As my first year at The University of Baltimore ends, I can reflect on why this institution is so distinct—it’s the people. From my first days, I discovered that the faculty and staff have a passion for continuously improving what we offer our students and of course, those actions help the organizations that employ them.

For example, we took a hard look at our Master of Science programs this past year and revised the curriculum to reflect what students need and what employers want—more analytics and more technical master's degrees. We even have sought STEM designations by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Each of our four master of science programs will have have this important designation as of the fall of 2024.  

One of the accomplishments I’d like to applaud our faculty for is the creation of the new M.S. in Artificial Intelligence for Business program which will launch this fall. Think about it, there isn’t a day when some media outlet isn’t talking about artificial intelligence. To prove my point, in the past 24 hours of my writing this message, there were 3,640,000 Google news article results on the topic of AI. Suffice it to say, it’s a hot topic. But beyond Nvidia’s stock price, deep fakes, and how AI might affect the jobs of humans, there are applicable business and operational purposes to consider and to learn about.

That’s why our faculty’s efforts this year to create Maryland’s only AI degree in a business school should be celebrated. Our program touches on the hardware and software used in AI and machine learning, but the differentiator focuses on the “how.” We’ll be teaching how you and I will use it and we’ll let the state’s engineering and computer science schools teach the nuts and bolts of technology.

The AI program is important to the state because it will train the next generation of leaders on how to embrace AI and ML technology—how to use it and lead organizations with it—ethically and operationally. It is an exciting opportunity for us and the University.

Now, this new program doesn’t displace the importance of some of the other initiatives that made headlines this year, including our new MBA partnership with UMBC’s M.S. in Engineering Management that allows students from both programs to double count credits towards both degrees. We are also excited about our new international partnerships with several reputed universities including India’s Vellore Institute of Technology.  

I hope you are starting to see a theme here—when it comes to applied business education, UBalt continues to be on the leading edge. We never rest on our past successes, and we certainly face obstacles, but together, we’ll impact the way business gets done in Baltimore and beyond.  

We are a school with a growth mindset. Our latest programs and curriculum changes require added instructors with the ability to teach the next generation of business leaders. We have spent the last few months reviewing the credentials of prospective new faculty and in doing so, we have looked to hire enthusiastic and committed people who are inspired by the tenacity of working adults and who can share their knowledge of a modern business world.

As we continued to build for the future, we took a hard look at ourselves and made some important choices. As a school, we reviewed the way we ran the school, and we chose to tackle the traditional departmental silos that could impede innovation. One way we are changing is by taking an interdisciplinary approach to faculty staffing. Instead of multiple academic departments and associated chairpersons, we now have one “Chair of the Faculty” and synergetic groupings of faculty by academic disciplines.  I was pleased to appoint long-time professor of marketing, Ven Sriram, to the faculty leadership position. As head of the faculty, Dr. Sriram has the insights to bridge the needs of faculty and students, making for better decision-making and effective planning. 

In the fall, a team of AACSB accreditation reviewers will come to campus and look at what we have been doing to improve not only our policies and processes, but what we are doing to make business education better, more innovative and beneficial for our students and the business community we serve. From my perspective, my first year has solidified my bullish outlook that our students are well cared for, and our UBalt alumni should be proud that one day soon our new graduates will join them in the workforce with the skills and competencies needed today and tomorrow.  

Sincerely, 

Raju Balakrishnan, Ph.D. 

Dean