Author: Laura Counts

How the “I approve” tagline boosts nasty political ads

| by Laura Counts

I Approve This MessageWith primary season just around the corner, voters will soon start hearing a familiar refrain: “I’m Candidate X, and I approve this message.” Since 2002, federal law has required the tagline on all ads paid for by candidates for federal office.

The aim was to discourage negative campaigning. But newly published Berkeley Haas research shows that it’s actually made attack ads more powerful.

“People tend to be suspicious of political rhetoric—especially negative political rhetoric,” says Assoc. Prof. Clayton Critcher of the Haas Marketing Group. “But we found that the mandatory tagline has an unintended effect: It makes ads attacking an opponent’s policy positions seem more credible.”

Ironic effect

Assoc. Prof. Clayton Critcher

In a series of experiments, Critcher and co-researcher Minah Jung of New York University’s Stern School of Business found that adding the tagline to policy-based attack ads not only makes them more believable, but gives people a more positive view of the candidate who gives the tagline endorsement. Their paper, “How Encouraging Niceness Can Incentivize Nastiness: An Unintended Consequence of Advertising Reform,” was published this month in the Journal of Marketing Research.

“Although we think political consultants are not currently aware of this ironic effect, we clearly know regulators did not mean to help to legitimize negative and often misleading ads,” Critcher said.

As a psychologist who studies judgment and decision making, Critcher had long been curious about whether the ubiquitous taglines had any effect on voters. The “I approve this message” tagline originated with the “Stand by Your Ad” (SBYA) provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, better known as McCain-Feingold.

“John McCain had this great speech from the Senate floor in which he said that candidates wouldn’t approve the trash their campaigns were putting out if they had to put their face on screen and stand behind it,” Critcher said. “We now know that despite the law, there has been no slowdown, and in fact an escalation, in negative political advertising.”

The percentage of negative ads swelled from 29 percent in 2000 to 64 percent in 2012, according to research cited in the paper. A CNN analysis found that in the week before the 2016 presidential election, a full 92 percent of ads were negative. While the rise of SuperPACs explains a lot of the growth in negativity, the candidates own messaging has grown more negative as well.

How do voters respond to “I approve”?

But rather than look at whether the mandatory tagline has encouraged politicians to change their messages, Critcher and Jung wanted to know whether it changes how voters respond to those messages—and if so, why.

Past research has found that negative ads can be more effective than positive ones, but campaigners who go negative face the added hurdle of overcoming voter skepticism. This hurdle is higher with character-based hit pieces, which voters may not see as relevant. Does someone’s affair or tax evasion penalty mean they will be a poor leader? In contrast, attacks on an opponent’s policy positions are clearly relevant to the job, but what undermines them are suspicions of their truthfulness. The researchers suspected the tagline might influence that.

The researchers experimented with real and fictional ads in video, audio, and print formats, conducting four experiments on about 2,000 people recruited from universities and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. They used ads from Congressional races from 2006 to 2010, as well as fictional ads they created by editing together snippets from real advertisements.

They began by asking about 400 people to watch eight TV ads aired by Democratic and Republican candidates in recent Congressional races. In this set were positive and negative ads from each party focused on candidates’ character and policy record. Crucially, the researchers edited out the tagline on half of the ads each viewer saw.

What they found is that although the tagline did not consistently change people’s reaction to positive ads or ad hominem attacks, the tagline did give a clear boost to the policy-based attack ads. In addition, people had a more favorable view of candidates running negative ads when the tagline was included. The researchers found the same pattern in a second experiment using ads they wrote themselves, which allowed them to more precisely control for the ads’ content.

The effect was substantial: Across all their experiments, the researchers found that the tagline had an even stronger effect than did partisanship. “It may seem intuitive that Democrats and Republicans believe that Democrats and Republicans, respectively, run truer ads. It is remarkable that mandatory
endorsements can have effects that are at least as large,” they wrote in their paper.

Critcher cautioned, however, that the effect may sound exaggerated, because participants were not generally familiar with the candidates in the ads, and most ads, designed for broad appeal, don’t state candidates’ party affiliation. Still, given the closeness by which many races are decided, campaigns invest heavily in turnout operations that have much smaller effects, he noted.

Why the boost?

The researchers were also surprised when they began parsing out why the tagline works. Do voters not realize the tagline is simply required of all ads? Does it confuse them into thinking regulators have vetted the ads’ content?

