abuse, obsessive-compulsive behavior, suicidal tendencies, depression, and even obesity in nature.

But as intriguing as her findings were, plenty of her fellow physicians resisted, she said.

“Some of my colleagues were curious, but some asked ‘What are you doing with your career? Why are you wasting your time with animals?’” she said.  “But there’s this parallel world of knowledge and expertise on the animals’ side that we physicians know little about.”

The doctor, who has taught for more than 20 years at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, said she also found the human habits of veterinarians worthy of observation.

She noted that veterinarians deal with patients who do not communicate with words, making vets observe gait, demeanor, and living environments a bit closer than their physician counterparts. While physicians in a medical center might not have the same time to devote to observation as vets in a zoo, veterinarian research could nevertheless inform certain human conditions.

Recently Dr. Natterson-Horowitz said she was the only physician in a room of nearly five hundred veterinarians at a conference on animal obesity, but that she “heard strategies that I’ve never heard before” for dealing with the disease.

Just as a few of her own colleagues were skeptical, Dr. Natterson-Horowitz said she met resistance from territorial veterinarians as well.

“Those are just typical challenges of trying to work between disciplines,” she said.

The consortium, the fifth in an ongoing series sponsored by the Schools of Business, investigated the crossroads between business and health.  While conference featured the practical side of providing health care in the workplace, it also honed in on preventative care and wellbeing.

David A. Gautschi, Ph.D., dean of Fordham’s Graduate School of Business Administration, said that Dr. Natterson-Horowitz’s presentation held implications beyond healthcare.

“What this shows is exactly what we’re bumping up against in business,” said Gautschi. “It’s about crossing boundaries and uncovering assets hiding in plain view.”

One of the prizes, the Gladys and Henry Crown Award for Faculty Excellence, is given to a full-time faculty member in the Graduate School of Business Administration (GBA) whose exceptional performance and devotion to the school’s ideals and goals warrant extraordinary recognition.

The other, the Stanley Fuchs Faculty Award, is presented to a full-time faculty member who has made an impact on students through his or her dedication and commitment to the student body.

“Professor Kabadayi is an exceptional contributor to the School and the University, and we are proud that GBA students have chosen to recognize him with this double honor,” said David A. Gautschi, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration. “His diverse background in international industry, as well as his research interests, enable him to bring a global perspective to the classroom that can help our graduates compete in a today’s business environment.”

“If anyone deserves both, particularly at the same time, it’s Professor Kabadayi,” said Dawn Lerman, Ph.D., associate professor and area chair of marketing. “He is highly engaged with students in and beyond the classroom, and he demands a lot from them.

“This year, for students in his GBA classes, he purposely raised the bar—which was already quite high—to ensure that they worked hard and got the most out of class,” Lerman said.

Indeed, Kabadayi admits to challenging his students with an interactive teaching style that embodies a holistic approach of care for the whole person—a style that imparts lifelong learning skills to students.

“It is gratifying to me that students recognize the effort that I put into my teaching. They respond by putting effort into their learning,” he said. “I know that I am a demanding and challenging teacher who cares deeply about his students. My goal is to create active learners—not passive students.”

In addition to fulfilling his teaching load with distinction, Kabadayi has also accomplished significant research, with three published papers appearing this year.

“The Role of Wireless Service Provider (WSP) Trust on Consumer Acceptance of SMS Advertising,” written with Luke Kachersky, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing, will appear in the International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising. “Choosing the Right Multiple Channel System to Minimize Transaction Costs” will appear in Industrial Marketing Management. Another paper, “Made In China But Sold At FAO Schwarz,” written with Lerman, was published in the International Marketing Review.

Kabadayi also authored an opinion piece in the Feb. 11 issue of Business Insider on the challenges AT&T faces after losing its iPhone monopoly.

He serves as faculty advisor to the Fordham GBA Student Marketing Society and is the academic director of both the Global Professional MBA Program and the recently announced Three-Continent Master of Global Management program.

Kabadayi joined the Fordham business faculty in 2005 after receiving his doctorate from Baruch College of the City University of New York. He will receive his awards on May 15 at the GBA Dean’s List and Awards Ceremony.

