Fundraiser Fuels CSUN Revamp

When the next generation of business school graduates prepare their resumes for the job hunt, students from the David Nazarian College of Business and Economics at California State University – Northridge should include high cultural competency, professional development and an entrepreneurial spirit among their skill sets. That’s the future David Nazarian sees for those who pass through his namesake institution at CSUN. Thanks to donors who contributed to the $25 million fundraising campaign he conducted on the school’s behalf, the Nimes Capital founder and billionaire philanthropist is much closer to making his vision a reality. “One can go to classes and learn a lot about academics, but being successful in the real world requires a lot more than that,” said Nazarian, who graduated from CSUN in 1982 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. “We have a great school, but there are lots of things we can do even better for our students so when they leave and start looking for a job, they can get the best possible job.” CSUN’s business college was named in Nazarian’s honor in March 2014, when he kickstarted his $25 million drive for the school with $10 million of his own money. At the institute’s 50-year anniversary gala on Sept. 22, it was announced that a $5 million gift from 1970 CSUN graduate and Armanino LLP Senior Partner Harvey Bookstein had pushed the campaign beyond its original goal. “It was really coming down to the wire on that date to see whether we go over the top, and we did,” Nazarian College Dean Kenneth Lord said. Other significant contributors to the campaign included apparel manufacturing executive Jeff Marine and telecommunications industry leader Paul Jennings, he said. Now that the campaign is complete, the funds will be used to support the business college’s strategic plan, Lord explained. The plan aims to enrich key departments, enhance professional development programs and increase students’ exposure to international markets. Entrepreneurial drive Among the top priorities of the strategic plan is the college’s entrepreneurship program. Marine’s $100,000 contribution, for instance, serves as two years’ worth of prize money for participants in the school’s start-up accelerator. “Institutionally, that really puts us in the same group as top entrepreneurship programs around the country in terms of how they are stimulating and supporting startups that are coming out of those programs,” Lord said. “It really enables us to put a stamp on our entrepreneurship program.” The college also hopes to bring an elite professor on board to teach entrepreneurship courses through an endowed chair funded by Jennings. A second endowed chair donated by Bookstein will serve to attract a prestigious scholar to the school’s real estate department, the expansion of which is another main goal outlined in the strategic plan. “Real estate is an area of great vitality in Southern California, one where there is significant need and demand,” Lord said. “We’re trying to help meet the educational and training needs of our region by building a high-quality graduate program in that area, and a center that will interact substantially with the professional community.” The strategic plan also involves engaging students with companies beyond national borders. Global trade is integral to the local economy, Lord noted, mandating that the region’s future workforce feel comfortable working with international colleagues. “We’re at the crossroads of about 40 percent of the total international commerce coming into the United States,” Lord said, referring to the share of the country’s total imports that enter through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. “The vast majority of international trade involving the Pacific Rim happens here, and a rich array of multinational corporations reside here as well.” To prepare graduates to compete in an increasingly global marketplace, the college plans to introduce shorter-term international exchange programs for students and faculty by expanding partnerships with foreign universities. One goal of such relationships is to build collaborative consultancy projects between CSUN students and their overseas cohorts, Lord said, with a special focus on solving problems for multinational organizations. Workforce development More general applications of the Nazarian campaign funds will benefit the growth of professional development programs and technology-based solutions to meet the demands of the business school’s student population. As part of the No. 3 most diverse institution in the country, based on rankings published in September by the Wall Street Journal, the college has a wealth of perspectives to offer the workforce. “Let’s face it: The corporate world needs to be dealing with the reality of the increasingly diverse marketplace they’re serving. Our students provide a fabulous resource for them,” Lord said. “That enables us to really bring value to the market that we’re preparing our students to enter.” But graduates hoping to occupy the C-suite must first demonstrate aptitude at skills such as interviewing, resume writing and dining etiquette. While professional development programs are already offered at Nazarian College through co-curricular courses, advisors’ ability to reach out to every member of the student body is limited by its size. “I’m proud of our advisors’ dedication to meeting one-on-one with as many students as possible to work on professional development skills, but we have more than 7,000 students in the business college alone,” Lord explained. “We’re trying to build to scale in a way that we can serve all of them.” To that end, advanced software that analyzes resume language and formatting has been purchased with money from the fundraising drive. Students will use the program to polish their resumes to near-perfection, then meet briefly with an advisor to tie up loose ends. “It would take a very large staff to spend any great amount of time with 7,000 students in terms of resume preparation,” Lord said. “Thanks to this sophisticated software, students will be able to optimize the time they spend with an advisor.” Technology will also streamline the college’s mentorship program. The institution has contracted with an outside vendor specializing in a computer algorithm that helps students identify characteristics or skills they want to develop and pairs them with a mentor who possesses those specific traits. Once a student has mastered the objectives he or she has pursued with a mentor, the student will be matched with another mentor to work on different skills. Likewise, the mentor will be assigned to another student as determined by the software program. These developments will offer future Nazarian College graduates a competitive edge when they enter the professional world, said Chris Garza, regional vice president of staffing firm Robert Half, who added that communication skills are highly valued by employers of business school graduates. “Training on how to conduct oneself in an interview is vital – that’s where the jobs are won or lost,” he said. “Candidates have to be able to articulate themselves and have a certain level of confidence for people to buy into them.” Next Steps Notably absent from the college’s strategic plan are updates to its part-time MBA. Instead, graduate programs tailored to a specific discipline will be the central focus for expansion. “The specialized programs are where the growth is,” Lord said. “Though the MBA program has experienced declining enrollment, the M.S. in accounting and taxation have been pretty consistent over time.” The majority of U.S. business schools have witnessed a decrease in applicant volume for both MBA and accounting programs over the last several years, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council. Lord theorizes that the Nazarian College’s reputation within the local accounting industry has protected its own accounting and taxation programs from the same fate. “Our reputation in terms of rankings and in relation to the local accounting industry continues to be very strong,” he said. “Our students are in demand, but we just don’t have the capacity to offer a larger program.” While Nazarian has sat on leadership boards for a number of high-profile universities, including UCLA and USC, he believes CSUN’s commitment to offering quality education at a relatively low price sets the school apart from others in the region. Many of CSUN’s students come from financially disadvantaged backgrounds, Nazarian noted, which positions the college to play a vital role in strengthening the middle class. “The diversity, more than anything, is the reason I fell in love with CSUN,” Nazarian said. “I want to make sure our students have the same opportunity as I did to experience the American dream.”