By: Ashwathy Sreenivasan’12
Ambassador Barrett arrived on campus earlier this week to share her vision of the school for the next few months with the students. Having been the first woman to Chair our Board of Trustees and being associated with the school for many years now, she knows this school and its capabilities like the back of her hand.
“We want Thunderbird to be an enriching part of your lives”, said Ambassador Barrett as she introduced her new chant, one may call it mantra; Students, Jobs, Donors. She will primarily be focusing on these areas during her interim period. It is important to build relationships and create prospective channels to tap the potential access to academic leaders, global leaders and business leaders. It is essential to be recognized by the right circles for the right reasons.
A few of the concerns raised by the students and addressed by the Interim President Ambassador Barrett:
- Lack of resources for those students who want to indulge in entrepreneurial activities as they seek a different form of support from the CMC other than the job search support. They should be more sensitive to the students needs and provide guidance on acquiring start up positions.
- Nurture our brain trust, the academic environment we are in by attracting A level faculty, that is the “magic of Thunderbird”.
- Moving up in the overall rankings which is of a high priority to Ambassador Barrett and is working on a strategy with the interim CAO on the issue.
- The message that is being delivered to the companies based on the function that Thunderbird is an expert in should be defined, such as known for Finance etc as most companies are confused to as of what Thunderbird represents.
- Communicating to the recruiters on a global scale of the potential and worthy students. Suggestion to improve on this was given by Ajay: Setting up mini bases at significant locations such as India and China to inform recruiters in these areas of the availability of an excellent workforce graduating each Trimester seeking challenging opportunities worldwide.
- Bridging the gap between the Business and the Academic worlds.
- Key issue to address will be to emphasize on quality in everything we do and stand for.
- Differentiating our tagline and creating a more meaningful reflection of how unique this school is.
- Creating more job opportunities for the MS/MA stream and focusing more resources and importance to this course.
- Suggestion on improving internal communication and feedback given by Kshitij: The creation of forums to easily communicate with Admin, CMC and other departments.
- Duration expected for the search of the next President? Ambassador Barrett’s reply: “Quality matters more than timing”