Dean profile: Dan Muzyka of the University of British Columbia Business School

Dan Muzyka found a tougher challenge than he had bargained for when he arrived in Vancouver in 1999 as the first outsider to take the helm of the University of British Columbia's business school.

The school - like the university as a whole - had gone into hibernation for much of the 1990s. A left-of-centre government in Canada's most westerly province had imposed a freeze on tuition fees, forcing cuts in hiring and a cap on teaching staff salaries.

Many of the school's younger teachers had drifted away with the result that almost 40 per cent of the staff was due to retire over the next five years. Vancouver, in spite of its scenic location and much-envied lifestyle, was slipping from the consciousness of the global business-school community.

"Things were stable but a bit precarious," recalls Prof Muzyka, who had previously spent nine years as professor of entrepreneurship at Insead in Paris. "This resource starvation had resulted in an inability to compete in an increasingly competitive market."

But the school has reawakened. Bob Stewart, a retired forestry industry executive who is chair of the faculty advisory board, says: "Over the past six years we have seen the kind of change we only dreamed about."

As Prof Muzyka acknowledges, the turnaround is not entirely of his making. A more business-friendly Liberal government lifted the tuition freeze shortly after taking office in 2001. It also stepped up subsidies to universities. UBC's vice-chancellor Martha Piper, who is one of Canada's most respected university leaders, has thrown her weight behind the business school.

Still, Dave Wilson, chief executive of the Graduate Management Admission Council in Washington who has known Prof Muzyka for more than a decade, says: "It would take someone with Dan's dynamism, entrepreneurial spirit and unflagging energy to make it happen."

Money is no longer a worry. The school was renamed the Sauder School of Business in 2002 in recognition of a C$20m endowment set up by Bill Sauder, a retired forestry products executive. The province has matched the income from Mr Sauder's gift, totalling about $1m a year, and several other seven-figure donations have rolled in.

Almost 50 staff, close to half the total, have been hired, flattening the retirement bulge.

Prof Muzyka describes the Sauder school as "a research-based learning institution". At the same time, he wants to make it more relevant to the local business community, and society at large.

On the research side, he has shied away from specialisation, offering courses in such diverse areas as transport logistics, sustainability and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, Prof Muzyka says: "We take a very international perspective in everything that we do."

Vancouver is one of the world's most cosmopolitan cities. More than half the children in the city's schools have English as a second language, and the Sauder school's faculty is made up of 20 nationalities. One recent research project benchmarks airports throughout the world. And a project on securities markets has examined not only the Toronto stock exchange but global financial markets.

Prof Muzyka recalls that when the advisory board asked what areas he planned to specialise in, his response was: "You're asking me which of my children I should leave behind."

According to Mr Wilson: "His curiosity is almost limitless. The challenge is to keep these bounds reasonable. I think he's working hard at tempering it."

Mr Stewart says one of Prof Muzyka's challenges is to foster closer links with the school's alumni, a key source of funding, advice and publicity. With resources limited, "we didn't get off the mark as fast as we would have liked to, but we are off the mark now", Mr Stewart says.

Prof Muzyka's curiosity and energy are not confined to the campus. In a rare appointment for an academic, he is this year's chairman of the Vancouver Board of Trade, the city's oldest and largest business group.

The position has enabled him to play host to such visitors as President Vicente Fox of Mexico and Hong Kong chief executive Donald Tsang, not to mention innumerable Canadian politicians and business leaders.

"We thought this would be a great opportunity to bridge the gap between town and gown", says Darcy Rezac, the board's managing director. Mr Rezak credits Prof Muzyka with involving members in municipal policy issues, ranging from education to crime.

Seen from the business school's perspective, 53 year-old Prof Muzyka says that "positive social engagement is critical. Societal issues are not just government's problem. We're trying to prepare people for a new world where the linkages between business, government and society are different."

An astrophysicist by training, he tells students they need to prepare for at least three careers during their working lives.

The Sauder school has helped fund an intern to assist a board of trade study on healthcare issues in Vancouver.

It also supports social agencies working in Vancouver's blighted downtown Eastside, and runs a pro bono course in basic business skills for people from the area. The school provides transport and food while publishers have donated textbooks.

An ambitious building programme on the drawing board has as much to do with the dean's view of the future of business school education as with bricks and mortar. "I'm going to re-invent how people learn," Prof Muzyka says.

Traditional classrooms will be torn down to make way for settings that encourage less formal, team-based learning. The new facilities will enable small groups of students to gather for video conferences and group e-mail sessions with outside executives.

The energy that Prof Muzyka has brought to Vancouver is not without its risks. "The guy is probably stretched too thin," says Mr Rezac. "He can't carry on at this pace forever."

Responding to such concerns, Prof Musyka says he makes a point of taking several weeks off a year, often at his 22-acre farm on Salt Spring Island, a short ferry ride south-west of Vancouver. But he admits that he cut one recent holiday short by four days to write an article.