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Washington State University
Dividend - Fall 2020 Dean's Message

A Message from the Dean

Dear friends,

Though the COVID-19 pandemic has caused us to transform our delivery of business education this fall, we are committed to providing our students with an amazing remote learning experience and strong Carson Coug community. I’m excited to deliver an issue packed with GOOD news and celebrate how we’ve achieved some significant milestones and firsts as a college. In the last year, we reached the five-year anniversary of the college’s renaming and my appointment as dean. These two milestones—and many others—have made me reflect on where we’ve been as a college and where we are headed.

In 2014, we were renamed as the Carson College of Business, a step that helped us create a stronger identity. It also signaled that we had support from you, our loyal alumni community, to take the college to new levels of influence. Less than a year later, I was appointed dean, and the great team we have built here has set our course toward becoming the first choice for students seeking a business education in the Pacific Northwest.

When I came on board, there were already great resources in place, such as the Carson Center for Student Success, whose dramatic evolution is artfully illustrated in the upcoming pages, and the Center for Entrepreneurship, which you’ll see is celebrating its 25th year of helping young entrepreneurs develop their business ideas. Another milestone we’re highlighting is the 30th anniversary of the legislature’s decision to establish WSU campuses across the state, allowing the University to offer programs at WSU Tri-Cities, WSU Vancouver, WSU Spokane, and more recently, at WSU Everett. We are excited to bring you compelling features here, highlighting how each of these milestones strengthen the impact of our efforts to educate Carson Cougs.

In addition to recognizing some historical milestones of our programs, we are spotlighting some firsts that are very recent to the college. One of them is our programming in financial well-being that has been greatly enhanced by external partnerships and investments, including those of BECU, the state’s largest credit union, and Brighton Jones, the state’s largest wealth management firm. Other firsts are detailed in stories about novel virtual reality research being conducted in our Center for Behavioral Business Research and the center’s new certificate program, innovative doctoral student research, and new programming that supports our active duty military and veteran students.

We’ve made great strides in our online and graduate programs, thanks to the hard work of our leadership in those areas. A feature on our new corporate engagement program highlights the work of alumnus Mark Hansen, who is helping us partner with companies to provide opportunities for our students and create pipelines for enrollment in our MBA programs.

Throughout this issue, you’ll discover what drives the commitment of our corporate partners and investors like Marriott and the Delbert J. Hayes family, who help Carson students achieve personal and professional success. I hope you will perhaps be inspired to consider how you might engage in supporting our great students and faculty.

As we strive to perfect our delivery of online education due to COVID-19 restrictions and to resume face-to-face learning as soon as it’s safe, we need your support more than ever. I look forward to working together to continue providing the highest quality of business education in the Pacific Northwest.

Go Cougs!

Chip Hunter
@ChipHunterWSU