Larry “Chip” Hunter, dean of Washington State University’s Carson College of Business, says the Pullman campus will begin more outreach to Spokane’s business community, hoping to create more learning and employment opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students.

And with WSU’s Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine now accepting medical school applications, after having just gained membership to the Association of American Medical Colleges, Hunter says Carson College soon will begin partnering with health sciences departments at the med school, hoping to create more opportunities for both business and medical students.

“One of the reasons I’m up here today is to talk to Dr. T (WSU med school dean John Tomkowiak) about creating a joint pharmacy MBA program,” said Hunter, interviewed by the Journal on Nov. 3 while he was at the WSU Spokane campus.

“The idea is, ‘How can we help med students think more entrepreneurially?’’’ he said.

But Hunter added that WSU isn’t seeking to place a more comprehensive MBA program on the WSU Spokane campus.

“We wouldn’t do an MBA up here. There are enough folks—like Gonzaga University—who are already doing high-quality MBA work for students,” he says.

Hunter, who was hired as dean 16 months ago and grew up in nearby Moscow, Idaho, says he wants Carson College to have more interaction with Spokane businesses to create internships and other learning projects for business school students.

“I think we need to do a lot more in Spokane,” says the Moscow High School graduate.

Established in 1963, WSU’s Carson College of Business has a total of 3,600 undergraduate students and 700 graduate students, most of whom are on the Pullman campus. A new satellite campus opened recently in Everett, and business students also are attending classes at the Tri-Cities and Vancouver campuses.

Prior to his arrival, Hunter served for three years as the senior associate dean and faculty member at the Wisconsin School of Business at University of Wisconsin-Madison. He led the school’s nationally ranked full-time MBA program for two of those three years.

Prior to joining the University of Wisconsin in 2002, he spent eight years on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania from 1994 to 2002.

Hunter earned his doctoral degree in industrial relations and human resource management from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994. He has a master’s degree from Oxford University in the United Kingdom and earned his bachelor’s degree at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1986.

“I was happy as a faculty member at UW-Madison and setting things up in leadership,” Hunter says. “But the University of Wisconsin system is under financial pressure. Washington State University has great appeal because there truly is a commitment to a broad-based student body.”

“A third of our student body are first-generation students. There’s all that and the fact my mom lives in Pullman,” he says. 

Upon taking over as dean at WSU, one of Hunter’s first tasks was to hire Suzi Billington as director of the Carson Center for Student Success in the career services department.

Hunter says he wants to continue strengthening the business school’s cocurricular support by adding more career and academic advisers.

“Students need to be prepared to take advantage of learning how to write resumes, have strong presentation in interviews, and know how to network,” he says.

Hunter returns to the Palouse with his wife, Julie, and a perpetually “bad golf game,” he says. The couple has a daughter who’s an elementary school teacher in Kansas City, Mo., and their youngest daughter is a senior at Boston University. He says he’s an avid reader, loves a variety of music, and is a trivia buff.

He graduated from high school in 1980 and spent a year at the University of Idaho before transferring to Pennsylvania.

“As my time in college progressed, I realized I wanted to understand business but not be a businessman,” Hunter says.

“My classmates were trying to figure out how to get to the best firms on Wall Street, but I was more captivated by how Wall Street even works. What makes the country tick? If you can understand the workplace, there’s a high probability of being successful,” he says.

“That’s when I realized I probably wanted to do a doctorate and go on to be a researcher,” he says.

The Carson College of Business is housed in Todd Hall, something that Hunter says is both a “blessing and a curse.”

“It’s a blessing because it’s in a centralized location on campus. It’s a curse because it’s not modernized and small,” he says.

Hunter uses the University of Southern California, which recently constructed a new business school facility, as an example of a school that recently modernized its business building.

“It has 20 traditional classrooms and 60 breakout rooms,” Hunter says. “We’ve got 60 traditional classrooms and two breakout rooms.” 

The breakout rooms allow for more intimate settings for instructors and students and are equipped with wireless technology for online access.

Hunter says he’s had preliminary conversations with WSU President Kirk Schulz about the possibility of launching a capital campaign that would fund the construction of a new business school.

“He’s indicated to me that he’d like to see us do it, and it would probably have to be done this way because there’s probably not going to be legislative assistance in the process,” Hunter says.

Hunter has invited Pacific Northwest business leaders and WSU alumni to a fundraising event at Herban Feast SODO Park in downtown Seattle today. The reception-style event is being held to raise funds to support the college’s Dean’s Excellence Fund.

“The money raised will help us move closer toward our aspirational goal of becoming the first choice for students seeking a business education in the Pacific Northwest,” Hunter says.