Horizons Fall 2015

A s a child, Leslie Tworoger, D.B.A., always had a lemonade stand or another enterprise going. After earning her M.B.A., she started a meeting and convention planning business that was sold after 11 years. “Business has always fascinated me,” Tworoger said. “But it wasn’t until after I got my M.B.A. that I really became interested in how business works.” Now a professor of management, Tworoger’s experience in both the business and academic realms qualified her to help develop The Real-World M.B.A. program at NSU’s H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship. “The dean asked one person from each department to rethink and reinvigorate the M.B.A. to answer the needs of today’s students,’’ said Tworoger. “The more we had a dialogue with students the more we realized they are expected to hit the ground running the instant they graduate.” Tworoger worked with colleagues Andrew Felo, Ph.D., associate professor of accounting; David Hines, Ph.D., associ- ate professor of decision sciences; Ramdas Chandra, Ph.D., associate professor of international business; Pankaj Kumar Maskara, Ph.D., associate professor of finance; and Sara (Suri) Weisfeld-Spolter, Ph.D., associate professor of marketing and chair of the committee. The committee discovered, said Tworoger, that companies are no longer willing to spend months training recent M.B.A. graduates. “Companies want graduates to have the necessary skills coming right into a job,” Tworoger said. “That’s how we came up with the concept for the ‘The Real-World M.B.A.’ Many of our faculty members have real-world experience in numerous industries, and all our faculty members go beyond textbook theory to relate how it works in the real world. Now we’re going to push it further.” For Tworoger, business education is a family affair. Her husband is Thomas Tworoger, D.B.A., director of the entrepreneurship concentration for both graduate and undergraduate students at NSU’s Huizenga College of Business. Both attended the University of Florida as political science majors, and both built successful businesses. While Leslie Tworoger built Fort Lauderdale Showcase, her meeting and convention business, Thomas Tworoger was building his family’s heavy-truck dealership, Kenworth Truck of South Florida, into a $130-million-a-year business with four locations. After selling the company to Daimler, he decided to earn his M.B.A. at NSU. His wife had the same idea. “I said, ‘I want one, too,’ ” Leslie Tworoger said, with a laugh. As the Tworogers progressed through graduate school at NSU, the prospect of teaching became more intriguing. Both had taught as adjuncts, so they had classroom experience. “We both realized we loved teaching and decided we’d like to teach for the second half of our working life,” said Thomas Tworoger. “We knew that in order to do that, we had to go beyond the M.B.A. and get our doctorates. It took five years. Then we got hired full time at the Huizenga College. We love our time working with our colleagues and at the school.” Both Tworogers have been recognized for teaching excel- lence at NSU, with Leslie Tworoger winning the NSUHuizenga College of Business’ “Excellence in Teaching Award” in 2007. She was also selected as the college’s “Faculty of the Year” award winner for 2014 and was a finalist for “Professor of the Year” for NSU’s Student Life Achievement Awards in 2015. Professor Believes in Real-World Business Education BY CHAUNCEY MABE FACULTY PROFILE 30 NSU HORIZONS