Year: 2018

Here, We Do

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Driehaus College of Business Dean Misty Johanson
Driehaus College of Business Dean Misty Johanson | Photo by Kathy Hillegonds

Here, our students are transformed into socially responsible leaders through a real-world education and experiential learning opportunities involving the Chicago business community and our strong alumni network.”

If you’ve ridden on public transportation or driven in Chicago over the past six months, you’ve likely seen billboards featuring DePaul’s new brand campaign, Here, We Do. The campaign succinctly expresses what’s uniquely rewarding about the DePaul educational experience. It proudly says that at DePaul, students learn by doing in an urban environment full of opportunity, inspired by Vincentian values that encourage our graduates to make a difference in the world.

This message applies especially well to our business college. Here, our students are transformed into socially responsible leaders through a real-world education and experiential learning opportunities involving the Chicago business community and our strong alumni network.

Our college recently expanded these opportunities by creating two new student success centers modeled after the Marriott Foundation Center for Student Development and Engagement, which opened at the School of Hospitality Leadership two years ago. We have established the John L. Keeley Jr. Center for Financial Services, which will encompass academies supporting finance students (see page 2), and an Office of Student Success and Engagement for accountancy majors with support from alumnus Kent Klaus. The goal of both initiatives is to engage industry partners and alumni mentors with our students to ensure that students not only gain business expertise, but also master communication, networking, teamwork and leadership skills that are essential for professional and personal success.

Our college’s centers and institutes also embody Here, We Do. In July, we opened the Women in Entrepreneurship Institute at the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center to promote the growth and sustainability of women-founded businesses through education, research and incubation initiatives. The institute is supported by an outstanding committee of Chicago women business leaders who believe that here, we can do more to help women entrepreneurs succeed.

Our belief in Here, We Do also is part of our future plans. This fall, we will finalize the college’s strategic plan for the next six years. The three pillars of this new plan are to strengthen our connections to the Chicago business community, alumni and donors; expand our student success initiatives that add value to earning a DePaul business degree; and deepen the culture of excellence in our academic community. The plan also challenges us to examine our graduate program mix to ensure that it is addressing the evolving needs of our students. As we celebrate the 70th anniversary of our flagship part-time MBA program, our college also is reaching new student markets through on-site corporate MBA programs, specialized master’s degrees and a doctorate in business program, which produced its first graduating class in June.

Together we are embarking on our 2024 strategic plan with a Here, We Do spirit. To learn more, I invite you to read this Q&A, where I’ll discuss where our college is headed under our new strategic plan.

Misty Johanson signature

Misty Johanson
Dean
Driehaus College of Business

John L. Keeley Jr. Center for Financial Services Launched

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Eli Brewer and Pavel Savor
Elijah Brewer, chair of DePaul’s Department of Finance, and Paul G. Savor, newly appointed Christopher L. Keeley Chair in Investment Management. | Photo by Kathy Hillegonds

Finance students will benefit from innovative academic and cocurricular programming at the newly named John L. Keeley Jr. Center for Financial Services, thanks to a $3 million commitment from the family of the late finance executive John L. Keeley Jr. and the Keeley Family Foundation to the business college.

The new center will support academies with cutting-edge curricula in several finance specialties, including a Wealth Management Academy that provides students with expertise in private portfolio management and financial planning. The center also will select students from the academies to become Keeley Scholars, giving them access to professional development workshops, mentorships, internships and career networking opportunities with the center’s industry partners.

John L. Keeley Jr.
John L. Keeley Jr.

Longtime donors to DePaul, the Keeley family and their foundation previously committed $2 million to fund an endowed academic chair in investment management and $1 million to develop a virtual trading room for students at the business college.

“The Keeleys have been DePaul supporters for more than a decade, ensuring that we provide our students with an education that bridges theory and practice,” says A. Gabriel Esteban, PhD, DePaul’s president. “We are grateful for their generosity and thank them for providing endowments that will prepare another generation with these skills.”

Misty Johanson, dean of the Driehaus College of Business, says the center supports the college’s goal to “produce well-rounded, career-ready graduates who possess not only the analytical and technical skills required to succeed, but also the leadership, communication and teamwork abilities necessary to thrive in the workplace.”

