The College of Business Administration and Economics at Cal State Northridge has launched a consulting practice to help bring real-world experience into its academic studies and generate income for the college. Since its start last fall, the Center for Management and Organization Development, as the consultancy is called, has brought in about $500,000 in fees, so far from nonprofit projects, and eventually hopes to branch out into the private sector as well. “Basically what we’re creating is a small consulting firm,” said Alan Glassman, CSUN professor of management and a founding member of the center. “We’re really working very hard to establish ourselves as a primary resource for the companies of Los Angeles.” The actual consulting work is done by CSUN faculty members, many of whom already consult to business and industry, Glassman said. Three students each year will be offered $2,000 fellowships to provide support work at the center, which will also be staffed by unpaid student interns. Faculty member will use data gathered during consulting projects for publication in academic journals. Glassman hopes the center will eventually be more tightly integrated with the university, providing a real-world training exercise for students and a research opportunity for faculty. The center is currently working with two clients. It has a contract with Los Angeles County to establish a kind of corporate university that will train workers in leadership and human resource development. It is also working with the California Employment Training Panel to evaluate that agency’s training programs. The ETP, funded through payroll taxes, provides funding to train mostly skilled blue-collar workers in the private sector. The center won a competitive bid to, among other things, measure what effect the training programs had on a company’s growth. “That’s the first time there’s been any attempt to measure publicly funded programs on growth,” said Richard W. Moore, professor of management and project director for the ETP assignment. Although its work so far has been limited to the public sector, Glassman said he is confident that the center will be able to compete with traditional consulting firms for private-sector assignments as well.
