Midwestern winters are so cold and long that many of us dream of, and sometimes get to take, an escape to somewhere warm and sunny between January and April. I don’t know about you, but it’s often while on these journeys outside my everyday environment that my mind is also freed to think bigger.

Finding creative solutions to business challenges is a core skill we teach our students. Identifying opportunities and executing on those observations is the first step in entrepreneurial thinking, and we have five alumni who are serial entrepreneurs sharing their best advice.

Forty percent of our faculty’s time is dedicated toward scholarship, which drives the business industry forward. Our faculty conduct and then publish rigorous research in the most respected academic journals. And they are also regularly consulted by journalists from The Wall Street Journal to local TV news channels and newspapers on their areas of scholarly expertise. In this issue, we asked faculty from our academic departments what big idea their research would lead them to enact if they could fiat it into existence. Big ideas can sometimes seem impossible or even silly, but they prompt us to look at things with new eyes and think “what if?" and “why not”? That’s what thinking bigger is all about.  

How do we create environments and surround ourselves with people who expand our perspective on what is possible?

Personally, this involves valuing colleagues, students, industry partners, and alumni who challenge my thinking. It requires relationships that are deep in trust and mutual respect. It requires a connection that holds space for disagreement. And it requires an openness to perspectives outside my own.

Let's always be willing to listen and think big.

Warmly,

Amy Kristof-Brown
Henry B. Tippie Dean

This letter appeared in the Spring 2023 issue of Tippie Magazine.