Laura Milner has been selected to lead the college forward into the future as the Dean of the College of Business Administration, officially starting Aug. 1, 2015.
After visiting the UW-La Crosse campus, Milner presented her ideas and possible changes to the College of Business Administration in an open forum style presentation, in response to the question, “What are the current challenges and oppurtunities to the CBA and how can we dapt to them?”
Answering this question by presenting her ideas to faculty professors, Provost Heidi Macpherson and economics department chair Taggert Brooks, Milner garnered the attention of the room with her plans for student engagement and revenue alleviation.
Brooks, who introduced each candidate at the open forum, believed Milner “shows great leadership skills and exhibits a strong interest to raise money externally, which in the era of declining budgets is important.”
While delivering at the open forum, Milner discussed these revenue interests, such as creating classes for International faculty and solidifying stronger relationships with alumni.
“We need to create relationships, not transactions, with our alumni,” offered Milner. “Our goal should be to make alumni feel valued and part of a community, not just a phone call asking for a donation.”
Milner discussed further her ideas about engaging College of Business Administration students further, which she formally calls “Student Professional Engagement.”
Working as Dean at Central Washington University, Milner became tightly intertwined with Boeing, the aircraft manufacturing company. With this connection, Milner helped students obtain internships while receiving feedback with what larger companies such as Boeing truly desire in a possible candidate.
“Boeing said they want our students to have more autonomy of tasks. Meaning, they give our students a problem and they want them to find a way to solve it without holding their hand,” she stated.
To accomplish this while also allowing students to gather a wider skillset, Milner said she will encourage experiential learning, in and out of class. Experiential learning would take the form of “company projects and internships.”
Another option for student growth and learning would be to “consider adding a College of Business administration requirement where the student has to engage in two experiential learning opportunities, or internships, in order to graduate.”
Milner’s reasoning is that Boeing prefers to hire students with two or more internships.
For faculty and staff, Milner proposed advisory boards, providing a dialogue between faculty and administration and faculty internships, all with the idea “to be engaged with a larger community.”
But, Milner also made a point to address faculty concerns that these ideas she offered were open for discussion, which Milner hoped would create a healthy and stimulating dialogue.