Minnesota Calrson Dean Jamie Prenkert. Courtesy photo
Q&A WITH JAMIE PRENKERT, DEAN OF THE CARLSON SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
Right before speaking with you the news broke about the upcoming renovation of Carlson’s building. That’s obviously literally a makeover for the school, so that’s got to be pretty exciting.
Jamie Prenkert: It’s really exciting. I am really grateful for the work that happened before I got here to envision it. It got slowed down through the pandemic as that kind of thing certainly would. But to be able to be here for only, at the time we announced, only five months, and to be able to say we’re going to take what is the heart of our flagship building and modernize it, provide far more ways for students and everyone in our community to interact with the building in ways that really match the way we ask students to learn, collaborate, and bring forward what I think is an incredibly special thing that we do here at the Carlson School — is very exciting. And the experiential learning we have, particularly with the graduate enterprises and the undergraduate students work in those too — to bring them forward is great. Right now they’re gems that are hanging back in the building and so they’re going to be brought forward and really be part of the everyday life of the building.
And then what’s super exciting, in addition to all of that, and that’s going to transform the building spaces is that we’re able to announce that Marilyn Carlson Nelson, who is an incredible business leader and business executive in her own right and also the daughter of the namesake of the school, is the lead donor on the project. And so the building will be renamed for her. I think that’s so special in a number of ways: to continue that legacy of that involvement with the Carlson family and the Carlson organization, and to have our business school named for a woman who is a business leader. That naming is the first university building named for a woman philanthropist.
What is the timeline? I know work is getting underway in December. Do you expect it to take a year or so?
That’s right. I’m smiling because I was just in a meeting a few hours ago where we were deep in the weeds of the potential timeline. So yeah, start December of 2024, go through the end of the summer of 2026.
For prospective graduate students, that might comport with their timeline if they’re thinking down the road a couple of years before applying to schools. When you talk about modernization of the building, you’re talking about a lot of things that will help the MBA and online MBA programs, right?
It touches a couple of classrooms and in particular our big auditorium, which has been kept up to date, but in ways that over time it’s hard to sort of seamlessly and fully integrate in a big classroom like that. So that will have a full makeover, not only physically but also technologically, allowing us to make use of that auditorium both as a classroom space and as an event space, to be able to spill out into the atrium that’s next to it. But in addition, when I talk about modernization it is really thinking about how we routinely expect students to collaborate together but then don’t have natural spaces for that to happen. So in addition to adding capacity in terms of collaboration rooms, we are also adding gathering spaces in the building that are far more natural for students to meet in teams — to spend time in the school, to spill out from the classroom and continue their work.
A couple of months ago I was talking to an alum who is on our board of advisors, someone really still quite engaged in the school who started his undergraduate career when we opened this building. And he was reminding me that he didn’t have a cell phone or a laptop at that time. So it’s even that — even things as simple as the building not having a lot of plugs.
We could talk about all sorts of things that have to do with the future of business education, and in many ways a brand new building kind of answers those questions. This is the future, you’re leaping into it.
I think we’re also really focused on making sure that not only are we looking at our physical space, but we’re thinking about how we are offering our programs and adapting the curriculum to keep pace as well. And I’m really proud of what we had done with the undergraduate curriculum that is now in its second year full rollout, but also the Master of Science in Business Analytics has an approved revision of its curriculum. That was deeply informed by consultation with alums, with our corporate partners — and not just going out and having chats, but they went and they did deep surveys with all the stakeholders to ensure that we’re really providing what we know we have the resources to provide: the best of education in that area. We want to make sure that we are directing those resources in the most productive way. And I’m really proud of the work that they did there, too.
So we’re really thinking about ways that we can not just rely on the physical spaces, but making sure the physical spaces match what we’re doing in the curriculum, and in the co-curricular work all over the school.
One of the things about Carlson is that you’ve got such a robust network there in terms of proximity to huge employers of MBAs and other graduates, such as those from the business analytics program. So in terms of curricular overhauls you’ve got a lot of great partners to work with.
