The Johns Hopkins University board of trustees voted yesterday to approve the appointment of Yash P. Gupta, a veteran leader of three business schools, as inaugural dean of the Carey Business School, which opened in January, officials said.
Gupta's goal: to transform a regional, part-time division serving working adults into a "phenomenal, world-class program" that eventually will rank among the nation's brand-name business schools, he said.
"He has the imagination, the energy and the skill to build the Carey Business School into one of the nation's most innovative and respected," said Hopkins President William R. Brody in a statement.
Best known for its medical school and graduate arts and sciences departments, Hopkins has been offering business-related master's degrees since the 1960s and began a part-time master's of business administration program in 1999.
There are roughly 2,400 business students currently enrolled at Hopkins, in Baltimore and at satellite locations throughout the region. The university conferred about 240 MBA degrees last year, officials said.
But it wasn't until a $50 million gift last year from real estate magnate William P. Carey that the private university established a formal school with designs on joining the elite ranks of business educators.
Carey has met with Gupta, but the donor did not play a formal role in the search process, said Hopkins spokesman Dennis O'Shea.
The Indian-born, British-educated operations research scholar is the former business dean of the University of Colorado at Denver, the University of Washington and most recently at the University of Southern California. He will assume his new post in January.
Gupta, 54, said the Carey school will offer a full-time MBA degree and hire more permanent, research-oriented faculty, but that it would not look like a traditional business school.
"The curriculum will not be solely about accounting, marketing, finance, but `How do we create systems of innovation ... and build intellectual property?'" he said.
A revamped curriculum will emphasize team-based fieldwork over classroom instruction, Gupta said, giving students hands-on experience with established companies, in much the same way that Johns Hopkins Hospital functions as a laboratory for medical students.
Hopkins officials have said there are no plans to introduce pre-professional business degrees into its undergraduate college in Charles Village.
