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Faculty stunned over dean’s decision to leave UW business school

Yash Gupta, dean of the University of Washington Business School for the past five years, will become dean of the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California in July, a blow to efforts to move the UW into the higher echelons of business education.

By Stephen H. Dunphy
Seattle Times associate editor

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2001891833_gupta31.html

Gupta was the driving force to improve the business-school facilities, frequently joking that many of the buildings were from the "Stalinist era" of construction.

In the past few months, Gupta also introduced a new curriculum designed to make the school more competitive and in touch with the Puget Sound business community.

The move to USC in Los Angeles will put Gupta in charge of one of the top business schools in the nation. Business Week ranked the Marshall MBA program as the 17th-best domestic MBA program in 2002.

U.S. News & World Report ranked the undergraduate program as 11th best in the nation last year, and the Leventhal School of Accounting was ranked among the top five.

"It will be tough to leave," Gupta said yesterday. "I feel very sentimental about it."

Gupta was modest about his accomplishments in Seattle. "The people here did everything," he said.

Faculty members were stunned by the news.

Finance professor Paul Malatesta called Gupta’s departure a great loss to the business school, adding he was apprehensive about what it means for the future.

The school is in the midst of a $100 million capital campaign — one that doesn’t involve state money — to develop a new complex for the business school.

"The dean has been a powerhouse in raising funds and putting together a great advisory committee to help lead the fund-raising efforts," Malatesta said. "Whoever steps in is going to have to pick up that task and try to maintain momentum."

Malatesta said Gupta held a faculty meeting at 3 p.m. yesterday to deliver the news. He told the staff that the USC offer developed rapidly.

The meeting adjourned in 15 minutes.

"He invited questions," Malatesta said. "But I think, for the most part, the crowd was a little stunned."

Randolph Westerfield, the current Marshall School dean, announced two years ago he would step down to return to teaching.

A school spokesman said the search for a dean last year was "inconclusive" and that Westerfield agreed to stay as dean another year.

The spokesman said the business school was told yesterday that Gupta would be the new dean but has been given no details. An announcement was planned for today.

Gupta said the USC offer came together very quickly. "It’s a great opportunity. It just happened in the past six weeks," he said.

Gupta said he had consulted with Lee Huntsman, interim president of the UW, before accepting the post.

Gupta said Huntsman assured him that "everything would be done for the business school, everything would be done properly."

At USC, Gupta will inherit Popovich Hall, a $19.8 million, 55,000-square-foot facility that opened in 1999 and has the latest in technology, classrooms and communications.

Gupta was named UW dean in 1999 after serving as dean and professor of management of business administration at the University of Colorado in Denver. He replaced William Bradford, who returned to teaching.

Gupta was hired at a salary of $204,000 a year.

During his watch, the university nearly doubled enrollment in its MBA program to 700 students. Its ranking jumped to 35 from 51, and it added four MBA programs, including separate tracks for tech CEOs and chief information officers.

The school hired staff and raised nearly $50 million, a large portion of which will help finance a new building for the school, said Dan Poston, executive director of the school’s MBA program.

The school also expanded its MBA program for mid-level executives. Where it formerly attracted only local professionals who attended classes every two weeks, it now attracts nearly 100 executives from as far away as South Korea, Alaska and Chicago.

They fly in for intensive, weeklong sessions every month and do coursework by e-mail, Poston said.

Perhaps Gupta’s biggest accomplishment was knitting the school into the fabric of Seattle’s vibrant business community — Microsoft, Amazon.com, RealNetworks, Washington Mutual, Safeco, startups and venture capitalists.

"Reaching out to businesses is one of the most enduring legacies he will have left us," Poston said.

"That’s something that will make us stronger long into the future."

Stephen H. Dunphy: 206-464-2365 or [email protected].

Business reporters Alwynn Scott and Monica Soto Ouchi contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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