John L. Keeley Jr., who died in 2015, was the founder and chief investment officer of Keeley Asset Management Corp. (KAMCO, now known as Keeley Teton Advisors) and the Keeley Family Foundation. Keeley and his wife, Barbara, endowed the Christopher L. Keeley Chair in Investment Management at DePaul in 2006. The chair honors their youngest son, Christopher, a 1997 DePaul business college alumnus and KAMCO officer who died suddenly at age 29 from a pulmonary embolism in 2002.

John L. Keeley III, John’s oldest son and an adjunct professor of economics at DePaul, says, “The new center embodies our father’s belief that students learn best and ultimately succeed by doing. It will provide opportunities for students to apply their classroom knowledge to the real world of finance.”

In a related development, Pavel G. Savor has been appointed Christopher L. Keeley Chair in Investment Management at DePaul. The Harvard- and Yale-educated Savor joined the faculty July 1 to teach, conduct research and coordinate industry outreach for DePaul’s finance program.

“The new Keeley center and chair raise the profile of our finance program by giving students access to real-world skills and innovative thought leadership,” says Elijah Brewer, chair of DePaul’s Department of Finance. With the new academy as a model, Brewer adds, the department is seeking support to create student cocurricular programs for the finance department’s other academic specialties.

Women in Entrepreneurship Institute Opens

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Abigail Ingram, assistant director at the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center.
Abigail Ingram, assistant director of the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center, is leading DePaul’s Women in Entrepreneurship Institute initiative.

Entrepreneurship among women has been on the rise nationally for two decades, yet venture capital and other resources are often scarce for women business founders. To help redress this disparity and support the success and sustainability of women-owned firms, the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center has launched the Women in Entrepreneurship Institute (WEI).

Abigail Ingram, assistant director of the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center, says the intent is to create the nation’s first comprehensive institute for women founders that integrates academic learning, research, incubation, funding and public policy. “Right now, women are getting just 2 percent of venture capital funding, and less than 2 percent of women-owned businesses reach a million dollars in revenue,” Ingram says. Illinois also is in the lowest 20 percent of U.S. states when it comes to the economic clout of women-owned businesses, according to the “2017 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report.” “We would like to change that,” Ingram asserts.

WEI’s programming encompasses pitch competitions, business incubation space and women in entrepreneurship fellowships, as well as a research initiative to examine why and how women-owned businesses are funded. A new course in women in entrepreneurship featuring leading women business founders as speakers is being developed. Future plans include funding a women in entrepreneurship academic chair.

WEI is backed by a committee of prominent women entrepreneurs and business leaders, some of whom serve on the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center Advisory Board. A key champion of the effort is Joan Hannant, CEO of the Soma Institute, who says the challenges she faced when she entered entrepreneurship motivated her to support WEI. “The Women in Entrepreneurship Institute is very personal for me, as I see it as a vehicle to provide support and programming to help female founders succeed— support I craved, but could not find when I started out.”

Hospitality School Director Named

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Nicholas J. Thomas
Nicholas J. Thomas

Nicholas J. Thomas, interim associate director of the School of Hospitality Leadership at DePaul University, has been promoted to director of the school and associate professor with tenure effective July 1. He succeeds Misty Johanson, who was named dean of the DePaul’s Driehaus College of Business on March 1.

In his new role, Thomas will oversee the school’s academic programs, industry outreach and centers, including the J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation Center for Student Development and Engagement, which he has directed since it was established in 2016.

“I am confident that under Nick’s leadership the school is in good hands and its reputation as Chicago’s premier hospitality business program will continue to grow,” Johanson says.

Thomas’s passion for the hospitality industry began when he was a teenaged bellman in a Baltimore hotel near his home town of Ellicott City, Md. After finishing high school, he earned a bachelor’s degree in hotel administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He worked in hotel operations while in college and, after becoming a hotel employee trainer, developed a strong interest in hospitality teaching and research.

Thomas completed master’s and PhD degrees in hospitality administration at UNLV and was chair of academic affairs for the UNLV’s Singapore campus hospitality program. In 2011, Nicholas and his wife, Lisa Thomas, who also earned a PhD in hospitality administration from UNLV, both joined the faculty of DePaul’s School of Hospitality Leadership, which is part of DePaul’s business college.

