New HPU president to enhance home furnishings program
Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, January 3, 2005
HIGH POINT -- New High Point University President Nido R. Qubein said he will include furniture industry leaders in a plan to make its school of home furnishings a world-class program.
“We have no choice but to make this program extraordinary,” Qubein said as he took over the HPU presidency today. “I want this to be a program that the furniture industry would be proud to be associated with and would want to support in ways that transcend financial matters.”
Qubein, a nationally known speaker, business consultant and philanthropist whose personal story embodies the American Dream, fills a post formerly held by Jacob C. Martinson, who now serves as university chancellor.
A native of Lebanon, Qubein, 56, came to the United States as a teen-ager knowing little English and with $50 in his pocket. He taught himself English by learning a list of new words each day, graduated from Mount Olive College, then received a human relations degree from HPU and a master’s degree in business from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
He then launched a public speaking and consulting career that placed him in the national limelight. Since 1974 he has made 5,000 presentations and written a dozen books that focus on leadership, sales and communications. His Qubein Foundation has awarded $3 million to 600 students and scholarship endowments at a number of universities.
Qubein starts his new job several months after the dedication of HPU’s 27,000-square-foot Norton Hall, which houses the Knabusch-Shoemaker International School of Home Furnishings and Design.
He considers the new building a tremendous asset for both the school of home furnishings and the university’s Earl N. Phillips School of Business. He hopes industry leaders will further enhance its visibility and image by recommending students to the program and providing internships and even jobs to those students. He also wants them to serve as guest lecturers and hold business meetings on campus.
“I unreservedly commit our resources and our attention to this program and have every intent to evolve it, with the help of furniture industry leaders, as a jewel of academic excellence at High Point University,” Qubein said. “This is a natural for us, to be known for having a huge home furnishings program. It behooves the university to focus on this and make it a big part of the business school.”
He said the program needs to capitalize on its strengths in marketing and interior design, with perhaps a stronger focus on retailing and international business in the future.
“The school has no choice but to examine the dynamics that are apparent in the furniture industry today, and to adequately predict potential future trends and then align itself in a way that can prepare us and prepare our students for such developments,” Qjubein said. “We can’t just sit on the sidelines and watch.”
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HPU's Qubein looks to industry for support
Jan 30, 2005
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