Business school offers new major in fall

The Rutgers Business School Supply Chain Student Initiative ended the semester Wednesday with the first annual supply chain dinner.
More than 50 attendees from the student-run organization, which began this semester to introduce undergraduates to the field, came out for the dinner held in the Faculty Dining Room of Brower Commons on the College Avenue campus. A major in Supply Chain Management and Marketing Science will be offered to undergraduate business students starting this fall.
The dinner presented a panel of five supply chain professionals, representing Johnson & Johnson, Optimum Supply Chain Recruiters and International Flavors & Fragrances. Panelists discussed a myriad of issues ranging from the importance of getting involved in internships and co-ops to the minimization of shipping and transportation costs in the industry.
“There’s been logistics, and there’s been procurement,” said President of the Rutgers Association of Supply Chain Managers Phillip Geltman. “But the idea is that [components of supply chain] are all related, and that it incorporates finance, economics, finance and accounting. It’s all tied in, and we need to focus on that.”
The interactive panel discussion was the club’s final event in preparation for the new major. Students from all disciplines in the business school will be able to take advantage of the supply chain major, as the University joins a select group of institutions offering the field of study to undergraduates.
“The people who went into supply chain didn’t grow up into it,” said Geltman, a School of Arts and Sciences junior. “They’ve been taken from engineering or finance, so we’re sort of the new generation of people that are trained in supply chain.”
Students at the dinner said the panel discussion provided empirical insight into the workings of the sector and it helped reaffirm their desires to pursue supply chain, a field that specializes in minimizing production costs.
“I thought [the panel] was a good way to bring a lot of different views and different aspects of the supply chain together, so they could answer a wide variety of questions about what their jobs entail and talk about the different roles they’ve played throughout the years,” said Livingston College junior Joe Campbell, who helped organized the panel.
Supply chain is in high demand and companies are actively looking for supply chain majors and those that are otherwise qualified, said Rutgers College junior Helen Ahn.
“I thought the speakers were really interesting, and it actually made me think more about where exactly in supply chain I want to go,” Ahn said.
Geltman encouraged students of all majors, from economics to English, to participate in the organization, emphasizing the practicality of the supply chain field and its resistance to recessions.
“When an economy goes bad, supply chain has an even heavier emphasis on doing good, because it’s all about tightening up the belts, being more efficient and questioning why we do the things that we do,” he said.
The supply chain program was initiated primarily due to increased demand from New Jersey-based retailers that wanted to develop talent from the area, Geltman said. Local-based firms in the area have traditionally looked to students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michigan State, Lehigh, Penn State and other institutions that fulfill their standards for supply chain management.
“Johnson & Johnson, Becton Dickinson, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb ... they all have very important things in New Jersey, and they don’t want to relocate people, they want good local students,” Geltman said. “At the club, we’re trying to be the hub that corporations come to hand-pick their people.”