Why Executives Covet University CRE Programs

DENVER—Seasoned real estate professionals say they wish they'd had a college commercial real estate curriculum so they'd have been better-equipped to handle the industry, university CRE-program faculty members tell GlobeSt.com. We spoke with several college-level CRE educators about these programs and why they are so valuable for today's young professionals. Stay tuned for a more in-depth feature on the evolution of university commercial real estate programs in the July/August issue of Real Estate Forum.

“Real estate has strategic partnerships with the industry,” Jeff Engelstad, CCIM, clinical professor, Burns School of Real Estate & Construction Management, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver, tells GlobeSt.com. “Real estate is a wonderful discipline because of its connection to the real industry and its strategic partnerships with CCIM, NAIOP, the Appraisal Institute, etc., so during the course of their education, a student might not just get their degree in real estate, but they might also come out with an MAI or a LEED designation. One thing I know from having students interact with real estate professionals outside of the classroom is that professionals always remark how they wish they'd had a program like this in college so they'd have been better equipped to handle the industry.”

Shawn D. Howton, PhD, Villanova University faculty director, Daniel M. DiLella Center for Real Estate, Associate Professor of Finance, Villanova, PA, tells GlobeSt.com that real estate is an evolving field that he believes will be part of most business schools within the next decade. “Real estate is the third largest asset class and is a $10-trillon-plus domestic business. Real estate and the built environment touch the lives of every single person on an ongoing basis. How we work, play and live in the coming decades will be determined by students coming out of real estate programs right now. How to build, finance and design the built environment is impactful, so providing tomorrow's real estate leaders with a large toolbox is the most important part of the choices we make as real estate educators every day.”

Morris A. Davis, academic director and Paul V. Profeta chair of the Center for Real Estate at Rutgers Business School, Newark, NJ, tells GlobeSt.com that the Rutgers Center for Real Estate is going to be a pioneer in producing industry relevant research—not just for the state of New Jersey where it is located and not just for the New York metropolitan market, but for the US. “Our mindset is, what's great for New Jersey and what's great for new York is great for the country.”

One adage Rutgers' Center has is that “everything that we touch should be the absolute beset in our space,” says Davis. “This includes academic programs, as well as the access to the top real estate professionals for our students and the opportunities we are making available for them to interact on a very close level with those professionals. By treating real estate as an essential element and aspect of business, government and society, we are developing programs that will produce world-class talent that will help to change the landscape in years to come. We are inspiring the next generation of real estate leaders.”

According to Rosemary Scanlon, divisional dean, Schack Institute of Real Estate, NYU School of Professional Studies, New York, real estate is an important area of study because of what is going on ow and for what is to be expected in the future in the US and internationally. “The world is becoming increasingly urban, and there will be a great demand for all types of real estate. Vast changes are underway in the demographic composition of many countries, which will affect the type as well as the amount of real estate that will be required. The related courses of study are equally important and should feature prominently in any curriculum—for example, we put heavy emphasis on the understanding of real estate economics and market feasibility, and within that course, in understanding the changes in demography (both nationally and internationally) that will affect the development process in the future. The emphasis on global real estate, as well as on the sustainable built environment and resiliency, are increasingly important in the real estate curricula.”

Scanlon adds that at Schack, they are proud of the fact that they are a “pure play,” as described by one of their industry-based advisory-board members. “This means that we are a standalone degree, at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, and not a branch of a business school or other related curriculum, and thus can offer the depth as well as the range needed by the real estate industry.”

Real estate is one of the few disciplines that is truly a living, breathing thing, Albert Saiz, director, Dan Rose associate professor of urban economics and real estate, MIT Center for Real Estate, Cambridge, MA, tells GlobeSt.com. “It's being planned, plotted and built all around us. To be a part of such development and tangible change requires professionals that have specialized knowledge—real estate programs at universities like MIT are essential to having well-planned, well-built cities that serve not just a purpose, but a population.”