Nancy Russo
by Joe King
At Slobomir P. University, a group of students is grappling with a project that challenges them to find locations in Bosnia-Herzegovina where fast food restaurants might thrive.
It’s a tougher assignment than one might think.
For most of the students, fast food restaurants are a foreign concept and so is the idea of class projects. Most universities in their country still rely upon an old-school model of education that is based exclusively upon lectures and exams – no projects, no case studies and no outside speakers.
Such a situation was simply not tolerable to Slobodan “Mike” Pavlovic, who founded Slobomir with the vision of creating a western-style university to graduate students better equipped to help set his homeland back on the road not only to prosperity, but also to peace.
“We need educated people who understand how to function in the global marketplace and who know how to negotiate rather than wage war. This university will help create that.”
Looking for a western university to assist him in those efforts, he recruited the NIU College of Business.
“When this was first proposed, we thought of it in terms of a way for the college to achieve its strategic objective of establishing some international relationships,” says Denise Schoenbachler, dean of NIU’s business school. “However, it quickly became more than that. On our first visit there, when we spoke to the students and the faculty at Slobomir, it was clear that they truly believe education is the road to peace. After a little investigating we realized that not only did we have the capacity to help them, but that it was something we had to do.”
Leading that initiative for NIU is Nancy Russo, past chair of the college’s Department of Operations Management and Information Technology. Russo is technically a visiting professor at Slobomir, but she carries the title of acting rector and carries out essentially the duties of a university president.
“It’s an amazing and rare opportunity to be part of building a university almost from the ground up,” says Russo, whose seven years as chair of OMIS gave her invaluable experience in skills such as designing assessment systems, establishing a network of alumni and business partners and recruiting students.
Implementing those structures is crucial, says Russo, but she also spends a good deal of her time implementing the sort of hands-on learning that is the cornerstone of classes at the NIU College of Business.
“Most universities there are almost entirely theory-based,” she says. “They talk a lot about how things should work and little about how they do work. Students have few opportunities to apply what they have learned in the real world.”
Introducing students to a new teaching style isn’t the only hurdle, Russo says. The university also finds itself working to change attitudes and instill an entrepreneurial spirit.
“Even though the war has been over for more than 15 years, its effects are still devastating,” Russo says. “It destroyed most of the industry in the region, and to this day unemployment remains around 40 percent. You have to change their ideas about what is possible.”
A cornerstone in her efforts to do that is the introduction of the Business Learning Center, modeled on the Experiential Learning Center pioneered at the NIU College of Business.
In the ELC, NIU students take on actual projects from companies such as Caterpillar, McKesson, Walmart as well as smaller businesses and even not-for profit agencies, analyzing problems and proposing solutions.
The fast food project at Slobomir is an example of an effort to implement a similar program there. Russo has recruited representatives from a handful of companies that have worked with the ELC at NIU to visit Slobomir and share their experience with faculty and local businesses.
A few local businesses have signed on, and faculty around Slobomir (in the business school and beyond) are excited about adapting the concept to their own areas. For instance, Slobomir’s law school is contemplating creating a mock courtroom, while the “fiscal academy” is creating a tax preparation service to assist the public.
Such developments please Pavlovic.
“We are already the best university in the country,” he boasts. “No other university has students that can walk out of the classroom and into a job and be as well prepared.”