Thomas’s teaching and research interests include human resource management, generation Y hospitality employees and the casino and entertainment industry. He is excited to lead the school and continue creating real-world learning opportunities for its students through the school’s strong industry partnerships.

“I feel really confident that what we do inside the classroom is solid, it’s rigorous,” he says. “The students are acquiring knowledge and figuring out how to apply that knowledge. But I think what differentiates us is what we do outside of the classroom—how we do industry job recruitment, the kind of personalized career guidance that the (Marriott) center provides, the mentorships that faculty and industry offer students, and the half-dozen student clubs we have.

“For a program of our size, I think we have an extremely large footprint in the hospitality industry.”

By Robin Florzak

The Future of the MBA

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Roots Remain, New Branches Emerge

Keeping the MBA relevant in an ever-changing economy and workplace has always been a central challenge for business schools.

By Erich Dierdorff and Bob Rubin

MBA illustration

Founded in 1912, DePaul’s business college is one of the 10 oldest in the United States. This history reflects DePaul’s deep roots in the establishment of collegiate business education. These roots extend to the DePaul MBA, as well, which is set to celebrate its 70th anniversary. While it might seem that the MBA has always been a part of the business school landscape, it is interesting to note that it was a rather innovative idea at the time DePaul launched its program. In fact, by the 1955–56 academic year, only 3,890 university-based MBAs were awarded in the entire United States.

Today, the MBA is the gold standard of achievement in business education, with more than 100,000 degrees conferred annually. The evidence documenting the benefits of the degree is convincing. Decades of research by the Graduate Management Admission Council and the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business demonstrate the value associated with the MBA, including the development of business knowledge and skills, expedited career advancement, enhanced professional networks and increased economic outcomes. These benefits directly derive from the scope of the training provided by the MBA, which spans business acumen and foundational business knowledge.

Source of Value, Target of Criticism

It might be surprising to learn that despite the clear value of the degree, the MBA has been a continual target of criticism from both academics and business leaders in each decade since its inception. The earliest and most influential of these critiques were two commissioned studies published in 1959 by the Carnegie Foundation and the Ford Foundation. The reports lambasted business schools of the 1950s for their lack of focus on curriculum quality, low intellectual standards and overemphasis on vocational training. The report recommended the emergence of a new “managerial science” to provide a strong foundation for MBA education and a curriculum that would be steeped in the behavioral sciences, rather than intuition-based managerial practice.

The reaction of business schools to the Ford and Carnegie reports was to create what has become the modern business school curriculum, with functional coursework in accounting, finance, operations, statistics, economics, marketing and management. To facilitate a managerial science approach, business schools began to hire faculty members with doctoral training who not only could teach in their subject areas, but also would transform the school into centers of research excellence.

This blueprint took root in the 1960s and remains largely intact today. Beyond these early critiques and the resulting curriculum blueprint, the MBA has continued to be a focus of blame for faulty business practices and economic struggles. The degree has even been reviled, with headlines calling for the “End of Business Schools” and “Managers not MBAs,” and urging universities to “Bulldoze Business Schools.” Yet for all these criticisms, the truth is that the MBA has evolved continually to meet the unique demands and challenges of the business environment.

Today, the MBA is the gold standard of achievement in business education, with more than 100,000 degrees conferred annually.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, as the economy began shifting toward more knowledge-based work, the demand for conceptual and interpersonal skills related to service quality, business strategy and leadership began to emerge within MBA curricula. Similarly, events and changing business landscapes shortly after 2000 brought about an increased focus on ethics and globalization that resulted in remaking MBA programs to cover topics such as international business, supply chains and business ethics. Thus, while the “administrative” roots of the MBA have remained consistent throughout the years, the MBA always has been a malleable degree designed to equip business professionals for the contemporary challenges they will face.

Challenges and Opportunities Ahead

The challenges that face higher education are well documented and include shrinking college-age populations, increasing competitiveness in the educational market and the integration of learning technology. We see four additional and emerging challenges for business schools in particular. Addressing these challenges will be essential to ensure the relevance and ongoing benefits of the MBA.

