As the dean of a business school, terms like inflation and supply chain are not unusual to hear in my day-to-day. However, this year, it seems those phrases would be hard for anyone to avoid with everything going on in the world.

When I see fluctuations in the economy reflected in the headlines, I find myself thinking about the Bryan School and revisiting its mission statement. For those unfamiliar, it reads:

We create and disseminate knowledge about the theory and practice of business. In addition to our courses and research, we accomplish this through hands-on projects, global experiences, and outreach to the community. Our work produces principled leaders and exceptional problem solvers who have a global perspective, an innovative mindset, a broad understanding of sustainability, and a commitment to improve the organizations at which they work and the communities in which they live.

In last year’s issue of the Bryan Business Report, I wrote about our ongoing efforts to be recognized as a premier business school among regional public universities. I wrote about how our School has garnered various national accolades from U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review in that pursuit. We take pride in those hard-earned accolades.

But this year I wanted to revisit our mission with all of you so certain topics will be top of mind when you flip through the pages that follow.

I want you to think about global experiences as you read about a Ukrainian-born Bryan School professor who made it his life’s work to share information and ideas across borders. I want you to think about hands-on projects as you read about the MBA student consultants who helped a local lithium company – which extracts the material from existing resources for use in renewable energy applications – to figure out its next move. I want you to think about both the theory and the practice of business when you reach this issue’s expanded research section and take a closer look at topics such as energy-efficient cloud computing and how the future of apparel could very well reside in the metaverse.

I want you to think about the future of business – and perhaps the future in general – as we celebrate all our exceptional Bryan School problem solvers who have committed to improving the organizations at which they work and the communities in which they live.

We are so glad to have each and every one of you as a part of our mission.