They ran two more experiments with large sample sizes (639 people and 565 people) and found that even when participants were told the tagline was required by law, and that no regulators had vetted the content’s veracity, they still said the ads that included a tagline were more believable. Participants also were largely unaware of the tagline’s effect: Even those who said that it didn’t influence their evaluation of the ad were indeed influenced by it.

The researchers were able to invent brand new taglines (which they had voice actors deliver), attach them to ads, and tell participants that the law required candidates to deliver the tagline. They observed the same boost to ad credibility.

“We initially thought the boost came from what sounded like an implicit promise of the ads’ truthfulness—with the candidate putting themselves and their credibility on the line by affirming that they ‘approved’ the message,” Critcher said. “That was a factor, but the bigger effect was the fact that the ad had been touched by regulation. That gave a legitimating halo to the message as a whole.”

Critcher and Jung close their paper by considering whether the tagline should be ditched altogether. Although they didn’t find a perfect solution, they did find that a more neutral tagline—one that can’t be confused for an implicit promise of message truth value (e.g., “My name is X, and I am running for Y”) significantly decreased the unintended consequences.

“We hope that by bringing this to light, policymakers might realize this provision is not serving the public good and find a better way,” he said.

 

More research by Clayton Critcher:

Judging moral character: A matter of principle, not good deeds

 

 

 

Truth or consequences? The negative results of concealing who you really are on the job.

 

 

“Rising Star” award for Asst. Prof. Juliana Schroeder

| by Laura Counts

Juliana SchroederAsst. Prof. Juliana Schroeder_headshot, an assistant professor in the Berkeley Haas Management of Organizations Group, has been honored as a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science.

The award is presented to “outstanding psychological scientists in the earliest stages of their research careers post-PhD.” It’s based on significant publications and recognitions; work with potentially broad impact; and significant discoveries, methodological innovation, or theoretical contributions.

“I’m very honored to have been recognized with this prestigious award,” said Schroeder, who began at Haas in fall 2015 after earning her PhD in psychology and business from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Schroeder’s research on judgment, decision-making, and social cognition offers insights into how people make inferences about others’ mental capacities. One paper found that when people listen to their political opponents’ spoken opinions, they are more receptive—and believe their opponents are smarter—than when they read the very same opinions. The findings underscore the importance of speaking with people who disagree with you.

Another recent series of experiments found that people tend to judge others as less mentally competent than themselves, and consequently less able to take care of themselves. This comes into play in charitable giving, when people choose charities that provide goods and services rather than cash assistance, as well as public policy issues from soda taxes to gun control.

Schroeder’s work has been published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology, and Psychological Science. It has been featured in news outlets such as the The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Newsweek.

Schroeder teaches “Negotiation & Conflict Resolution” in the MBA program and “Research in Micro-Organizational Behavior” in the PhD program. Last fall, she was a Haas “Club 6” member—an honor for faculty who receive high teaching evaluations.

 

More research by Asst. Prof. Juliana Schroeder:

 


Donald or Hillary? Why listening to them matters to voters.

 

 

 

Paternalistic aid_Juliana Schroeder researchA handout or a hand up? How we judge others guides how we help others.

 

 

 

Forecast: Real estate market in “extra innings”

| by Laura Counts

Prof. Kenneth Rosen real estate forecast 2017

We can expect “extra innings” out of the robust real estate economy of the past several years, but all signs indicate we’re approaching the end of the cycle, according to Kenneth Rosen, faculty director of the Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics.

In his annual real estate and economic forecast last week, Rosen also pointed to red flags for California in the proposed GOP tax plan, which he calculated will take a $38 billion bite from taxpayers if the state and local income tax deduction is eliminated. That translates to a 2% to 3% reduction in the state’s economy, he said.

“One-third of people in California are going to face a tax increase that’s going to be quite substantial,” Rosen said. “There are also a number of provisions that will hurt housing, including the property tax deduction limitation and limitations on mortgage interest deductions.”

Peak moment or extra innings?

Rosen’s wide-ranging forecast, presented at the Fisher Center’s 40th Annual Real Estate & Economics Symposium on Nov. 20, was titled “Peak Moment or Extra Innings?” and covered everything from the end of artificially low interest rates to the Bitcoin bubble to an expected uptick in home ownership rates and housing starts.