To spur action on the issue, Dan Ferber, Ph.D., said the public should understand how climate change adversely impacts human health—and how its negative effects will increase exponentially if nothing is done to stop it.

Ferber, co-author of Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do About It (University of California Press, 2011), addressed the issue with 19 Fordham business professors on April 26 on the Lincoln Center campus.

“Climate change is a public health problem of important dimensions already, and it is growing,” Ferber said. He cited a 2005 report from the World Health Organization that estimated 150,000 deaths and five million illnesses annually that were directly attributable to climate change.

“In the last couple of years, major medical and nursing organizations have all gotten on board and said that this is a serious issue that we need to be dealing with now,” he said.

Ferber listed four ways that climate change harms health:

•  infectious disease;

•  respiratory disease;

•  extreme weather; and

•  infestation and disease of trees and crops.

Regarding infectious disease, he gave as an example the Central Kenyan Highlands, an elevated region that once was free from malaria because mosquitoes that carry the disease could not live in the highlands’ colder temperatures.

A tipping point occurred in 1993, when climate change caused the overall temperature of the highlands to increase just enough that the mosquitoes can survive there.

“If you raise the temperature just a little bit, the mosquito larve mature faster; they take more blood meals; and inside the mosquitoes, the parasites develop faster,” Ferber said. “So just a one- or two-degree Celsius difference makes a huge difference in the life cycle of the insect and the parasite.”

He pointed out that in the United States, vector-borne diseases such as Lyme disease and West Nile Fever have moved into new areas and increased in already established regions.

“Lyme disease has increased 10-fold in Maine and eight-fold in New Hampshire in the last 10 years—so this is happening right now in this country,” he said. “West Nile Fever is very common in a lot of states now.”

Ferber trades ideas with members of Fordham’s business faculty. Photo by Ken Levinson

Although the links between respiratory illness and pollution have been established, scientists recently teased out how pollution will become much more harmful due to increased carbon dioxide.

For example, the level of carbon dioxide that is expected to be in the atmosphere by mid-century will cause the common allergenic plant ragweed to produce twice as much pollen, Ferber said, and that pollen will be twice as potent. Moreover, soot particles from man-made pollution have shown the tendency to glom onto the pollen particles and travel into the lungs as a single entity.

After 10 years of massive natural disasters on a global scale—including the Indonesian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, Haitian earthquake, Pakistan floods and recent tornado deaths in the American South—it has become clear that climate change creates more intense weather phenomena, he said.

“Although climate change doesn’t seen to affect the total number of hurricanes, stronger hurricanes have grown more common in the last 50 years,” Ferber said.

He added that the final product of climate change—the infestation and disease of trees and crops—has garnered far less interest than the other three effects. With the world’s population on target to reach 9 billion by 2050, there are expected to be food shortages because common crops such as corn are adversely affected by a slight rise in temperature, and more insects will be on hand to ravage whatever crops do survive.

Ferber’s sobering message was tempered by solutions he offered that ranged from the individual to the international level. Using a public-health model, he detailed three types of responses:

•  primary prevention—change conditions that harm health by creating a low-carbon economy and preserving forests;

•  secondary prevention—predict epidemics and heat waves and move early to protect people; and

•  tertiary prevention—treat patients who already have become ill and prevent the progression of disasters.

The event, which was sponsored by the Global Healthcare Innovation Management Center at Fordham, was lauded by David A. Gautschi, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration.

“Health care is something that business schools have not really stepped up to address, and it’s quite a pity, considering how significant healthcare is in the American economy—17 or 18 percent of GDP these days and possibly still growing,” Gautschi said.

“This is staggering, in terms of its contribution to the economic life of this country, and yet we know that it is beset with so many issues. Many relate directly to what business schools are all about—understanding management, understanding business, markets and enterprise,” he said.

“This particular presentation is hitting on all the bases.”

The Three-Continent Master of Global Management program is a joint program between the Graduate School of Business Administration (GBA), Antwerp Management School of Belgium and Xavier Institute of Management in India. The one-year, full-time program calls for students to spend four months on each continent. The first cohort is scheduled to begin in September pending state approval.

