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UMass MBA students study City’s business needs
 NEW BEDFORD – Sixteen graduate students from the
University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth Charlton School of
Business, worked closely with Mayor Scott W. Lang’s
office and the New Bedford Economic Development Council
on a month-long project aimed at improving the business
climate throughout the city.
The project – part of a “Business Innovation and
Creativity” course taught by Prof. Garry Clayton of New
Zealand, who has published on such topics as
professional education, leadership, innovation and
strategy met in the fourth-floor loft space at the
mayor’s office, at New Bedford City Hall to launch the
project.
The students targeted three inner-city regions – the
North End, South End and Downtown business districts –
seeking to identify the business needs of each area and
recommend ways to encourage each to flourish in a manner
that complements the city’s own Master Plan.
A strong proponent of this kind of town-gown
partnership, Mayor Lang said,
“This represents a powerful and meaningful way the
university and the city
can partner to impact lives of city residents.”
The students spent their first week becoming oriented to
the city and its businesses, and their second week
administering a survey of the targeted areas. During the
third week, they collected and logged the data compiled.
In the project’s final week, three teams of four each
presented to city officials a 25-page report, outlining
their recommendations for the target areas.
Accepting the students’ formal report, NBEDC Executive
Director stated, “The work of these sixteen graduate
students provides us with a backbone of information that
we can build upon to create a better business atmosphere
across the city.
Morrissey said the project will be a piece of the
puzzle, helping provide the city with the information it
needs to decide how to improve its support of local
businesses.
Due to the shortness of their study, the students were
not able to produce a price tag on their
recommendations, but many of the immediate goals were
low budget items. Each group presented projects that
could be implemented on both a short- and long-term
basis. Throughout the three presentations, two themes
reoccurred: a need for neighborhood involvement in any
changes or initiatives to be made, and a need for a
beautification program especially at the city’s
gateways.
Eileen Peacock, dean of the Charlton College of
Business, said the focus of the program was to create an
environment where students can generate innovative
solutions to real-world business problems. “Instead of
being constrained by normal thinking, we wanted them to
devise strategies by using all aspects of business
theory. We wanted them to think outside the box here,”
she said. “Although we don’t know exactly what will come
of this, it may help to identify other projects we may
do later on down the line with the city.”
Recommendations ranged from: cleaning up commercial
building façades, setting planters and hanging banners –
to providing better lighting, public art, and more green
space – to those requiring capital investment like
building bandstands or a sports complex or providing
floating docks in Clark’s Cove. The recommendations
offered were a result of carefully collecting and
compiling survey data while considering practical
elements such as building on existing infrastructure and
cultural aspects of the city. The students produced
detail maps and charts of their often imaginative and
fresh ideas. |
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