  1. Bridging the “knowing-doing gap” in business education. Organizations are increasingly expecting graduates not only to possess business know-how, but also to immediately convert such knowledge into skilled performance to solve today’s complex business problems. Addressing this challenge means MBA programs must more effectively integrate experiential learning with more traditional lecture and case-based learning techniques. In addition, translating knowledge into proficient execution requires that students receive accurate skill-based feedback to promote self-awareness and development. At DePaul, we integrate substantial skill-based feedback through all stages of the MBA program and utilize external assessment and simulations to accelerate self-awareness and professional development.
  2. Preparing students for the impact of technology and automation on work. A 2017 McKinsey report forecasted that one-third of U.S. workers will need to transition to new occupations by 2030 due to automation of occupational tasks. These workforce changes are also predicted to increase employment demand for managerial roles across nearly every industry sector, as individuals will “spend more time on activities that machines are less capable of, such as managing people, applying expertise and communicating with others … requiring more social and emotional skills, and more advanced cognitive capabilities, such as logical reasoning and creativity.” Addressing this challenge means MBA programs must ensure not only that students have the conceptual skills to extract value from the output of machines, but also have a clear understanding of how such machine power may be misused or socially harmful.
  3. Addressing the growing demand for critical thinking and data analytics expertise. Here, another McKinsey report points to the striking talent gap for managers that are “big data savvy,” that is, those with basic knowledge of statistics who can pose the right questions for analysis, interpret and challenge the results, and apply these insights to decision-making. This challenge requires MBA programs not only to continue traditional coursework that teaches basic quantitative skills (e.g., statistics), but also to offer new training that builds the critical thinking skills needed to understand how to use data-driven insights strategically, as well as to recognize the strengths and weaknesses inherent in the data being collected and analyzed. Through new coursework in business analytics, and a new MS in Business Analytics degree, plus a greater emphasis on data science and digital transformation, DePaul is looking to equip graduate business students with these technical and critical-thinking skills.
  4. Balancing the need for specialization and generalized managerial competencies. The MBA is a degree intended to provide general managerial skills that apply across any business function, organization or industry. Today, many MBA students have less work experience, especially managerial experience, and come to the graduate program with only an undergraduate business degree. The shifts described above have created the need for more specialized expertise in many areas of business. Thus, business schools need to build longer-term commitments to students’ learning by creating stackable degree programs from specialized master’s degrees to doctorates in business administration, as well as short-term certificate and professional education programs to keep up with the pace of change. At DePaul, we’ve made investments in such educational programs and, in keeping with our mission, have increased access to our programs by partnering with professional associations and corporations to offer customized approaches to learning.

The Driehaus College of Business has always evolved to meet the shifting demands of the workplace. Its faculty are nationally recognized as among the most prolific researchers of business education. From leading the integration of ethics into business education and using experiential and simulation-based learning to infusing multiple points of skill-based feedback for professional development and expanding degree offerings to include specialized master’s and doctoral degrees, DePaul remains at the forefront of graduate business education. It is through changes such as these that we see a bright future for business education at DePaul and look forward to the 100th anniversary of the DePaul MBA and beyond.

Professor Erich Dierdorff and Professor and Associate Dean of Graduate & Professional Education Bob Rubin, who both teach within DePaul's Department of Management & Entrepreneurship.
DePaul Professor of Management and Associate Dean of Graduate & Professional Education Robert Rubin (at right) and Professor of Management Erich Dierdorff (at left) are nationally known researchers and authors on graduate business education trends.

The Power of Mentoring

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Matching Gift Launches Accounting Student Initiative

Kent Klaus
Kent Klaus (BUS ’82)

When Kent Klaus (BUS ’82) looks back at his undergraduate years at DePaul University’s Driehaus of College Business, one thing stands out: the mentoring he received along the way.

“DePaul is unique in the ways that it supports our students by giving them access to lots of mentoring. I am a strong believer in the power of mentoring and credit it with being a lifelong key to my success,” says Klaus, a partner in Global Employer Services at Deloitte Tax LLP who also has served as an adjunct instructor at the Driehaus College of Business periodically since 1988.

Raised on the Southwest Side of Chicago, Klaus commuted to DePaul. As a sophomore, he landed his first professional job at an accounting firm, which he found through DePaul’s Career Center. After 20 years at Arthur Andersen, Klaus began working for Deloitte in 2002. He and his wife, Susan, live in Mount Prospect, Ill.

