Graduates of Howard University's new Supply Chain Management Center will have Shelley Stewart to thank. Stewart, who is vice president, supply chain at Raytheon [PUR Aug 23, '01, p.27], was instrumental in persuading Barron Harvey, dean of the Howard Business School, that a real opportunity existed to add a major and important field of study to the business school's curriculum.

Widely known and respected in national SCM circles, Stewart argued persuasively and persistently that Howard University had a unique opportunity to offer its students, current and prospective, the training to become important cogs in the corporate wheel. In addition to traveling to Howard on multiple occasions to speak with the dean and the university's president, H. Patrick Swygert, Stewart also solicited support from other companies, several of which are now represented on the school's SCM Advisory Board.

Based on the input from Stewart and other corporate leaders, the dean and director of Howard's MBA program, Dr. Charles Mahone, assembled a cross-departmental task force to build a plan and curriculum for a Fall 2001 program launch.

What follows is a Q&A with David Fitzpatrick, director of the new Supply Chain Management Center at Howard University.

Q: How is Howard's supply chain management program going to be different from similar programs at other universities?

A: The area of significant difference will be that we expect to attract and educate a predominantly African-American student population. In fact, we believe that Howard will be the only Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in the country that will be offering an SCM concentration at the masters level.

Q: What are some of the challenges associated with starting the program at Howard?

A: The challenges are many and varied, and can be categorized into a few broad areas: Take recruitment, for example. Unlike such traditional business school majors as marketing, finance, accounting, HR, etc., there is not a depth of understanding about SCM in the undergraduate population at Howard, at many other universities, or in the population in general. As I travel the country and tell people that I teach Personal Selling and am director of the SCM Center, they never ask what selling is, but very frequently want to know what "supply chain management" is and means. I have spent many hours describing SCM concepts to both undergraduate and graduate students and have also had company executives come to Howard to describe the field and its job opportunities. Students who have a clear understanding of SCM tend to be favorably impressed and many of them are beginning to seriously review whether an SCM career is compatible with their post-graduate aspirations.

Funding is another challenge. If we simply wanted the SCM program to be another concentration within the business school, we would be well equipped to succeed based on the funding that is available to all departments and professors in the normal discharge of their teaching responsibilities. But thanks, in large part, to the impetus provided by several company executives who really wanted to make the program special and unique, a decision was made to establish an SCM Center of Excellence to guide and drive the many nonteaching activities (for example, recruiting, solicitation of scholarship dollars, finding summer internships for students and faculty, connecting companies to specific students based on mutual company/student requirements, preparing press releases, etc.) that are needed to support the program. The university participates in funding the center and functions driven by the center, but additional financial resources are required to achieve our objectives for the program. The business school staff and I spent six to eight months meeting with potential corporate sponsors to raise required additional funds. I am pleased that at the end of that phase we had developed very close working relationships with six companies: Eaton Corporation, Ford Motor Company, FreeMarkets, IBM, Raytheon and United Technologies.

Another important challenge is working across departments. A unique aspect in the SCM field is that it is inherently interdisciplinary. This poses an interesting challenge for universities that are organized along department lines, for example, finance, accounting, HR, information systems, etc., each with a department head. Since SCM transcends department boundaries, we've spent a great deal of time during the last two years sorting out the roles that various departments will play in curriculum and course development, who will teach what, and so on. That phase is behind us now but it required a high degree of interactivity among what are normally semi-autonomous departments to reach a successful conclusion. The interdisciplinary aspects of the courses will really add value to the students' knowledge of how all the pieces fit together in modern corporations.

Q: How was the curriculum developed?

A: SCM implies topics as diverse as marketing, logistics, e-commerce and other functions key to the SCM continuum. We spent months discussing how to develop the topics into a set of courses that would provide the students with knowledge they would need to be successful in their future companies while also fitting the two-year Howard MBA template. One of the techniques we used to help with these decisions was to study programs at other universtities. Michigan State and Arizona State, were among the schools whose programs we researched in detail. This process took three months and led to a number of interdepartmental meetings which ultimately produced the six-course curriculum that is now in place.

Q: What roles have corporate sponsors played in the program's creation?

A: Our corporate sponsors have maintained contact with the program through a number of activities. First, they all participate in a monthly conference call to discuss status of the program. These calls usually last 30-60 minutes. Second, they come on campus and discuss SCM and job opportunities with students. As an example, executives from United Technologies and FreeMarkets were on campus February 20, 2001 to recruit students into the MBA program and also to discuss summer internship and post-graduate job opportunities. Third, they offer curriculum advice. Fourth, they will be making members of their staffs available as guest lecturers for specific course modules. Last, they are generally available to offer whatever guidance and functional support we need as we transform this idea ("let's offer an SCM concentration") into a reality.

Q: What types of students will find value in the SCM concentration?

A: There are several types of students who we are finding have interest in this concentration. First, there are employed people who would like to compete for promotions in the SCM organizations within their companies. An advanced degree improves their knowledge base and competitiveness. Second, some individuals who are seeking MBA's are uncertain about the area in which they should major. When they find that SCM overlaps many of the functions they had been considering, they begin to look seriously at this concentration. Third, students and company employees are beginning to understand that starting salaries in SCM are very attractive and competitive. For instance, at one of the SCM meetings held at Howard this year, salary offers of $80K plus signing bonuses were mentioned. That caught the attention of a number of students. Fourth, as individuals hear and learn more about the importance of SCM to a company's overall competitiveness, they are beginning to feel that SCM is where the action is.