“These people will be able to navigate the world in a way in which graduates of conventional programs would probably struggle,” said David A. Gautschi, Ph.D., dean of GBA. “Their opportunities will be much more expansive then their peers.”

A cohort of 60 students from all three schools will begin their one-year academic journey in the Belgian city of Antwerp, a cosmopolitan city with a rich history in Western Europe. They will then spend four months in Bhubaneswar, the capital of the Indian state of Odisha, which is known as the city of temples. They cohort will finish the program in New York City.

“The places the program will take the students are not exactly on the tourist route. This is not New York, Paris and London,” Gautschi said. “There are 6.5 billion people on this planet. This program places the student with people and in parts of the world where there is both rich history and dynamism that the student might otherwise not have the opportunity to understand. It takes advantage of the cultural diversity in the student group and the distinctive characteristics of the three venues by combining a curriculum that is both rigorous and experiential. ”

Philippe Naert, dean of the Antwerp Management School, said this is a program he has been dreaming about for many years.

“In academia, we all talk about a globalized world. And we have courses in which people are exposed to what is happening in the rest of the world. But it’s a completely different experience when you live in another part of the world for an extended period of time,” Naert said.

“Our students will truly experience the underlying social systems, religious systems, culture and so forth in these three regions,” he continued. “They’ll be exposed to an international faculty. Our goal is for them to work on a project throughout the year, hopefully with companies that are active in these parts of the world.”

The goal for administrators at all three institutions is to enroll 20 students from each for even representation. Competition will be fierce at the Xavier Institute of Management, where the school receives 20,000 applications for 180 openings, according to P.T. Joseph, S.J., the school’s top director.

Students in the Three-Continent master’s program will receive careful attention to personal development, Naert said.

“They will have to learn to communicate in a multicultural environment,” he said. “Obviously, we will make sure there is more than just sitting in the classroom. That’s why this is a yearlong program. It is really 12 months, not two semesters.

“Graduates of this program will be citizens of the world and very welcome in any company. I’m absolutely convinced that in terms of getting these people jobs afterward, it will be fantastic,” Naert added.

For more information about this program, contact Katherine Randolph, director of international programs, at [email protected] or (212) 636-6210.

The Fordham delegation includes Stephen Freedman, Ph.D., provost; David A. Gautschi, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration; Donna Rapaccioli, Ph.D., dean of the Gabelli School of Business and dean of the business faculty; and other Fordham officials.

Prior to the consortium meeting, Freedman met with His All Holiness Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch. Freedman attended an intimate dinner with His All Holiness and metropolitans of the synod on Thursday evening. The Ecumenical Patriarch stressed his pleasure at having his writings published by Fordham University Press, and spoke with Freedman about religious tolerance and environmental and ecumenical issues. The Ecumenical Patriarch also spoke about the significance of his honorary degree from Fordham, and of his relationship to the University.

The consortium’s proceedings were kicked off by Memhet Simsek, the Turkish Republic’s minister of finance, who welcomed the group on Saturday. Simsek delivered a special presentation to the Fordham consortium fellows at Koc University in Istanbul. As the only “practitioner” minister in the Turkish government, Simsek spoke about the Turkish economy and the country’s financial situation from a point of view of a finance professional. Simsek was the chief economist for Merrill Lynch in London when he was tapped by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to become a member of his cabinet. Simsek is seen as the main architect of Turkey’s current financial system, and is one of the most influential ministers in the cabinet.

The Fordham consortium was launched on Nov. 12, 2010, at the New York Athletic Club, Fordham’s Law School and Lowenstein Center with an audience of more than 40 scholars, business executives, government advisers and leaders in the global faith community. The five-year project, initiated by Fordham’s Schools of Business, will examine the role and responsibility of business in the evolving global society and stimulate critical, creative and constructive dialogue about business in the 21st century.

Continued Below

At Koc University (L to R): Baris Tan, Selcuk Karabati (both of Koc University), Donna Rapaccioli, Mehmet Simsek, David Gautschi and Stephen Freedman. Photo by Beyza Isler

The four-day meeting in Istanbul will address a variety of topics, including Simsek’s “Overview of the Turkish Economy,” “Culture and The Market,” presented by Patrick Ryan, S.J., the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham, and “Dominique Moisi’s Geopolitics of Emotion: How Cultures of Fear, Humiliation and Hope are Reshaping the World,” by Gautschi.

