'We're basically a dating agency'

Calgary has emerged as the No. 2 corporate city in Canada behind Toronto. So what is it like to be a business dean in this volatile energy hotbed? Leonard Waverman, who built his career in Toronto and London, England, came to the Haskayne School of Business at University of Calgary almost two years ago.

The 68-year-old economist was interviewed on the day that Financial Times rankings showed that Haskayne's executive MBA program, run jointly with University of Alberta's business school, is No. 36 in the world.

Do you really care about rankings?

Yes, we care, because they basically tell you how well you're doing. It's benchmarking.

Besides the rankings, what's new around the school?

We have a new joint program with U of A which will be an accelerated one-year MBA. It's for people with a BCom already. And it's exciting to us that University of Calgary has a new building downtown that is opening in September of next year.

We're going to be in that building. We're going to be launching a morning part-time MBA.

Why a morning class?

This is a very early rising town. The class starts at 7 a.m. Most guys are at their desks by 7 in this city because it is driven by the markets, which open at 9:30 a.m. in Toronto and 7:30 a.m. here. People here are up at the crack of dawn - I can't get used to it.

Calgary saw the energy bubble pop. How has the school fared in the downturn?

Most business schools are counter-cyclical businesses because people would rather have 'MBA' on their CV, rather than 'unemployed.' So that is driving some of our numbers [which are up in the MBA program.]

There have certainly been layoffs in Calgary. But the unemployment rate for the province is still under 6 per cent. So although there has been a big jump in unemployment, if you think the natural rate of unemployment is 5 per cent, we are not doing that badly.

We have seen the oil price come back to about $79. For the province, $79 doesn't mean as much as if the Canadian dollar were still at 85 cents. And natural gas prices are low - although a bit higher with the approach of winter. That is affecting the government finances and, therefore, what we can hope to draw on.

Does Calgary have a business school that reflects its status?

Yes. But I was meeting with one of our executive MBAs from 1999-2001, and he said we don't market well enough how much the program helps entrepreneurs.

He built and sold a company and now he has a new venture going. He said while doing his executive MBA, he suddenly got this flash of inspiration. "I never thought of going out on my own," he thought, "but now I have all this skill set."

He wanted to meet with me because when he looks at our marketing, it seems directed at middle managers as a "take-over-your-boss's-job" kind of thing.

Before you arrived in early 2008, the school had lost two deans in a short time. Is this a turnaround situation?

I don't think so. All that happened was simply unfortunate, but there wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with the school.

I think it was just revolving deans, but not for any reason.

So it was an image issue?

Sure, it has had image problems. I have spent a lot of my effort rebuilding relationships in downtown Calgary with the business community. For example, we have a whole new set of seminar series, called Fridays with the Faculty, which we started recently. It used to run here previously - it's faculty describing what their research is. It's at the Petroleum Club on the third Friday of every month. We also have a monthly dean's seminar series downtown.

It sounds like a downtown presence is important to you.

This is a business school. Business people are the people we talk to, relate to, help, work with - and they send us students. We're like Google. All business schools are platforms. We're a two-sided platform. We have a lot of stakeholders but two main constituencies. We have employers and we have students. We're basically a dating agency. We're taking students and turning them into people employers want. If we didn't have good students, employers wouldn't show up. If we didn't have any employers coming, the students wouldn't show up.

What's special about the MBA program here?

It is the sustainability, corporate social responsibility [CSR] and energy stuff you can do here. So you can have this concentration in global energy-management and sustainability. The Haskayne School has been doing that since 1994 when they established its centre on sustainability. It's also the internships, co-op program, and in the career centre, everything we do to make sure there is a job down the line for you. It is that integration with the business community.

We have a very big mentoring program. This year 166 MBA and BCom students are being mentored by 166 people from 88 firms.

How do you counter the impression that MBA grads created this economic crisis?

We have a BCom elective on a trial basis called Applied Leadership which involves a team project done in the community. But we're still grappling with what to call this stuff, which will be brought into the MBA program as well.

CSR and ethics are the wrong wording - it is really about social giving, social involvement. Students have a kind of a change-the-world mentality. In business schools we have to recognize this. We're not just training middle managers, we are also training people who want to change the world.

Does it help to be in a place where there is a lot of controversy about the environment?

Across Canada, people would not understand - and I didn't understand - that Calgary and Alberta really are at the environmental edge. There is a lot of environmental consciousness because of the beauty of this province and the students coming out of Alberta really are at the leading edge.

What do your lose sleep over?

I lose sleep over the provincial finances. This is a boom-and-bust province and how do you adjust to that? And universities get caught in the boom and bust. We don't get that much boom but we certainly see the bust. It's a tough province to manage fiscally.