Recently I attended the annual deans meeting of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges of Business in Park City, Utah. While our conference agenda included management school issues surrounding the globalization of our curriculum and changes in accreditation standards, the red elephant in the room was the economy.

It was clear that everyone is affected in ways that the group of us were only beginning to imagine. A financial meltdown and shrinking economy translates into clear losses of opportunity and financial strains. Following are some of the worries I heard from deans:

The downside

• The inability of students to pay even in-state tuition. Parents and some working professional MBA students have been using home equity lines of credit to pay for degrees; the slump in housing prices and access to credit will limit or delay access to education for some students.
• Public universities often (but not always) tied to state budgets are concerned about "poaching" from well-endowed private universities. The loss of the best faculty and the dilution of faculty-teacher ratios are real concerns of all but the most elite universities.
• Some state universities in the U.S., including the universities of Virginia, Michigan and Colorado, have already become de-facto private universities because their states' legislatures provide little or no financial support for higher education. Now others are looking at that option. Should we cut ties with our states in order to have more programmatic and financial freedom?

Schools with minimal funding, but tied by state mandates, are considering supporting this especially when they can generate income from executive education and research grants.

• I find it ironic that private institutions typically have the largest endowments. As one public school dean cynically noted "the way to get an endowment is to charge high tuition and your alumni will give you money."
• Schools in major corporate centers have depended on generous support for business education for current students and executives. Now there is concern that employer tuition assistance will wither with falling corporate revenues, and that this will impact executive education.
• Major research universities are concerned that a decline in state and federal research grants will hinder the support of doctoral students and faculty researchers, thus threatening research missions. The shortage of new faculty in some business disciplines already tight could make it difficult for some schools to maintain accreditation standards, which require substantial proportions of doctoral-level faculty.

The upside

There are always upsides, or at least new possibilities, during any crisis, as any "repo man" can tell you. While much of the conversation was glum, most business school deans were looking for a bright spot, or at least alternate ways to think about what they could do during down economic cycles.

• Finance faculty will be easier to find as Wall Street releases a slew of highly educated finance experts. Deans seemed universally happy to see a probable loosening in the supply of our most expensive faculty experts. Indeed, The Wall Street Journal had an article on the last day of our conference discussing the conditions of work for business school faculty, a happy indicator for deans.
• In recent years, some business schools have started one-year master's programs in financial engineering to develop high-level math skills used in financial markets. The future demand for these programs is under question and the resources could be redirected.
• More MBA programs will move overseas to where the demand for sophisticated managers is growing. As one dean put it, "Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai or good bye."

Even if we have a global recession, the growth rates of China, India and places like the United Arab Emirates will grow much faster than North American and European economies. Hundreds of business programs are emerging in these settings where management talent is in great demand, and where established business schools are creating programs, sometimes in partnership with local colleges and universities. I was astounded to hear that Montana State University at Bozeman is considering a Middle East program, and that Malibu-based Pepperdine University now owns six non-U.S. campuses!

Globalizing

We have all been globalizing our curricula, and many schools now require a study abroad component for their MBA students. (Because we have so international a student body now, I'm not sure that makes sense for UC Davis MBA students, although many choose to do global study).

Europe is no longer a favored destination for study abroad for many students, as the global economy reaches beyond Rome and London. Instead, schools want students to go to places where they are "culturally uncomfortable." Business opportunities are often greatest in underdeveloped areas.

• Schools are working hard to incorporate their alumni abroad into their campus networks, seeing them as critical social and intellectual capital as universities put stakes in foreign soil.
• If there are new sectors that deans look toward further supporting it will be health care already a large economic sector and energy. Schools on the slopes of the Rocky Mountains including the universities of Alberta, Montana, Colorado, and New Mexico sit atop or near oil and coal deposits, and their economies should heat up. Indeed, there are no taxes in Alberta, Canada.

The rest of us on the Pacific Coast and in the Southwest are in regions developing alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and biomass. We expect energy, energy efficiency and sustainability to play larger roles in our curricula business and students are demanding this.

Many of the possible changes I have mentioned are already taking hold at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. The students want to go to Vietnam, Shanghai and South America on field trips, and do. Germany and France are for vacation not business study.

Our students are active in learning and promoting sustainable business practices, developing "green" financial portfolios, and jumping on opportunities to work on commercializing alternative energy technologies coming out of the campus.

What do I plan to do to help us through the trough?

I'll work on strengthening our alumni network, which always proves helpful in finding jobs for students and fellow alums in tight job markets. I'll also be trying to remind our alumni, friends and students that private support is not just for private universities, and that a public university is a great private investment, too.

Nicole Woolsey Biggart is the dean of the Graduate School of Management at UC Davis. This article is adapted from an entry in her blog at http://ucdgsmdean.blogspot.com.