If it weren’t for DePaul, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I want to pay that forward to a new generation of students.”

An outspoken advocate for diversity and inclusion for people with disabilities in the professional services industry, Klaus has been instrumental in making the accounting profession a more inclusive place. “This is always a delicate topic because it puts a mirror up against my profession,” he says. “From my perspective, it would serve professional services well if we could project an image in the marketplace that shows that not only do we want people with disabilities to work with us, but we encourage them to do so.”

Klaus is a member of the college’s advisory council and past president and board member of Ledger & Quill, the School of Accountancy and MIS giving society. Now he is giving back to DePaul yet again.

Through a generous gift from Klaus, matched by the Deloitte Foundation, the School of Accountancy & MIS will soon gain a valuable addition: the Office of Student Success and Engagement.

This one-stop shop for skills training and access to professionals in the field aims to give students the comprehensive support they need for career and life success, from résumé and interviewing workshops to regular interactions with top Chicago employers.

“The idea is to tie all of those resources together so that students can access the full breadth of services available to them from the school and the university,” says Klaus.

Not surprisingly, what excites him the most is the mentoring. “The biggest thing that I hope we’ll accomplish with this initiative is to identify mentors for students who will be available to them for the length of time that they’re here at the university,” he says.

This project brings Klaus full circle. “If it weren’t for DePaul, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I want to pay that forward to a new generation of students,” he says.

By Robin Florzak

Tips on Negotiating Job Offers and Raises from a Professor Who Wrote a Book About It

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Associate Professor of Management Charles E. Naquin
Whether you are a recent graduate about to enter the job market or an alumnus looking for a raise or new employment opportunities, one of the most important skills you need to master is negotiation. We asked Driehaus College of Business Associate Professor of Management Charles E. Naquin, an organizational behaviorist and co-author of “The Essentials of Job Negotiations: Proven Strategies for Getting What You Want,” for advice that will tip the job negotiation scale in your favor.

How should I respond when they ask how much I expect to make?

Generally speaking, don’t answer this question. Instead, you should respectfully deflect. A key word here is respectfully. A job negotiation should never be antagonistic. However, you do want to deflect because answering this question typically never helps you and can actually hurt you. So, don’t play that game—instead, respectfully deflect. Here are some examples:

“I’m getting my MBA so my prior salary doesn’t matter.”
“I’m switching industries so my prior salary should not be considered.”
“What I’m making does not matter so much, what I would like is to be paid competitively to my peers.”

You get the picture—respectfully deflect and have a few responses in your back pocket. This is a question you will likely have to address on multiple occasions during the same interaction.

Will I offend my future boss/employer because I am negotiating the job offer?

That’s a myth. Keep it respectful, not antagonistic, and you should be fine. In fact, it is more likely that your future employer will respect you even more if you negotiate because you are obviously business savvy.

What do employers dislike about job negotiations?

Most employers making job offers expect you to negotiate and many will actually offer a starting salary lower than what they expect to actually pay you because they anticipate you’ll negotiate it to a higher level. Therefore, employers typically expect negotiations and they don’t dislike them. What they DO tend to dislike are protracted job negotiations (so keep it short) or someone who pits one job offer against another (so don’t do that). ​

What is the biggest error that people make in job negotiations?

I would say the biggest error I see in job negotiations from a candidate’s perspective is negotiating before you even have an offer in hand. There are a number of reasons why you do not want to start negotiating before you get a written offer. Among them is that a verbal offer is easy to withdraw, while a written offer is not. In addition, once you get a written offer, the nature of the interaction changes — they (your potential employer) switch from “who should I make an offer to” to “how do we get you to sign.”

What is the NEXT biggest error you see in job negotiations?

The second biggest mistake is negotiating the job package over email (or worse yet, texting) when face-to-face is a viable option. Arranging a face-to-face meeting is often more work than emailing (or texting), but the dynamics in face-to-face job negotiations tend to work to your advantage while the dynamics of email (or texting) tend to work to your disadvantage — again, this is true in job negotiations (and is not true for all negotiations).

There are a number of reasons why this is the case. A person will have a harder time declining your requests when they are face-to-face with you than if they were looking at your requests on a computer screen. In addition, it sends the message that you place a high priority on this job opportunity if you take the time to meet face-to-face.