“It’s important to say that unlike the late 80s or 2004 to 2007, we’re not at a point where real estate values are about to crash. They crashed then because real estate was too expensive relative to everything else—today it’s relatively fairly valued,” he said.  “I think we’re going to see a correction, but my best guess is we’ve got extra innings, a couple more years.”

Rosen said that the “easy money” we’ve had for almost nine years, due to very low interest rates, has created an asset bubble that will come to an end when rates are normalized. But he believes it would take a true shock to the system—a geopolitical event such as a sharp increase in oil prices—to throw the country back into recession.

“Now is the time to harvest. You’re not going to see better pricing,” he told the audience of developers and real estate professionals at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco.

Industrial is the new retail

In terms of real estate, returns on office, retail, and apartments—especially luxury apartments—have already cooled, while the one area that remains hot is industrial spaces. Retail REIT stock prices have fallen 20 percent in the past year, while industrial REITS are up 20 percent, he said.

“Industrial is the new retail,” Rosen said, noting that 60 percent of new warehouse construction is coming from Seattle-based Amazon. At the same time, he predicted massive retail store closures in 2018—again driven by Amazon and other e-commerce outlets.

“There’s a big restructuring happening. Cannibalization is what we call it, and the cannibal lives in Seattle,” he said.

Full-employment economy

Rosen peppered his presentation with barbs aimed at Trump administration policies, including its anti-immigration stance—which will increase construction labor shortages and hurt the rental market—and its budget plan, which will swell the deficit to $700 billion or more, he said.

“This is a widespread, full-employment economy. The last time we had a full-employment economy, we had a budget surplus, so I think this is just a mistake,” he said. “The deficit hawks seem to have disappeared.”

Tax plan hit to California

Rosen recently completed a paper on how the GOP tax cut plan will impact California, looking in detail at the effect of eliminating state and local tax deductions. Such a policy would impact 45 million Americans, disproportionately in California as well as other high-income states like Massachusetts and New York, he says.

Assuming a 35% federal tax rate, Rosen estimated that middle- and high-income Californians would owe an additional $37.9 billion in taxes. He translated that to 2% to 3% drop economic activity in the state, including thousands fewer jobs as well as reduced local sales and property tax revenue for municipal and state governments.

Even if it’s offset somewhat by lower federal tax rates, Rosen said that the plan makes California even more tax disadvantaged relative to other states. “The long-run impact of this worsening relative tax differential means that the tax motivated out-migration from California will accelerate,” he wrote.

Peter Thigpen, ethics instructor to generations of MBA students, passes away

| by Laura Counts

Haas Lecturer Peter Thigpen

Peter Thigpen, a former Levi Strauss & Co. executive who taught business ethics to generations of Haas MBA students, passed away in Mill Valley on Nov. 5 after a short illness. He was 78.

Thigpen had taught “Ethics and Responsible Business Leadership” nearly every spring for the past 25 years, first in the full-time program and most recently in the evening & weekend program.

“He was deeply committed to imparting moral goodness on future generations of business leaders,” said Prof. Ernesto Dal Bó, one of several faculty who worked closely with Thigpen on the ethics course.

“He brought a unique perspective from decades as a successful business leader, teaching students how ethics was a crucial element of true leadership—and that business and ethics were complementary,” added Prof. Rui de Figueiredo. “His deep commitment to his students will leave a lasting imprint at Haas.”

Born Sept. 18, 1939 in Pasadena, Calif., Thigpen attended San Mateo High School and Stanford University, graduating in 1961 with a degree in economics. Driven by a deep belief in public service, he enlisted in the Marine Corps Officers program while at Stanford. He rose to the rank of 1st Lieutenant and worked as a radar intercept officer on F-4B fighter jets, catapulting on and off aircraft carriers. After being honorably discharged in 1964, he returned to Stanford to earn an MBA.

Levi Strauss success

Thigpen joined Levi Strauss in 1967, rising through the ranks to become president of the European division. Based in Brussels, he led the brand’s high growth in the region through the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1982, he was named president of Levi Strauss USA, and served in executive roles and on the board until he retired in 1991.

That “retirement” began a new chapter of his life, as an avid volunteer and board member with several organizations, an active family man, and a Haas School lecturer. Prof. Emeritus David Vogel met Thigpen through their mutual involvement in the Aspen Institute, where Thigpen served as a senior fellow and moderator. Beginning in 1992, they created and co-taught the ethics course for several years before it became part of the core curriculum and they each took on their own sections.

