Busch School of Business Town Hall

By Alice Perrigo

This week at the Busch School of Business Town Hall, Dean Bill Bowman updated students on business school events, including the construction of Maloney Hall, the search for a new dean, and new areas of study offered by the business school.

The Busch School held a town hall Wednesday night at 5 p.m. in McGivney 106. The night started with an information session lead by Bowman and Kevin Rensch of the Busch School’s advising team. The session was promptly followed with an open forum discussion where attendees could ask questions.

The information session touched on the new minor and certificate programs in the Busch school, new area heads, information about the Summer Business Institute, an update on the search for a new dean, curriculum changes for freshman, and most notably, the progress of Maloney Hall.

Maloney Hall is situated on the southeast edge of campus and was originally built in 1917. It is currently under construction to become the new site for the Tim and Steph Busch School of Business here at Catholic University. This comes after a $47 million in donations to the business school in 2016  in order to build a home for the newly named Tim and Steph School of Business. According to Bowman, the project is on track to be finished on December 28 of this year and will officially open to students on January 14, 2019, just in time for the start of Spring semester classes.

All business classes for next semester are currently expected to take place in Maloney Hall and have been scheduled there accordingly. If construction is not completed on time, the business school has a backup plan where all business classes have been scheduled in other buildings around campus. If Maloney Hall opens in the middle of the spring, all classes will move from their other locations on campus to Maloney. Bowman said he expects the first day in Maloney Hall to be “chaos, but it will be a fun chaos,” as everyone settles in and finds their new offices and classrooms.

As for the building itself, it will include four floors, an auditorium, a chapel, and case-study rooms modeled after horseshoe shaped classrooms at Harvard. The auditorium will include 275 seats and will be the biggest classroom on campus, aside from the Law School. The chapel, named for St. Michael, will seat 65 people. A mass will be held there at 12:35 p.m. each day. The mass will be presided over by the new business school chaplain, Fr. Luis Maximilian. He will be available to serve the Busch School community specifically, but he will especially be focused on providing services for the faculty and staff.

Grace McClatchy, a sophomore exploratory business major was excited to hear about the new chapel.

“I’m definitely going to be in there a lot,”  McClatchy said. “I am excited that we get our own chaplain. Father Jude is so busy.”

Construction began at the uppermost floor and will continue downwards. Bowman said that as of now, construction on the 4th floor has been completed, and the 3rd floor is currently being worked on. When fully completed, the project is expected to cost $32-33 million.

Bowman also announced the new minor and certificate programs to be offered by the business school.

Both a sales minor and a sales certification will be offered. Both programs will be overseen by Mark Weber. The minor will have a requirement of six classes consisting three mandatory and three related courses chosen by the student. The sales certification requires two classes and the completion of one related internship.

The new Ciocca Center for Principled Entrepreneurship will offer an entrepreneurship minor. The minor will be based in the Catholic faith and require six courses of four mandatory and two related courses. This minor will be overseen by Professor Andreas Widmer.

Dr. Catherine Pakaluk is also working on a new social research area of study within the School of Business. Pakaluk hopes to combine the studies of philosophy, sociology, theology, social science and more to apply it to the study of economics. Her method is modeled on the one used at Oxford University and strives to understand economic issues “that are just not pure math,” Bowman said.

The search for a new dean was also a topic of discussion. Bowman will be stepping down as dean at the end of this semester, but will remain with the business school as a professor. As of now, a search committee has been formed to find his replacement. This search committee is headed by Dr. J Steven Brown, the Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies. Other members of the committee include Professor Mary Njai and Dr. Brian Engelland of the Business School, Dr. Joseph Capizzi of and Msgr. John Wipple of the School of Arts and Sciences.Undergraduate student Nick Spinelli, and graduate student Kelley Murphy are also on the search committee.

Bowman was unable to give a certain answer when asked about what criteria the committee will be basing their decision on. He speculated that a candidates fundraising ability would be a large factor.

“That’s what they wanted me to do, was to become a full time fundraiser,” Bowman said.

Bowman said he has found a real joy in teaching and it is what he would rather be doing. Michael Pakaluk of the Business School will be the acting dean in the spring until a new dean is officially appointed.