I once had a student fly from Chicago to Kansas City for what ended up being a 15-minute conversation about a job package, and ended up with several thousand dollars more in salary. Would this have happened over the phone? Maybe, but a jump in base salary in the thousands paid for that trip many times over and increased the odds of getting a favorable response. That investment in time and airfare for a face-to-face meeting was a worthy investment in my mind.

Offer to take your potential employer for a cup of coffee (as an example) and have a face-to-face conversation about the job offer. Negotiating job packages face-to-face is to your advantage, so take the time to set up a meeting.

What is your advice for asking for a raise?

That is a common question when I talk to alumni. People who have been working for a number of years may come to realize they are getting paid less than the market wage. Naturally, they want to know how to get a raise—at least get paid what the going market wage is. Is there a way to do this? Well, let me be upfront here — negotiating a new job offer is much easier than getting a raise internally in an organization. Internally there are many restrictions — whether it is administrative (e.g., caps on raises) or political (e.g., your boss does not like you). Here is the best strategy to take, in the sense that it is generally the one that is most likely to work — change companies. When you switch companies your salary tends to be reset to market wage.

What if you don’t want to change companies, do you have advice on getting a raise?

That is a complex issue that cannot be covered properly in a forum like this Q&A, but there are a few things you should know that can be helpful. First, for you to get a big raise you should make sure you are on good terms with your boss. If not, forget it — look for another position, whether internal or external. Second, figure out where you are salary wise in the company. Often companies will have a range of salaries for each level, often called bands. Find out where you are in your band. This knowledge will help when you talk with your boss about what it takes move up in the band, or if you are at the top of the band, discuss with your boss what it will take to go to the next level and higher band.

By Andrew Zamorski

DePaul MBA Milestones

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The 1950s: From GI to MBA

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The late John Graven, a World War II veteran who attended DePaul on the GI Bill, established scholarship funds to help others earn DePaul degrees.
The late John P. Graven (back row, far left), a World War II veteran who attended DePaul on the GI Bill, established scholarship funds to help others earn DePaul degrees.

 

John P. Graven (BUS ’49, MBA ’50) was in DePaul’s first class of 15 MBA graduates. Like many college students of his era, he was a veteran of World War II. He served in the U.S. Army, and memories of his wartime experiences were still fresh in his mind when he entered DePaul. One memory, which he later shared with his wife, remained especially vivid.

“He was among the troops that liberated Buchenwald,” says Anastasia P. Graven (MA ’64) of her husband, who died at age 81 in 2006. The Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, held Holocaust survivors and political prisoners from across Europe. “The American Army wanted to reassure the prisoners that they were not another army coming to overcome them. The generals said, ‘We have to explain to the prisoners that we are here to save them.’”

Anastasia Graven and her husband, the late John Graven,
Anastasia Graven
and her husband,
the late John Graven.

The commanders asked GIs who spoke the detainees’ various languages to step forward to tell the survivors they were free. Graven, the son of Greek immigrants who settled in Chicago, volunteered to talk to the Greek survivors. “They told him to say, ‘We are Americans, we are here to help you and save you and return you to your own countries,’” Anastasia says. “The Greek prisoners fell on their knees, kissed (the soldiers’) hands and thanked them. He was a 19-year-old kid, overwhelmed by all this. It was a very moving event in his life.”

When Graven’s service ended, he returned to Chicago. “It was an opportunity to proceed in life after a harrowing experience,” his wife says. “He wanted to go back to school on the GI Bill, which of course was a big godsend. The GI Bill opened up education for many of that generation. Going to university then was an elite thing.” DePaul’s mission served the non-elite, including military veterans and the children of immigrants who wanted to expand their prospects through education. “DePaul opened its arms and made them feel welcomed, comfortable and accepted,” she says. “He treasured the whole experience.”

Graven entered DePaul’s MBA program right after earning his bachelor’s degree in accountancy. “He always was a numbers man,” Anastasia says. “He worked in accounting at a CPA firm, but he wanted to have the MBA.” He left the firm, attended MBA classes during the day and taught accounting at a junior college at night.