Teaching at Haas

“He was incredibly compassionate and cared deeply about the class,” Vogel said. “He told me he felt it was one of the most important things he could do—talking to future business leaders about ethics.”

Vogel was fond of teaching a case that featured Thigpen as a Levi’s Strauss executive facing a moral dilemma. The central question was how much Thigpen should tell a plant manager about a potential plant closing before it was officially announced. In the thick of the debate, Thigpen would walk into the room.

“It always caused an uproar. He would talk personally and passionately, and students were always inspired by his level of personal engagement,” Vogel said.

Prof. Ernesto Dal Bó used the same case and the same trick—but with Thigpen seated quietly in the room throughout the discussion, which usually included its share of critiques. Halfway through, Dal Bó would introduce him, and he’d stand up and give his take on the situation.

“One thing Pete would transmit within the first second was that he was a really good man having to resolve a really difficult situation, which would quickly bring the drama of the case to new heights,” Dal Bó said. “It was fun to watch someone who had such a successful career re-do the case in a very unassuming way—and allow inexperienced people to pass judgement on him. It was an exercise in humility, and a lesson in more ways than one.”

Both Dal Bó and Vogel said as soon as the course wrapped up each spring, Thigpen would reach out to talk about what to update or improve the next year. They’d compare notes and slides, and share good captions or videos or images.

“We all really loved Pete—he was such a gentleman, and was such a pleasure to work with,” said Dal Bó. “Even after all those years he would say ‘I’m coming here to do it better next time.'”

Dal Bó also taught Thigpen’s son Zach, now a 2nd-year student in the full-time MBA program. “He was incredibly proud of him,” he said.

Renaissance man

Described by his family as a Renaissance man, Thigpen was equally comfortable discussing existentialist philosophy as he was analyzing fantasy football; he was a lover of conversation, fine wine, classical music, and golf. He especially embodied the Haas Defining Leadership Principles of Students Always and Beyond Yourself.

“Believe in your heart of hearts that your fundamental purpose, your reason for being is to enlarge the lives of others, your life will be enlarged. And all the other things we have been taught to concentrate on will take care of themselves,” Thigpen was quoted in his obituary.

He is survived by his loving wife Shelly; brothers Steve and Jeff (Mary Ellen); sons Craig (Sarah), Eric, Chad (Althea) and Zach, grandchildren Lucas, Jacob, Camille, and Bryce; and five nieces and nephews.

In lieu of flowers, please honor Pete with donations to Reach Out & Read.

Chou Hall, greenest building at Cal, opens for business (students)

| by Laura Counts

Chou Hall opens

 

Toting a water bottle and reusable coffee mug, America Gonzalez, MBA 19, said she felt right at home in Connie & Kevin Chou Hall during her orientation week. When a class facilitator asked her to speak up, she simply tapped the glowing green microphone on her desk and her voice was amplified.

“I absolutely love the building. It’s super-modern, and it allowed for all of us to not be easily distracted by the environment,” Gonzalez said. “It really helped us and fostered a good learning environment.”

Going for greenest

More than a decade in the works, Connie & Kevin Chou Hall has opened to students—who are already taking advantage of the state-of-the art space designed solely for class work, group work, and interaction. The 80,000-square-foot structure is not only decked out with the latest classroom technology and flexible learning spaces, but is also on track to be the country’s greenest academic building.

A state-of-the-art classroom in Chou Hall“We’re so proud of this beautiful new building and we’re incredibly grateful to the many generous donors who believed in it and made it possible,” said Dean Rich Lyons. “It’s an exciting time to add this new kind of space for our faculty to teach and students to learn in new ways. It will transform the educational experience for generations to come.”

A rainwater cistern in Chou Hall, a zero waste building
Rainwater collected in cisterns will be used to flush toilets (natural color variation may occur!).

Named for Kevin Chou, BS 02 and founding CEO of mobile gaming company Kabam, and his wife, Dr. Connie Chen, the $60 million building was funded entirely by community donations. Features such as efficient heating, cooling, and lighting systems, rainwater cisterns, and 24,300 square feet of exterior windows make it the first academic building in the US designed for LEED Platinum certification and WELL certification (given to buildings that promote user health and well-being).

Pack it in, pack it out

Chou Hall will also lead the way on waste reduction—hence the requisite reusable mugs and water bottles, which can be replenished at filling stations. Compost and recycling bins will be located on each floor but landfill bins are noticeably absent. The goal is to divert 90 percent of waste and achieve zero waste certification by summer 2018, becoming the  first business school in the country to do so.

