Golden Gate University: Niche Learning
Education
Written by John Zorabedian   
Tuesday, 01 April 2008
Golden Gate University: Niche Learning - American Executive - RedCoat Publishing
Instead of fighting the competition, President Dan Angel is looking for new frontiers and new markets.
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Some of the best business schools in the country inhabit the West Coast, including UCLA’s top-ranked Anderson School of Management and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. But rather than competing against these heavyweights for students and reputation, Golden Gate University (GGU) in San Francisco is making its own niche in the areas of taxation, accounting, and environmental law.

Dan Angel, President - Golden Gate University: Niche Learning - American Executive - RedCoat Publishing
Dan Angel, President
This strategy of staking out unclaimed territory in a crowded field is what GGU President Dan Angel calls his blue ocean strategy, a theory popularized by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne in their bestselling book Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant.

“The book says everyone tends to compete based on the field they are in,” Angel said. “When you do that, the competition is fierce and gets bloody, hence you have red water. If you define your own niche, something that people aren’t doing, you go for the blue water. You can be creative and create your own markets.”

The 5,000-student GGU has a history of breaking into new markets since its founding in 1901. The school was the first to offer night courses in San Francisco, was the first to offer evening law courses, and started the first four-year accounting program on the West Coast. Its taxation program is now recognized as one of the largest and best in the country.

To build on these programs, GGU’s strategic vision for the next five years will hinge on expanding in two areas where the competition is limited and the growth opportunities are vast: international students and online course offerings.

With six satellite sites up and down the West Coast, including programs in Los Angeles and Seattle, GGU is positioned to serve an influx of international students from Asia. GGU formed a partnership with ELS Educational Services, Inc., a provider of intensive English language instruction to non-native speakers, to teach on its main San Francisco campus. “We think a lot of those students will choose to stay here and get their degree as well,” Angel said.

GGU’s CyberCampus, now in its 10th year, has grown to account for 29% of all GGU’s course offerings. “We’re putting more emphasis on cyber-education because it’s growing at about 20% a year, whereas traditional education is growing at about 4% a year,” Angel said. “That’s a huge market looking forward.”

Career connections
Building on its reputation for providing practical education in the fields of taxation, accounting, business, and law is what allows GGU to draw students interested in advancing their careers. “We’re practically focused,” Angel said. “We’re looking for people who aspire in their careers and want to move up in their organization so they can enjoy a better quality of life.”

GGU’s tax internship program has been recognized as one of the best by US News & World Report, a publication that can make or break reputations in the field of higher education. And by building relationships with accounting firms, GGU has revamped its curriculum to better instruct students to meet the needs of businesses. “Our approach has been to go and talk with some of the large and mid-size accounting firms to find out what students weren’t getting in most places,” Angel said.

Seizing on the rise of environmentalism and “green” business practices, GGU is also positioning its law school, with its environmental law program, as a premier institution. And GGU’s Ageno School of Business is innovating programs in green management, Angel said. “Green management doesn’t just mean saving the planet; it means operating efficiently,” he said. “You have an opportunity to make money, and at the same time you’re doing things that are good for the planet.”

Perhaps the greatest source of opportunity for GGU in its quest to find “blue ocean” space is the the school’s location in San Francisco proper and the connections Angel is making as the president of an institution that is one of the 25 largest employers in the city. Angel is a member of the board of directors of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, and he recently got involved in the Bay Area Council, a group promoting the regional economy. “I plan on getting more networking, visibility, and awareness for what we do,” Angel said.

With its geographic proximity to Silicon Valley and the school’s network of more than 20,000 alumni in the San Francisco Bay area, GGU is also looking to benefit from and feed into the entrepreneurship that defines the region.

“We’re a private institution, so we don’t depend heavily on the state for money,” Angel said. “It’s good in that we’re totally in control of our future, and it’s bad in the sense that we can’t depend on steady income from the state. But I’m really enjoying the inventiveness and the entrepreneurial nature of our institution in one of the most entrepreneurial cities in the country.”
 
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