Calling All Huizengians

The popular and nationally recognized magazine Newsweek recently released its selection of the top 12 business schools in the nation, and among them is none other than NSU’s H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship. But before you begin the resounding applause, take some time to consider what could make this business school so much better, from a fellow business administration major.

Let’s start with the process of actually entering the school. The purpose of automatic doors is to make life easier by not having to use manual labor to open a door. This can be especially cumbersome if your hands are full of books. But for some reason, it seems to be a struggle entering the Carl DeSantis Building in which the school is housed. The bright yellow label on the glass doors reads “Caution Automatic Doors,” so, like everyone else, I approach the doors expecting them to open. But I’ve come to realize that sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. I’m not even sure if you’re supposed to pull on an automatic door, but if I want to get into the building, I don’t really have a choice. All I know is that they tend to be harder to open than regular doors, but, quite frankly, I don’t see why I should have to struggle to get into the building to attend my classes.

At the same time, if you walk around DeSantis long enough, you start to notice something: underutilized space. Some rooms, such as the Office of Associate Lecturers and Adjuncts on the first floor, the Graduate Business Student Association (GBSA) conference room on the third floor, and some classrooms sprinkled around the building, seem to be hardly used. Business-oriented organizations deserve to have an official meeting space in DeSantis, just like GBSA. For example, Alpha Kappa Psi is a co-ed business fraternity open to all majors and both graduate and undergraduate students. It’s an organization that embodies the demographics and culture of the business school. Therefore, it should be able to utilize some of the dormant space in DeSantis.

When the problem is not underutilized space, it’s the need to renovate a space. Take the small computer room on the second floor as an example. The purple swivel chairs sink straight to the ground as soon as you sit on them. You can tell when a student is visiting the room for the first time because they start patting underneath the chair looking for the lever, only to find there isn’t one. This has a tendency to interrupt one’s last minute rush to complete an assignment before class if you’re sitting about 12 inches above the ground.

The fact that there’s a proper computer lab on the third floor, with functioning chairs, should not deter NSU from replacing the derelict chairs on the second floor. They’re not supposed to be keepsakes from the 20th century.

Another issue is the classroom boards. If you can imagine kindergarteners coloring on paper, then you can picture the devastation of those dry erase boards after professors write on them. If they’re going to use aged, old markers to write on those multicolored boards, they might as well write in invisible ink. Either way, you get the same result.

Then, there’s the stock market ticker tape, which is a great addition to the building. I’m sure it would encourage students to pay more attention to the stock market. The only problem is that students can’t see the ticker tape unless they’re entering the building through the front doors, walking toward the elevator or passing the front desk to go to Einstein’s. To expose the ticker tape, it should run behind the front desk and into the atrium where students can view it while sitting down.

If doors are made to open automatically and chairs are meant to support someone’s weight, then they ought to fulfill their purpose. At first glance, these may appear to be insignificant changes, but the value they hold make students feel appreciated as they capitalize on their education at the Huizenga School.

But if there’s one major improvement the Huizenga School should make, it wouldn’t be the automatic doors or the abstract artwork that people call whiteboards; it would be giving students more opportunities to engage in extracurricular activities that allow them to apply concepts they are taught in class. Providing free access to business magazines, such as Bloomberg, would be a terrific stepping stone. The Huizenga School should have racks stationed near the entrance where students can grab a free copy, on a weekly basis, and study real world issues.

Eight-week classes are great in terms of convenience, but it’s not enough time to absorb critical information, so Huizenga School should generate more interest in these subject areas by showing students how this information is relevant to them. The business school should provide interactive activities that encourage students to become engaged outside of the classroom. There could be competitions in which faculty create simulations of possible events that might arise in the business world and ask students to generate an effective solution, to win a prize. Or, the school could create a series of workshops in which students are taught how to develop a product and introduce it on the market.

A leading business school is one where students don’t walk through its doors just to go to class and come out. It’s one where students come with the desire to learn even when class isn’t in session. Huizenga School should sell this idea to students through more than the Distinguished Lecture Series. It needs to create extracurricular programs and productive exercises that challenge students to develop innovative ideas. It should ensure that upcoming workshops are widely advertised, like those offered by Career Development that teach students how to conduct informational interviews and use social media to enhance their job search. This is the way for Huizenga Business School to truly fulfill its vision of becoming a “provider…of practical education.”

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