We do. It’s one of the things that I knew intellectually coming here would be great. And it’s been confirmed by the ability to be out in that network to interact with the partners and the alums. The alums are incredibly engaged with the school, but the corporate partners in our community really care about the school, too, and they see us as a resource and we see them as an incredible resource to engage with, too. So yeah, we have many ways that that happens from the individual to the broader.
I mentioned that I was having a conversation with a board of advisors member. We have a really great board of advisors, but that also trickles down into a number of engaged advisory boards of programs and centers and disciplines that really can draw in the specialists from all over, both our community and more broadly among our alumni. And we’re always thinking about how we can make sure we engage them at the highest level, but I’m really proud of where we’re starting from in having those thoughts about how do we keep moving forward.
Partners like that can help in not only an advisory capacity, but when there’s a downturn in the job market too. Currently everybody’s feeling that pinch, but when you’ve got good relationships with recruiters, that can help you get through tough times. How do you feel about where the MBA job market is right now?
We’re feeling that softness and pinch in various places the same way everybody else is. But in general, I think the news is positive and I think it is in part because we have this really robust resource right outside our backdoor, but also a broad network through the excellent work of the Carlson Business Career Center and the engagement of our alumni. I think there are some places where that softness shows up a little bit more — in consulting, for example — but there are other places where it’s far more robust — in the healthcare-related industry, which is really strong here and where we have a really good process of allowing students to plug in and get training in. That’s an example of where things are really going well, and I think we have multiple examples of that.
And so we’re seeing some of those broader indicators that I think everyone is seeing, but I think overall the message is that the students may have to work a little harder, people aren’t necessarily beating down the doors in the way they might at the most robust situation, but in the end the students are really having good outcomes.
Are you seeing any softness in the application side? How is your application cycle going so far this year?
The application cycle is, year over year, really positive in almost every program that we run. And that is one of the places that is really encouraging: That’s true in overall numbers, and it’s true in many of our programs where we think it’s really important to maintain a particularly robust domestic presence in our courses — those applications are looking good, too. I think like everybody else, if we’re comparing to 20 years ago, it’s a different story. But year over year it’s looking quite good.
It’s hard to compare even five years ago because the world just changes so rapidly and the world of business education five years ago is almost completely different, to say nothing about the pandemic, just in terms of the innovations and AI. There’s also the advent of mini-MBAs and other non-accredited programs that appeal to people, and it’s a completely different landscape almost from year to year. So I wonder how you feel about looking ahead two, three years: Is it possible to have an idea of where things will be?
I think we have to be ready to be nimble and respond to the market. So we’re really thinking about that and we are trying to look ahead, but I think looking ahead a decade — which we might’ve done, even a decade ago, wrongly — is not possible. But I think we are trying to be carefully innovative in how we think about both where we might enter markets that we’re not at now, where we might innovate within markets that we already are.
One of the things I think is really exciting here is that we have the ability to take our portfolio of programs and really lean into the complementarity of them in ways that allow, I think, some flexibility for students. Students who come into a STEM MBA and really want to lean into business analytics a little more, for example, then we’ve got the business analytics courses; or who come into the MBA and want to take elective courses in our HR programming that is historically incredibly strong — we have something for them, too. And so I think we have opportunities there where we’re trying to make sure we’re creating pathways.
For you personally, what was the first Christmas break like as a dean? Were you able to get any kind of relaxation in, or are you just sort of working through the break?
I have to start out by saying that that week I had Covid, which forced me to slow down, but maybe not in the way that I would have liked! But actually coming off of that, my wife is also from Northern Indiana, so we went home to see both of our families for a little while.
But what was really great for me in the couple of weeks where it sort of formally slowed down was, it opened up space for me to take a step back, do some reflection, do some extended strategic thinking that it’s harder to find that time to do — I was able to be more intentional about that. But when I’m really focused on meeting people, learning as much as I can, taking the meetings that I think are really important in the first six months, that might ultimately not be what I would normally do — that break between semesters was really helpful to me to take that step back, move to the higher level thinking for an extended period of time.
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