Let’s Welcome Our New Corporate Overlords
August 25, 2006
The appointment of Virginia “Ginny” Dybenko as the new Dean of the School of Business and Economics confirmed all of our secret fears: “business” is nothing but a vocational trade masquerading as an academic discipline, and should be banished from universities.
I’m in no position to comment on Ms. Dybenko’s academic qualifications, because she doesn’t have any — no PhD, no academic research. What little academic training she had doesn’t even pertain to the field of business or economics. Instead of being hired for her academic work, WLU hired Ginny for her “leadership abilities, coupled with her enthusiasm and vision.”
“I intend to help build strong partnerships and a mutually-beneficial dialogue between the corporate community and academia,” she said. Holy buzzwords!
However, WLU’s buzzword-filled press release doesn’t explain that this person will be in charge of an entire academic community, even though she’s eminently unqualified for it. Unlike your local Chamber of Commerce, a university should be place where real academic research and debates should be conducted. I find it hard to believe that a person who spent her entire life in corporate boardrooms gets to control the academic pulse of an entire institution.
In fact, Ginny doesn’t even seem to care about petty things like research and independent inquiry — she’s all about “the real world.” “The connections I’ve made with corporate executives across the country and internationally will help me bring the real world in.”
Indeed. If there’s one thing we’ve all be clamouring for, is more corporate interference in academia.
We always made fun of business students for, well, being nimrods with an inflated sense of self importance. For years, the most academically rigorous exercises done by business students consisted of group work and PowerPoint presentations, and even with these lax standards the School of Business and Economics was frequently rocked by repeated allegations of massive academic misconduct. Thus, this appointment will simply reinforce all of our negative preconceptions about Business as a discipline, and it will ultimately be detrimental to both the university and the School of Business and Economics.
But despite all this, there is still a a saving grace. Ginny makes warm, meaningless statements about students “they are the real heart of the school.” And she also wears some bitching turtlenecks … in every single picture taken of her. Yay.
Posted by Tudor at 04:09 PM in Controversy
sweet god in heaven…i knew it! i always knew it!
Posted by: Borrelli on August 25, 2006 at 06:35 PMPfft. You university students are such snobs!
Posted by: sra on August 26, 2006 at 12:56 PMI am assuming you’re a business student. Your short-sightedness and general lack of insight into what business is about is evident. Business IS about relationships and knowing how to get things done, things multiple PhDs locked up in some business school library will never afford you. Doctorates are great, but real world experience is what counts, right or wrong, that’s the way the world works. Unfortunately for those of your persuasion, business is neither a science nor an art. It is a careful balance of methodology, personality, and gut. BTW, this is what Ginny is all about. Do yourself and the rest of us a favour. Meet her for a coffee, and listen to what she has to say, you may think differently. Don’t be concerned about her accepting your invitation, she will. That’s the kind of leader she is, and the kind of leader every business school in Canada needs. Gone are the days of ivory tower academia, and welcome to the real world.
Jag Siva, MBA.
I’m not a business student. I’m a lowly Arts major who prefers concrete, rational statements as opposed to “gut feelings,” truthiness, vague talk about “real world” and personality, and all such imbecilities.
Now, let’s get one point clear: at no point did I imply that Ginny is not a wonderful, warm, passionat human being who likes turtlenecks. I’m sure she honestly cares about what she does, and I’m sure that a person like her can have a huge, positive impact within the university. Go ahead, WLU, hire her as the VP of Marketing, let her teach and inspire students, or let her provide her insight as a consultant. But for fuck’s sake, why was she hired as Dean when she clearly has no experience for the job?
As dean, she gets to lead an academic institution — not a corporate boardroom. Thus, she has a strong say in determining academic tenure, influencing the research that will be conducted within the faculty, and ultimately ensuring the intellectual integrity and academic rigour of the business and economics programs. Hiring Ginny to lead the School of Business and Economics is very much like your company hiring me to determine your level of compensation and the way you get to perform your job.
Speaking of which, I find it self-serving and dishonest that you forgot mention that you actually worked with Ginny at Syndesis. Thus, your post above is far from a neutral, impartial observation — which explains why all the statements you make are either self-aggrandizing and meaningless, or some bizarre ad-hominem attack.
All I have to say is that if Ginny’s distain of academic culture is as pronounced as yours (i.e. if she sees her new colleagues as syphilitic PhD’s locked up in some business school library, as you state), then I think that WLU is in serious trouble as an institution.
Posted by: Tudor on September 04, 2006 at 04:07 PMLooking back at all the comments people have made about Ginny makes me laugh. She is an amazing dean and I think everyone that has met her would say the same. PhDs mean nothing. All that is going to get you in the real world is an interview.
Posted by: James on February 14, 2007 at 05:31 AM