Reusable bags will be available for those who need to tote out extra landfill trash.

“We’re asking everyone to adopt a ‘pack-it-in, pack-it-out’ mentality,” said Courtney Chandler, senior assistant dean and chief strategy and operations officer. “It might take a little getting used to, but we don’t think it will be hard for the Haas community—we’re all about questioning the status quo and redefining business-as-usual.”

Indeed, students seemed more excited than inconvenienced on the first day of fall semester classes today.

“It’s definitely worth it in the long run,” said new Haas undergrad Alicia Lin, BS 19, while snacking on free muffins in Chou Hall lobby lounge chairs with classmate Tony Choi. ”It’s one thing to say you believe in being environmentally friendly, but it’s another thing to really get it going.”

Students were offered some incentives to pave the way.

“Instead of just saying it’s a zero waste building, they gave us water bottles during orientation,” Choi said. “It’s great that we have all this technology and can also be so green.”

Chou Hall is a zero waste building
Ryan Peterson and Danner Doud-Martin chat with student Andrew Sohrabi, BS 18, about how to handle waste in Chou Hall.

Student-led effort

The zero-waste program is a joint effort of graduate and undergrad students from Haas and the College of Natural Resources, along with the staff-led Haas Green Team and several faculty champions.

Ryan Peterson, a 2nd-year master of development practice student, and Green Team Co-chair Danner Doud-Martin, assistant director of the Berkeley-Haas International Business Development Program, spent the morning handing out information and signing students up to win a bike raffle and a FIFO@Haas cafe gift card.

“The fact that it’s a business school taking the lead on this, both within UC Berkeley and across the country, is pretty exciting,” Peterson said.

Doud-Martin said the group is putting together a manual with best practices for use across campus and elsewhere. It’s a step toward the University of California’s goal of zero waste by 2020 and carbon neutrality by 2025.

A student relaxes in Chou Hall

Room to breathe

Chou Hall brings much-needed space to Berkeley-Haas, which has doubled in size since the first three buildings opened in 1995. It includes eight tiered classrooms and four flexible classrooms for a total of 858 new classroom seats, as well as 28 student and meeting rooms. The 6th floor Spieker Forum event space will open in September, and a cafe serving sustainable, locally sourced food will open in early 2018.

It will also allow Haas to bring in more students. This year, the full-time MBA class was able to grow from about 250 to 284 students, and will expand to 300 next fall.

“That will bring us up to the average size within the Top 10 MBA programs,” said Pete Johnson, assistant dean of the Full-time MBA Program and Admissions.

Like the original Haas campus, Chou Hall was 100 percent funded by alumni and friends. In addition to the Chous’ gift of up to $25 million—the largest-ever from a Berkeley alum under age 40—key donations from Ned Spieker, BS 66, and four other founding donors helped bring it to fruition. Hundreds of others—such as 231 Deloitte employees who raised over $3 million since 2004—rounded out the financing.  

Chou Hall staircase

It was worth the wait, said Finance Lecturer Stephen Etter, who taught his first class in Chou Hall Wednesday and held informal office hours with students in the courtyard afterwards.

“It was all great. The A.V., the sound, and especially the eyes of the students,” Etter said. “When I looked into their eyes, I saw a glow of enthusiasm and intellectual excitement. And of course they adapted immediately to the technology.”

Lecturer Stephen Etter chats with students in front of Chou Hall.
Lecturer Stephen Etter chats with students in front of Chou Hall.

Whirlwind launch weekend for 253 new evening & weekend Berkeley MBA students

| by Laura Counts

Nellie Haghbin stood in the Haas courtyard last week, chatting with a few of her 252 new Evening & Weekend Berkeley MBA classmates, ready to begin a new chapter of life.

“Being here is a dream come true for me—I always knew I wanted to come to Berkeley and I’m finally here,” said Haghbin, an engineer with Pratt & White based in San Francisco. “Everyone has been incredibly warm and welcoming. You just don’t find that everywhere.”

Evening & Weekend Berkeley MBA orientation

It’s about “identity change”

The WE Launch orientation weekend included a whirlwind three days of tours, info sessions, bonding games and skits—as well as advice from 2nd– and 3rd-year Evening & Weekeng Berkeley MBA veterans on how to survive the program. Most EWMBA students hold full-time jobs and many balance parenthood with the demanding three-year course of study, taking classes two evenings per week or on Saturdays.

