Fogelman Dean Wants Tech Center to Stay Ahead of Knowledge Curve
Memphis Business Journal
The technology that will fill the nearly $23 million Federal Express Business Information Science Center probably doesn't exist yet, but that's all right with Donna Randall, Dean of the Fogelman College of Business and Economics at the University of Memphis.
She wants the college to move ahead of the curve and stay there in a technology emphasis bound up in the proposed center that will make Fogelman a leader in technology among business schools.
"It's fairly ambitious, but most successful business schools have identified one thing, a niche, and perform extremely well in that niche," Randall says. "Based on the community, the location of Memphis and the skills we have within the college, this is our niche."
A recent announcement by Gov. Don Sundquist that his budget proposal will include $15 million to help fund such a center brings the dream closer to reality, as does the $5 million pledged by Federal Express Corp. Another $5 million must be raised privately to bring the total to $25 million.
The center will offer great benefits to business people, says John D. Green, director of management information systems for Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell, P.C. He also is a member of the Fogelman MIS corporate advisory board.
"It has been extremely difficult to get qualified, well-trained technology people in the Memphis area. Memphis State is building this center to address that need," he says. It's going to be just the beginning of some major technology upgrades going on at the university."
Plans for the center are still developing, but Randall says she wants to work with someone who projects where technology will be in the future so, when the building is complete in 2000, it will contain technology for 2002.
The technology will be updated every two-three years, and an endowment is being established to fund that, Randall say. She estimates that about $23 million will be required to build and furnish the center, and the remainder of the $25 million would go toward the endowment.
The core of the center will be nine multimedia classrooms with theater-style seating, computer terminals on every desk and capabilities for multimedia-assisted instruction and distance learning, Randall says.
"We would like to be able to broadcast our courses into corporate headquarters. That is where business education is going," Randall says.
The center also would contain development rooms in which students and faculty could work to develop their multimedia-media skills or bone up on software use.
Another area, likely the third floor, would be open to businesses for training in software or other technology, Randall says. Some rooms would also be set up for executive conferences in which different cities could be connected, and others would be set up as focus group rooms, Randall says.
The university hopes to provide facilitators and instructors to businesses for these functions, she says.
"This one building is going to have more of an impact on the future of technology in Memphis than any other possible building or program," Randall says. "It will put Memphis on the map."
The center will bring together a variety of technology initiatives within the college, she says.
These include an Internet curriculum, which is in the works and some high-tech classrooms already in existence, such as the Sparks marketing lab, which offers computer terminals and Internet access on every desk.
In addition, each faculty member in the Fogelman College is equipped with his own Pentium computer and has been encouraged to convert their class notes to power point presentations.
"This building is the symbol that pulls everything together," Randall says.
