Progress often comes at a price, measured in money, time, energy, resources, or all of the above. It’s an investment, and while that intervening period between the outlay and the return offers challenges, the benefits justify the journey.
Commencement offers us an annual reminder of those benefits. Students recognize the benefits of investing in themselves, and it’s always a pleasure to watch them reflect with each other on their journeys, the challenges they overcame, and the goals they accomplished in pursuit of their degree. Our faculty and staff invest their time in these students as well, and the satisfaction that comes with watching graduates celebrating their achievement and launching impactful careers is hard to describe.
This year’s commencement closes a door on a truly unique chapter in Owen’s history, one marked by the pandemic and a historic building renovation project. I applaud the resilience and ingenuity of this year’s graduates, who accomplished incredible things in their time here, maintaining old traditions and bringing new ones to life, all while recording exceptional employment results.
Similarly, our faculty and staff persevered through the disruption, providing high-touch support in and out of the classroom and publishing impactful research across several disciplines (some of which we’ve highlighted on pages 16-19). Events like the Vanderbilt Entrepreneurship Conference continue to strengthen the presence of our Centers; check out our recap of VEC 2022 on page 3. These ongoing investments in our centers, initiatives, and people continue to bear fruit and bring additional value to our community.
Of course, we have been making substantial investments in progress that don’t offer the predictability of graduation day. Our historic building renovation project is nearly complete. We have been working with Boston Consulting Group and university leadership on a strategic plan to elevate Owen in the rankings. Our reimagining culture project — a year-long endeavor that involved hundreds of interviews with community members – is concluding this summer. When students walk through the doors of Management Hall this August, they won’t just be walking into a new building. They’ll be walking into a school with a revitalized strategy to deliver world-class education on a personal scale for Owen’s next 50 years.
These commitments to progress wouldn’t be possible without the generosity and support of our alumni, who contribute their time and resources to investments of all shapes and sizes at Owen. As Paul Jacobson (MBA’97), our 2022 Commencement Speaker and one of the alumni featured in our cover story on the Future of Finance (page 20), told graduates in his address — “there is no greater gift you can offer others than your time, your resources, your wisdom… essentially, a part of yourself.”
He later noted that “success is measured consistently by what you do for others;” if this is the case, then we have a very successful community of alumni indeed.
All the best,
M. Eric Johnson
Ralph Owen Dean
Bruce D. Henderson Professor of Strategy