Annual Report 2005

Crossing Borders, Spanning Boundaries

A Message from Peter Straley ’85 MBA

Peter Straley

Chair of the Isenberg School’s Business Advisory Council

Succeeding Paul McDonald after his thirteen dynamic years as chair of the Business Advisory Council (BAC) may seem a tall order, but Paul and Dean O’Brien have accomplished so much at the Isenberg School that I fi nd myself in an enviable position. Clearly, the School has come a long way and is poised for continued growth. With the addition of its two new departments—in hospitality and tourism management and sport management—the School now has more than 30,000 alumni. As a bridge to those graduates, the BAC will combine time-tested as well as new, creative ways in leveraging that expanded alumni network’s influence and financial support.

The Isenberg School has just entered the silent phase of a seven-year development campaign that, with alumni support, will complete Tom O’Brien’s vision for a new generation of Isenberg School students. That vision includes cultural and physical integration of all six Isenberg departments in the same building space. It also calls for increasing the School’s undergraduate population by 1,000. To meet those ambitious goals, the School, with alumni support, will add a new state-of-the-art classroom building and recruit dozens of new faculty members. At the same time, the School, through continued expansion of its online and onsite professional MBA programs will continue to grow as a resource for the business community in regional, national, and international markets.

As an alumnus, I am proud of the School’s progress. As new BAC chair, I am energized by the dynamic prospects that lie ahead.

Sincerely,

Peter F. Straley ’85 MBA
Chair, Isenberg School
Business Advisory Council

Click here to see a current list of Business Advisory Council members