Other participants include Fikile Magubane, South Africa’s ambassador to Spain; Jorge Rodríguez-Grossi, former minister of economy and energy for Chile; Uner Kirdar, Ph.D., senior advisor to the administrator and director, United Nations Development Programme; Sunny Oh, head of marketing for Greater China at Google, Inc.; A.P. “Preetham” Parigi, managing director of Entertainment Network (India) Limited, and managing director and CEO of Times Infotainment Media Limited; Andrew Rudd, chairman and CEO of Advisor Software; Sibusiso Vil-Nkomo, Ph.D., provost, University of Pretoria; Milton Longobardi, director, Sao Paulo City Hall; and Ronald J. Anton, S.J., interim secretary for higher education, Georgetown University.

Fordham University conferred an honorary degree upon His All Holiness Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, on Oct. 27, 2010, at the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx. The Ecumenical Patriarch, the 270th successor of the 2,000-year-old Christian Church founded by St. Andrew, received a doctorate of laws, honoris causa, at a ceremony attended by more than 1,000 people in the historic University Church.

Freedman led the delegation to Peking University with the aim of further promoting educational cooperation between the two Universities. On March 18, Fordham and the National School of Development of Peking University further cemented ties with the signing of an agreement for a new joint degree program—the third between Fordham and Peking University—the Master of Science in Investor Relations (MSIR). Fordham and Peking University hosted a joint alumni reception at the Shangri-la Hotel in Beijing, the largest Beijing alumni event in Fordham’s history, with more than 125 guests.

“The alumni turnout in China, and their eagerness to be more involved in the life of the University, speaks volumes about the value of a Fordham education,” said Roger A. Milici Jr., interim vice president for development and University relations. “We are blessed with engaged alumni who are generous with their time, talent and finances. The enthusiasm and commitment of our China alumni is consistent with Fordham’s plans to grow further as a global institution.”

The relationship between Fordham and Peking University began in 1998 with the Beijing International MBA program (BiMBA), a joint offering between Fordham’s Graduate School of Business Administration and Peking University’s China Center for Economic Research.  The two institutions further expanded the relationship in 2010 with the launch of a second degree, the Master of Science in Global Finance, the inaugural cohort of which began in Beijing, ending their studies with a five-week session in New York City.

At the reception, Freedman introduced Ho-Mou Wu, Ph.D., executive vice-president of the National School of Development. Freedman and Wu participated in a ceremonial signing of the memorandum of understanding between the two schools for the MSIR in front of an enthusiastic audience that included alumni of the inaugural class of Master of Science in Global Finance.

Wu spoke about “building on the oasis of our past successes,” and said that the National School of Development treasured the friendship and partnership with Fordham. He shared the stage with John Zhuang Yang, Ph.D., dean of BiMBA, who addressed the gathering, and said its theme was the two great institutions’ shared vision and values.

“We value our deep connection to the National School of Development precisely because of the values we share, “Freedman said, “and the tremendous benefits that accrue to students of both schools.”

Gautschi spoke about the transformation that China has seen over the last few years, and the importance of being there at this particular moment in history. He prompted MSGF alumni with his opening line: “New York is my campus…” to which the group responded, “Fordham is my school.”

Jeffrey Tian-Jing, an alumnus of the inaugural MSGF class and the BiMBA program, and head of public relations for China COSCO, a Chinese-government owned company and one of the largest shipping companies worldwide, spoke about the relevance and importance of his BiMBA and MSGF degrees, during this historical period in China. He acknowledged the friendship of NASDAQ OMX in inviting the cohort to ring the opening bell, and of Sandy Frucher, vice chair of the NASDAQ, in particular, for opening his home to the students on their visit to New York last summer. Tian Jing stressed the importance of the MSIR degree, learned first hand from his experience as investor relationship manager for COSCO.

Gong-Lu Lu, Ph.D., of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (the Chinese equivalent of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission), and an alumnus of Peking University, spoke about Chinese capital market success and prospects.

Caitlin Tramel, Fordham’s director of alumni relations, was also struck by the alumni turnout and the warmth with which the University delegation was received by their Chinese counterparts and alumni of both institutions.