Dean Rich Lyons welcomed them, letting them know that they are in for more than a mastery of business fundamentals. “Great education is often about identity change,” he said at the kick-off session.

Evening & Weekend Berkeley MBA orientation

Access to an innovation hub

Student Eric Vreeland said he chose Berkeley-Haas—and the Bay Area—because he wanted to be a part of its innovative, entrepreneurial ecosystem. He moved from New York to San Francisco 18 months ago and serves director of marketing for Jobr, a job-listing site acquired by Monster Inc.

“I’m interested in startups, innovation, and access to investors, as well as exposure to different aspects of entrepreneurship,” Vreeland said. “I also liked the intimacy of this program. So far, having conversations is easy.”

Tagel Shaked Zinger, a software engineer at YouTube, stood out from the crowd with her pregnant belly. Due in just a couple of weeks with her first child, she said the timing works out well with her four months of maternity leave. She’ll defer starting classes until the Fall B session so she can spend the first two months with her newborn, then two months as a full-time student and mom before returning to work.

“I was eager to start—I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time—and I didn’t want to put it off any longer because who knows what will happen next in my life?,” she said. “My husband has been very supportive, and so is my employer.”

Class profile

The Class of 2020 has a median age of 30, with a median seven years of work experience. Women make up 31 percent of the group. The new students work at 180 companies and graduated from 152 colleges; 38 percent hold master’s degrees. About 69 percent are multilingual (with one student who speaks six languages), and they represent 20 different countries. About twenty percent are commuting to the program from outside the Bay Area.

In terms of professional experience, nearly one quarter work in engineering, with another 15 percent in marketing and sales, and 11 percent in finance.

It’s a multi-talented group with eclectic interests. One student has won 39 hackathons over the past three years, while another has directed four films focused on domestic violence and human rights. One student reported helping to revolutionize the milk pasteurization process in Taiwan and also building up the Taiwanese breakdancing scene by hosting events and trainings. Others have raced cars and motorcycles, flown planes, commuted by helicopter offshore in West Africa, and circumnavigated the earth by ship.

Zinger, who has always worked in tech, said she is excited to explore new areas. “What attracted me was a combination of surrounding myself with great people, and learning about other industries,” she said.

Learn more about the class.

Evening & Weekend Berkeley MBA Class of 2020 Infographic

Rich Lyons begins final year as dean

| by Laura Counts

Rich Lyons, dean of UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business (photo: Copyright Noah Berger)Dean Rich Lyons, who for 11 years has led the Haas School of Business through a defining culture initiative, construction of a state-of-the-art academic building, and the creation of two new degree programs, will step down at the end of his second term in June 2018.

Noting that it’s customary for deans to transition out after two terms, Lyons—who also served one year as interim dean—said it’s the right time to welcome new leadership and return to his faculty role.

“Serving as your dean has been the most fulfilling job of my career, and I plan to remain engaged with Haas for years to come,” he wrote in a message to the community. “And we still have a lot to accomplish together this coming year!”

Dean Rich Lyons codified the school's unique culture into four Defining Principles
Dean Rich Lyons shows off his Defining Principles t-shirt at the 2014 Berkeley-Haas Alumni Conference.

Strong footing

Lyons, BS 82, will leave the school on strong footing. Its academic programs are in the top 10 in all major rankings: the new Connie & Kevin Chou Hall will open for classes this summer; the first class of students will start this fall in the Management, Entrepreneurship, & Technology (M.E.T.) program—a unique dual-degree offering from Haas and Berkeley Engineering. And the four Defining Principles at the heart of Lyons’ culture initiative—Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself—have become deeply embedded in all aspects of the school and alumni experience.

“Rich is a visionary and a path-bending leader who has led Haas to a different level of competitiveness and impact. Perhaps his most important contribution was understanding his role as ‘chief purpose officer’ and the power of culture to transform,” said Haas School Board Chair Jack Russi, BS 82, a national managing partner for Deloitte. “Rich treats everything from a ‘servant-leader’ lens, going out of his way to attend nearly every event. Besides being an outstanding dean, he is a wonderful human being. He leaves some big shoes to fill!”

