Sections Supplements

Taking a Truly Global Approach

AIC’s New Business Dean Wants to Make a World of Difference
Lea Johnso

Lea Johnson wants AIC business students to get an education with an international flavor.

Lea Johnson says she won’t ever forget the impact a 2006 trip to Africa made on her views about conducting business in a global environment.

At the time, she didn’t see much value in going on the excursion, which was a mandated part of her doctoral program. But a “flash point” of awakening occurred when a colleague remarked that it was sad so many children there didn’t have shoes.

The African professor they were talking to reacted with anger, Johnson said, and explained that going barefoot in their country was not necessarily a sign of poverty.

“If you could have seen the anger in her eyes. We sat in stunned silence,” she recalled. “We were administrators from all over the U.S., but we didn’t understand their culture or apartheid and the inequality that still exists until we were actually there.”

The experience caused her to vow that, if she was ever in charge of an international business graduate program, she would make sure students understood the importance of culture and history.

Johnson is in that position today as the newly ap-pointed dean of the School of Business Administration at American International College. In this issue, BusinessWest takes a close look at her vision for the future as she explains why teaching established business skills to students is no longer enough to guarantee success.

Flying High with Ideas

Johnson, who assumed her new role in early July, said one of her first priorities is to restructure the program. “We can no longer keep education in the silos,” she explained. “It was OK until about 15 years ago, but things have changed. We talk about a global economy, and we really have an obligation to make sure students understand cultures and economies outside our own. We need to become sensitive and know what is expected, what a country’s protocol is, and what is off-limits to discuss.”

That means providing more students with an international experience, which is in line with AIC’s mission. The business school’s undergraduate and graduate programs are based in Springfield, but in the past two years satellite operations were established in Ireland, Italy, Bangkok, and London. Johnson said they hope to open another location in the UK in about a year.

However, only a handful of students participate in the programs in Ireland and Italy. The Bangkok and London programs are more popular, and this fall, 50 MBA students will study at those remote sites, with 25 in Bangkok and 25 in London.

Recently, John-son accepted 40 new students into the MBA program in Springfield, hailing from Russia, Africa, China, and India, as well as the U.S.

“Think how rich it will make classroom discussions,” Johnson asked, adding that a foreign dentist and physician are part of the new Springfield student body. Still, she would like to see more U.S. students do a semester abroad and be matched with mentors in those countries.

That experience should be valuable, and Johnson plans to consider moving the Bangkok and/or London programs to a different continent. The idea to move their location came to her during a 30-hour return flight from a recent graduation ceremony in Bangkok. The AIC students there presented an impressive array of completed projects. But she believes future graduates might benefit more from studying in countries with emerging economies.

“I thought, ‘let’s rachet it up.’ There are different types of deans,” she said. “Some just keep the train running on time, and others try to take the organization to the next level. I’d like to think I am one of those deans.”

To that end, she plans on putting a team together to explore where it would make the most sense to relocate the program.

“The demand in education is for us to focus on the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) economies, which are emerging,” she said. “Russia and Brazil are percolating on a back burner, and they are potential superpowers to watch,” Johnson said.

She also plans to review the school’s undergraduate programs this fall and will explore the possibility of having students study how major businesses set themselves up in foreign countries. “It would be fun to study how they deal with cultural problems, language barriers, currency, and economic structures,” she said. “If we are training students to become managers and potential leaders, they need to be aware of global issues.”

Johnson is not a new face at AIC. She was hired a year ago as associate dean of the School of Business. Her areas of expertise are integrated marketing communications, program development, and entrepreneurship. Her background includes positions with the federal government and stints as the director of advertising campaigns in the private sector.

She founded a national trade magazine for the public relations profession, and has worked in administration at Suffolk University School of Management and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Still, Johnson was very surprised when she was asked to head up AIC’s School of Business, because she had not applied for the position. “I was very excited, honored, and thrilled,” she said. “It is a terrific opportunity.”

AIC’s business school has added a new faculty member who will focus on green economics. The new position is only a beginning, however, as Johnson wants to market the college’s business programs around the globe.

“I am hoping to double the faculty,” she said. “I want to introduce and expand the areas of economics we teach and also build new courses in international study.”

Johnson has already added courses to the fall roster in nonprofit management, and says AIC’s new president, Vincent Maniaci, supports her ideas.

Another goal is to forge new, local partnerships. “I plan to convene an industrial advisory council in the late fall with senior business leaders who can give us good advice as we conduct our curriculum reviews,” she said. “They will be able to tell us about emerging needs in their industry.”

Making classes more accessible to working people, via blended programs which utilize online learning, is an idea Johnson hopes to bring to fruition. “We need to explore different models,” she said. “This is another area the Advisory Council could help us with, especially if their employees became students here. We need to look at what students really need along with what employers really want.”

Two-week internships abroad for MBA and nonprofit students are also on the burner. Many students work full-time, but would be able to use their vacation to take advantage of this opportunity, said Johnson, noting that adding more courses to the college’s menu could complement those experiences. “I would like to add business courses that relate to culture and the economic state of different countries,” she said.

In April, AIC’s business school was awarded a prestigious accreditation from the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education. While all of the college’s programs are accredited through the New England Assoc. of Schools and Colleges, the new accreditation is specific to business education. Johnson said the process has taken years to complete and involved site visits, self-study, and follow-up reports.

“It’s a new accreditation for schools with a focus on teaching and student learning outcomes,” she said. “There are 1,500 business schools in the U.S., and less than one-third of them have earned this.”

Course of Action

In order to maintain its standing, AIC will have to focus on practices that promote excellence in business education through a benchmarking process, which allows school administrators to assess whether their goals are being realized.

Johnson said she’s excited about the challenge and enthusiastic about expanding the program so that graduates enter the market prepared to be successful anywhere in the world.

That’s just part of what she considers a truly global focus on business, education, and life in general.