“I was impressed by the openness and friendliness of everyone with whom we met,” Tramel said. “The alumni we spoke to clearly valued the Fordham connection, not just because they believe it has advanced their careers, but from genuine affection and respect for their faculty and classmates.”

During the visit, Freedman explored an expansion of the relationship between Fordham and Peking University, in particular the potential for cooperation between the latter’s Law School and School of Journalism and Communication and their Fordham counterparts.

The Fordham delegation also met with faculty and leaders from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, to discuss the progress and sustainability of the recently established joint graduate program, and to explore further cooperation with the institution. Freedman, Vice President Zhongfei Zhou and Chunyong Ai, dean of the School of Statistics and Management and associate dean of the School of Business at Shanghai University, expressed commitment and support for the two institutions.

On March 19 and 20, the Fordham delegation was invited to attend the Invest in America 2011 Summit in Guangzhou. Freedman spoke on higher education in the United States, in particular discussing educational opportunities at Fordham University and specific plans for the Graduate School of Business Administration, both in China and in the United States.

Gautschi comes to Fordham from the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), in Troy, New York, where he has served since 2005 as dean and professor of marketing and business economics. He is also the acting director of the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship at RPI.

“It would be hard to overstate the importance of David Gautschi’s appointment as dean of GBA,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham University. “Dr. Gautschi comes to us at a time when the Graduate School of Business Administration is poised to scale the heights. The coming years will bring many changes to the business landscape, along with many challenges and opportunities  for business educators. Dr. Gautschi’s leadership, his experience, and his wisdom make him the ideal candidate to guide GBA though the next decade.”

Gautschi, who earned a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of California at Berkeley, has extensive experience in business and business education. He co-founded and managed the French firm PRISM, which offered marketing decision support systems and industry-specific market simulation models. Likewise, he was co-founder and co-managing partner at Janus Enterprise International, in Seattle, which provided contract research, management development, market systems analysis and research for clients in the United States, Europe and Asia. He was also firm director of the National eCenter and Management Solutions and Services for the West Sector at Deloitte & Touche LLP, and director of research at CCG Group LLC.

Under Gautschi’s leadership, the Lally School of Management  RPI effectively repositioned itself around technological innovation and entrepreneurship, finance and global business in the political economy.  There he oversaw an impressive increase in research productivity and worked closely with small faculty teams to create new interdisciplinary programs, including the M.S. in Financial Engineering and Risk Analytics and the M.S. in Technology Commercialization and Entrepreneurship.

At the Lally School he also engaged alumni and the business community in creative new partnerships, including the launch of an innovative roundtable on global business and technology in Wolfsberg, Switzerland, with international academic and business partners.

Gautschi began his academic career at the Graduate School of Business and Public Administration (now the Johnson Graduate School of Management) at Cornell University. He served as associate professor of marketing at the Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires (INSEAD) in Fontainebleau, France, where he designed and directed various executive programs. He has also taught at the Theseus Institute in Sophia Antipolis, France, and at the School of Organization and Management at Yale University.

During his career, Gautschi has taught a broad range of courses at the M.B.A. and Ph.D. levels, in which he draws heavily on his research into the optimization of marketing decisions, choice models, and retailing and marketing systems, as well as his experience in industry and entrepreneurship. He served as associate professor and later professor of marketing and international business at the University of Washington’s School of Business Administration in Seattle, where he founded the school’s Global Information and Telecommunications Forum, and served as its faculty director. In 1997, he was named Kirby Cramer Scholar in Marketing and International Business and directed the Center for International Business Education and Research.

Gautschi will work closely with Donna Rappacioli, Ph.D., dean of the faculty of business and dean of the College of Business Administration.  He is strongly committed to exploring the role of the Schools of Business Administration within the University and, in particular, within a Jesuit institution whose commitment to social justice undergirds its highest aspirations.

“Dr. David A. Gautschi is exactly the kind of leader we’d hoped to find for GBA,” Freedman said. “He is not only a highly accomplished educator and administrator, but an entrepreneurial thinker and innovator. In him we gain a breadth of experience and an international perspective that will serve our students and faculty extremely well.”