Todd Alessandri, MBA, Ph.D., was named dean of the Bryant University College of Business in July 2024, arriving just in time for the opening of the college’s new home in the Business Entrepreneurship Leadership Center (BELC).
Previously the associate dean of undergraduate programs at Northeastern University, Alessandri holds advanced degrees in business and strategic management, and his background includes teaching business at Northeastern and Providence College.
He recently sat down with Bryant News to talk about his new role at Bryant, his vision for the College of Business, and what makes a Bryant education special.
What do you bring to the table as dean of the College of Business at Bryant?
Todd Alessandri: My background is strategic planning, so my focus is thinking about how we solve problems. What are the objectives of the College of Business, and how do we get there?
At my previous institution, Northeastern University, the co-op program was the calling card. As faculty director of the MBA program and then associate dean of the undergrad program, my focus was on building more experiential education in the classroom and working to increase it in the broader world.
How are your goals for the College of Business aligned with those of the rest of the university?
Alessandri: One of the strengths of Bryant, and I think this is one of the stories that's under-told to the outside world, is our integrated curriculum. If I'm a major in the business school, I have to do a minor outside of the business school, and vice versa.
I spend a lot of time talking to corporate partners, and they want problem-solvers and people who can see things from different perspectives. That's where there's a lot of alignment between the College of Business and the rest of the university.
For example, sustainability and climate change are societal issues. They're not going to go anywhere if business isn't involved. At Bryant, we’re combining sustainability expertise from our School of Health and Behavioral Sciences, social innovation and entrepreneurship skills from the College of Arts and Sciences, and the acumen of our business school to address this global-scale problem.
For example, Bryant students can now pursue a minor in Sustainability and Climate Action along with their major in the College of Business. This powerful combination will prepare students to meet these challenges armed with both scientific and business knowledge.
"This generation of students wants to have a positive impact on society. If we're creating interdisciplinary programs that do that, it's a win-win for everybody. The students get what they want. We strengthen all of the university, not just one college."
This generation of students wants to have a positive impact on society. If we're creating interdisciplinary programs that do that, it's a win-win for everybody. The students get what they want. We strengthen the university, all of the university, not just one college.
What are the strengths of Bryant’s College of Business?
Alessandri: In addition to the integrated curriculum, the first thing that caught my eye is the passionate dedication of our faculty and staff, and that student-centered here really means student-centered. That level of dedication and passion is really something we can build upon.
The second thing really is the community feel; coming from a large university, you don't have the sense of community that you do here. I think it allows us to really work together rather than being in silos.
The Business Entrepreneurship Leadership Center (BELC), the new home of the College of Business, opened at about the same time you became dean. Talk to us about the significance of this new facility to the school’s future.
Alessandri: This brand-new building has state-of-the-art facilities that are going to attract attention from corporate partners, students, parents, alumni, and peers.
But it's not just for attention. The building was designed around a philosophy of how to make education the best it can be. Learning doesn’t just occur in the classrooms. It occurs outside the classroom. It occurs in labs. It occurs after hours in activities.
The BELC also helps us develop a distinct College of Business identity while maintaining a strong connection to the Bryant University culture as a whole. This new facility supports interdisciplinary education and collaboration. For example, the Center for Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking, which is in the process of being built at the BELC, is not meant to be a College of Business resource; it’s meant to be a university-wide resource, and actually a community resource.
I think there's some great opportunities to do things we've not been able to do before in these facilities. The Financial Markets Center, the Hauck Sales Performance Lab, the Data Visualization Lab, the AI Lab — all these allow us to take the next step in Bryant’s evolution.
Give us the “elevator pitch” for the College of Business that you deliver to students and parents.
Alessandri: We have the building blocks at Bryant to prepare students to be ready to enter the workforce. We've got a dedicated faculty who are going to support you the whole way through. The professors know students’ names, know who they are and what they do; that’s our community spirit.
Our experiential learning programs really give students opportunities to work with real-life situations in the classroom, do an internship, take capstone courses with practicums, to get all this experience they need so that, on day one, when they leave here, they are ready to contribute.
Many of these experiences are facilitated by our extraordinary alumni network, which is also a rich support and referral resource for students looking to launch their careers after graduation.
"Bryant has really hard-working students who, to some extent, overachieve their reputation. And if they are overachieving their reputation, that means our reputation as an institution probably needs to come up a bit, too."
Bryant has really hard-working students who, to some extent, overachieve their reputation. And if they are overachieving their reputation, that means our reputation as an institution probably needs to come up a bit, too.
We need to take that next step, and with facilities like the BELC, we have the ability to take that next step now.