John and Anastasia met in 1949 after Easter Sunday services at Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church, then located on Chicago’s South Side. “He introduced himself and said, ‘Who are you?’” she recalls. “I told him, and he said, ‘I think you are the woman I am going to marry.’” They tied the knot in 1952.

John convinced Anastasia to get her master’s degree at DePaul, and they both went to work in the Chicago Public School system. John was a principal at Taft High School and an assistant superintendent; Anastasia was a principal at Boone Elementary and Stephen Decatur Classical School.

John considered DePaul his “saving place,” Anastasia says. “He told me, ‘When the time comes, and if I have the capacity, I want to support students who go there.’” In 2008, Anastasia established the John and Anastasia Graven Scholarship Funds to benefit business and music students, and she later added an accountancy student scholarship fund.

“John always said he got a good education and it provided him with opportunities to develop and move into the future,” says Anastasia. Through the Gravens’ scholarship funds, 29 DePaul students to date have had the same opportunity to attend DePaul and expand their horizons.

By Robin Florzak

Read about DePaul MBA grads from other decades:

The 1970s: MBA-Powered Leaders

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Richard Driehaus (BUS ’65, MBA ’70, DHL ’02)
Richard Driehaus (BUS ’65, MBA ’70, DHL ’02) gave DePaul a $30 million gift in 2012 to support the recruitment and retention of top business faculty members, and also has contributed to international business and finance education initiatives.

 

Richard H. Driehaus (BUS ’65, MBA ’70, DHL ’02), a finance industry pioneer and philanthropist, and James Jenness (BUS ’69, MBA ’71, DHL ’06), former Kellogg Co. CEO and chairman, both rose from humble beginnings on Chicago’s South Side to become successful business leaders after earning MBAs from DePaul.

Driehaus remembers fondly many of his DePaul business professors and credits one of them, economics Professor William A. Hayes, for encouraging him to finish a final class assignment necessary for earning his MBA. “I was out of the program for a couple years, and he called me up to tell me I had to get in a paper in order to get my MBA degree,” he recalls.

Driehaus submitted a paper titled “The Formation of a New Theory on Growth Investing.” “I was always interested in growth stocks and growth investing,” he says. “Earnings growth is the primary motive of business, so we seek stocks with the following characteristics: accelerating sales and earnings, desirable supporting fundamentals, upward estimate revisions and positive earnings surprises.”

My DePaul education was an important factor in how my career and life have evolved. I commend the university for creating an environment that not only excels in education, but does so in a benevolent way.” – Richard H. Driehaus

The paper coalesced Driehaus’s momentum investing philosophy, which he used to found Driehaus Capital Management in 1979. The philosophy still guides his firm’s investment decisions today.

James Jenness (BUS ’69, MBA ’71, DHL ’06), former Kellogg Co. CEO and chairman, says DePaul “opened up the world” for him.

Jenness, a graduate of Chicago’s Fenger High School, says he wasn’t a very good student until he came to DePaul’s business college. “The quality of the teachers was great,” he says. “Most of the teachers had real-world experience, which I found very valuable.”

“DePaul opened up the world for me,” he says. “I was really interested in marketing, and I wanted to work for a major company. Getting an MBA was a critical piece to be able to do that.”

Jenness rose in the ranks to become vice chairman and chief operating officer of the Leo Burnett advertising agency, and later was tapped to lead Kellogg, one of Burnett’s clients. “I have been lucky enough to work for some great companies and to become the chairman of the board of one of the world’s greatest companies, Kellogg, where I still serve on the board,” he says. “Without a DePaul education, my undergraduate and MBA education, that would never have happened. DePaul was great enabler for me to reach my potential, and I am very grateful for it.”

Both Jenness and Driehaus have given generously of their time and resources to support DePaul’s mission. Jenness chaired DePaul’s Board of Trustees (2011–14) and serves on the business college’s advisory council. Driehaus gave DePaul a $30 million gift in 2012 to support the recruitment and retention of top business faculty members, and also has contributed to international business and finance education initiatives. DePaul acknowledged his devotion to the university by naming the business college for him.

“My DePaul education, as both an undergraduate and through the graduate school of business, was an important factor in how my career and life have evolved,” Driehaus said at the college naming ceremony in 2012. “I commend the university for creating an environment that not only excels in education, but does so in a benevolent way.”

By Robin Florzak

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