Dean's Report 2019

A LETTER FROM THE DEAN

When I became Mendoza’s interim dean a year ago, I introduced the notion of the “Three C’s” of business — three principles necessary for business seeking to be a force for shared good for all stakeholders:

CONTRIBUTE to human flourishing, serving others in response to all the gifts we have received, through which we ourselves flourish.

COOPERATE in solidarity through teamwork as part of a community, and prioritize those with the greatest needs.

COMPETE externally in the marketplace and internally toward the best version of oneself, by the grace of God and with the help of others.

These three C’s correspond to the pillars of Catholic Social Teaching: the recognition of the infinite, immutable and intrinsic value of every single human being; the principle of solidarity, which means businesses should take particular care of those with the greatest needs; and subsidiarity, where we are committed to helping each other as a team with respect for each other’s freedom and integral development.

I am fully committed to advancing Mendoza’s distinctive mission as a Catholic business school, where we seek to produce top academic research and educate business leaders who contribute to human flourishing, cooperate in solidarity and compete with excellence.

For our programs, this means exploring the following questions:

How can we elevate our curriculum, e.g., by offering more challenging courses?

How can we better cooperate across campus, serving all Notre Dame students and working with the other colleges and institutes?

How can we present an integrated vision of business, one that combines the business disciplines with both the humanities and analytics?

As we draw up our strategic plan for the next year, there are three areas of focus:

INTEGRATING CODING, ANALYTICS AND BIG DATA across all majors, concentrations and programs.

EXPANDING EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING, with more opportunities for our students to participate in internships, consulting projects and service learning.

EMPHASIZING BUSINESS AS A FORCE FOR SHARED GOOD, based on the C/catholic (universal) human values that make Mendoza distinctive.

During this past year, we’ve made progress toward this vision, as you will see in the coming pages of this Dean’s Report. We’ve changed our undergraduate curriculum from three years to four years, introduced new undergraduate minors, doubled the enrollment in the key MBA course Business on the Frontlines and reorganized the structure of the College’s administration to include five associate deanships, to name a few items.

I would also emphasize that the work we do at the College is the result of the vision of the whole community that makes up Mendoza — our students, faculty, staff and alumni. The Mendoza mission is a lived experience, with room to change and be expressed in a thousand ways. I am honored to be part of this legacy and appreciative to all who use what they have gained from this great University to be a force for good.

Martijn Cremers

Martin J. Gillen Dean
Bernard J. Hank Professor of Finance