Search committee formed

Lyons, an economist with a charismatic personality known for livening up events with his considerable guitar-playing chops, is much loved by Haas alumni, students, and faculty. A campus search committee, made up of Berkeley-Haas board members, faculty, staff, and students along with UC Berkeley representatives, has begun work earlier than usual to ensure that a new dean is in place when Lyons wraps up his term.

“In so many respects, Dean Lyons has gone beyond himself,” said Prof. Toby Stuart, the Leo Helzel Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, who will serve on the search committee. “He has worked tirelessly to the benefit of Haas and the university. He has done so with an infectious enthusiasm and optimism. His service to Haas will long be remembered.”

Dean Rich Lyons performs for MBA students at the annual Dean’s Scotch Tasting fundraiser in February 2017. (Photo by Jim Block)

A career tied to Berkeley

Lyons has devoted most of his career to the school he credits with transforming his own life. After earning his bachelor’s degree with highest honors from Berkeley-Haas in 1982, followed by a PhD in economics from MIT in 1987, Lyons spent six years on the Columbia Business School faculty before returning to Haas in 1993 as an assistant professor of finance and economics. He gained tenure three years later, served as associate dean for academic affairs in 2004, and acting dean from 2004-2005.

As an international finance professor, Lyons was a six-time recipient the Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching—the school’s top teaching honor—and also won UC Berkeley’s highest teaching award in 1998. From 2006 to 2008, he took a leave to serve as chief learning officer for Goldman Sachs, developing leadership among managing directors and partners.

Berkeley-Haas Defining Principles Question the Status Quo
The Defining Principles are deeply embedded in the school—and in the courtyard, renovated in 2013.

Upon his appointment as the Bank of America Dean in 2008, a board member told him, “leaders set culture.” Lyons took the advice to heart, plunging into a strategic planning effort that led to the overhaul of the MBA curriculum and—after an extensive process involving input from alumni, students, faculty, and staff—launching the Defining Principles in 2010.

“We codified the culture of Berkeley-Haas—which had been latent in the school for generations,” Lyons said.

Culture as differentiator

The Defining Principles have since become a strong differentiator. In surveys, students say the school’s distinctive culture is one of the top reasons they chose Berkeley-Haas, and more than 90 percent of graduates from the past decade say they are familiar with them, and frequently share how they have served as beacons in navigating their careers.

“The Defining Principles distinguish Haas as a school that values and produces leaders who are capable, curious, community-minded, creative, and humble,” said Prof. Jenny Chatman,  the Paul J. Cortese Distinguished Professor of Management and an expert on culture. “Sharpening that message has been an essential source of the Haas School’s growing success, and we have Dean Lyons to thank for that.”

Below: Dean Rich Lyons broke out his guitar for the 2015 Big Give fundraising blitz.

Growth in gifts

A talented fundraiser, Lyons has helped bring in eight of the school’s nine largest gifts and galvanized donors to record levels of participation and engagement. He is responsible for the school’s largest fundraising years on record, and during his tenure, the school brought in nearly double the philanthropic contributions of the previous decade.

He also led a transformation of the Haas campus, first with the renovation of the O’Donnell Courtyard into a larger, flexible outdoor space in 2013, and next with the development of Connie & Kevin Chou Hall, which will be entirely devoted to student learning and interaction. The $60 million project was fully funded by donors, including a gift of up to $25 million from Connie Chen and Kevin Chou, BS 02—the largest ever from a UC Berkeley alum under age 40.

Dean Rich Lyons greets Kevin Chou, BS 02, and Connie Chen, naming donors for the Haas school's new academic building.
Dean Rich Lyons greets Kevin Chou, BS 02, and Connie Chen, naming donors for the Haas school’s new academic building. (Photo by Noah Berger)

New programs added

With regard to academics, Lyons oversaw the launch of the Berkeley MBA for Executives Program in 2013, after a joint program with Columbia University was dissolved, and launched new executive education and interdisciplinary programs. He has forged stronger ties with other UC Berkeley colleges and departments. He sees the new M.E.T. program with Berkeley Engineering as a model to expand on, particularly with other science disciplines, eventually leading to a suite of interdisciplinary dual-degree programs at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

“Berkeley and Haas grab you by the collar and insist that you take advantage of all the degrees of freedom you have to live your life and conduct your career,” Lyons told students at last year’s MBA commencement. Now, as he returns to his position on the faculty in July 2018, Lyons says he is interested in exploring opportunities in the digital education or fintech areas.