ESTEBAN SHARES GOALS FOR COLLEGE OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Dr. Gabriel Esteban, dean of the College of Business Administration, recently sat down with UCA Today to discuss his plans for the upcoming academic year, and to share his impressions of the university since joining the faculty in July. 

Q. Why did you decide to come to UCA?

A. I was impressed with the opportunities that I saw for both the college and the university. The administration is very supportive of the college. I noticed that the students have above average ACT scores and there is a strong faculty in the college. I came to UCA because I wanted to take advantage of the opportunities I saw within this university.

Q. What can you offer the College of Business Administration?

A. One of the things I bring to the table is a different perspective. I have experience in the private sector as well as experience in other types of administrative positions, which I believe are a-typical of a college dean.

Q. What are your plans for the College of Business Administration for this academic year?

A. Our mission is to provide a quality education to our students. Beyond that we also support regional business and industry. I plan to achieve these goals through an external and internal strategy. 

Externally, I want to get our name out to the community. The College of Business Administration is partnering with the Log Cabin to begin a monthly column in the newspaper about business issues and what our college is doing. I also want to begin a speaker series to bring professionals from the field to our students. We are also creating a College of Business Advisory Board. Some of the other things I plan to work on include creating more continuing education classes such as courses on taxation, insurance and accounting, create a newsletter about the College of Business Administration to send to college alumni and the community and revising our web page.

Internally, I plan to do some restructuring of the college just to ensure we are doing things as efficiently as we can. I also want to formalize some of the existing policies and procedures we have, explore the possibility of creating a mentoring program and explore ways to improve our technology.

Q. What are your long-term goals for the College of Business Administration and how do you plan to achieve those goals?

A. I would like to generate some external support for the college. I would like to see an endowed fund created so that we can bring in more speakers, recruit and retain faculty and start some scholarship funds for our business students. I would also like to work on improving and expanding our facilities. We're running out of space in our college, and enrollment is steadily increasing in both the undergraduate and graduate programs. Another area is improvement of our technology. Currently, most of our technology is between five and six years old. 

Q. What can you do to help recruit more students to the College of Business Administration?

A. One thing we need to look at is outreach to high schools. We plan to be more aggressive in going out and visiting with prospective students. 

Q. What area of the College of Business Administration would you like to improve? How do you plan to make that improvement?

A. For programs, I think we don't necessarily need to make huge changes or improvements. Our management information systems program is one of the best in the state. It's difficult to keep up with today's technology. We need to replace a lot of our old technology and hardware. We also want to continue to enhance our insurance program. There is a large potential in the insurance area.

Q. What have you learned since joining the faculty at UCA?

A. Since I have joined the university, I have met with each faculty member in this college. I think I got a feel for the faculty's dedication and their profession. The greatest strength of the college is our faculty. 

Q. What are you most impressed with at UCA?

A. The people - their willingness to help anyone in need and their overall dedication. Bottom-line - people make the university, not the buildings.