The new dean of the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration sat in his new, still in limbo after his move from Ann Arbor, Mich., and expressed his vision for the future of the number six business school in the country.
Mild-mannered Paul Danos, proudly wearing a crisp Tuck polo shirt, said he is looking for Tuck to improve its networks among corporations and global markets.
"Business is becoming more integrative and collaboratory," Danos said in an interview yesterday. "A major business school has to mirror that."
"We have to develop ways of getting our students into business earlier -- especially into global business earlier," he added.
Danos, who began his tenure July 1, said his vision for the future of the Tuck School could be described as "expansive" but he wants to maintain the traditions that have made Tuck one of the nation's leading business schools.
"My vision is one of creating the mechanism for importing and exporting knowledge and expertise," he said.
Danos moved to Hanover after 21 years at the University of Michigan where he started as assistant professor and moved up to senior associate dean before his departure.
At Michigan, Danos specialized in creating global programs. He said he came to Tuck because he was ready for a "new challenge." Although Tuck is a "high prestige school," it has little experience with the global programs, he said.
"[Tuck] is a world class school with a wonderful faculty," he said. "But it hasn't tried any new methods of delivering higher education."
According to Danos, the most obvious but significant difference between the University of Michigan School of Business and Tuck is the size of the student body and the faculty. Michigan is five times the size of Tuck and has four different degree programs.
Expansion of Tuck will mean growth in the amount of connections and communication, but not necessarily in size, Danos said. The school currently has only 32 faculty members, the smallest faculty of any major business school, according to Danos.
"Tuck can be the world's leader in a really high level of managers," Danos said. "I think it's going to require in the new world of business that Tuck needs to focus on networking with corporations."
"We have to be highly technological, especially in the telecommunications process," he added.
But Danos said Tuck's main interest still lies with its students, noting Tuck students' have the highest percentage of first choice job placement out of all the country's major business schools.
Danos said Tuck does "a superb job in on-campus experience," but "we have to have more off-site opportunities for students."
"The important thing is to make sure that our students get all the expertise they need for world leaders in business," he said. "We have to deepen the specialties and get more pockets of deep expertise -- that's difficult on our scale."
Danos also said Tuck has the highest percentage of students who get jobs in consulting and investment banking of the country's major business schools.
Danos said he was happy with the quality of life in Hanover and stressed with the increase of technology living in big cities will be less attractive.
"The places that are really nice to live in will have all of the advantages of the big cities," he said. "All of a sudden the big cities will have all the disadvantages."
