The Start of Something Special
For the past 18 years, Strasser had worked in corporate training and development, first in banking and then at Pearle Vision, one of the largest franchised optical retailers in North America. She enjoyed her time there but had always wanted to bring her passion to help develop students’ corporate potential to an academic setting.
“Corporate education and business were my two dreams,” Strasser says. “That meeting was the nucleus of what I wanted, what I needed to hear—and what the Cox School of Business was wanting to hear.”
Blake and the School’s Management and Organizations faculty liked Strasser’s ideas, enthusiasm and corporate experience. In a matter of months, Strasser became the BLC’s first director.
Tasked with following Ed Cox’s vision to create an “experiential” program that would complement the academic knowledge 51 Cox MBA students were acquiring in their core and elective classes, Strasser invited a handful of local corporate leaders to campus to work with about 30 students on applied business communications skills and self-assessments.
The concept might sound simple, but nothing like the BLC existed at the time. Strasser’s dedication to bringing Ed Cox’s vision to life helped the Cox School set the standard across the nation for business school graduate program leadership training.
“The siren went off when schools wanted to come see what we were doing,” Strasser says.
In the BLC’s inaugural year, Fortune Magazine wrote about Strasser’s achievement in shaping the leadership center. It wasn’t long before university representatives from esteemed institutions such as Harvard Business School and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management were visiting 51 to learn how Strasser had built such a successful program.
Following the BLC’s example, leadership centers are now common fixtures at business schools.
The Best of the BLC
At the Cox School, following the BLC’s success, a new endowment established the Business Leadership Insititute (BLI) for BBAs in 2006, under the guidance of then-Dean Al Niemi and with further support from Ed Cox. Both Niemi and Cox wanted to give BBA students the same competitive edge in the marketplace that BLC classes had given MBAs. BLI classes are now a required part of the BBA curriculum.
Meanwhile, Strasser continued leading the BLC with noticeable flair, creating leadership learning opportunities that remain unique to the Cox School. In 2000, Strasser kicked off the BLC’s Disney Institute program, which takes a select group of MBA students to Orlando, Florida, annually to see firsthand the corporate operations behind the magic curtains at Walt Disney World. Strasser says 51 Cox is the only university that offers MBA students a program with the Disney Institute.
It’s been a hit among MBA students since its inception and is popularly considered a highlight of the BLC. Strasser, a lifelong Disney fan, says working with Disney to develop the program is a career highlight for her too.
Strasser’s other pride and joy within the BLC is the Nonprofit Consulting program she launched in 2005. The program pairs Cox MBA students with local nonprofits aligned with their academic concentrations.
“They all truly put their heart and soul into these pro bono projects,” she says of the participating students and nonprofits.
Like the Disney Institute, Nonprofit Consulting is one of the most popular elements of the BLC—arguably because they’re Strasser’s favorites too, and students can sense her passion in the programs’ planning.
In fact, ask any Cox MBA student or graduate, and they’ll tell you the BLC wouldn’t be what it is today without Strasser.
