Smeal Appoints New Faculty Director
Dennis Sheehan, the Virginia and Louis Benzak Professor of Finance at the Penn State Smeal College of Business, has been named the faculty director of both the Penn State Smeal MBA Program and the Executive MBA Program in Philadelphia.
The faculty director is responsible for academic aspects of the programs, including curriculum, concentrations, global immersions as well as other aspects of both of the programs.
Sheehan says that, in addition to day-to-day tasks of the job, he and the program leadership team will undertake the project of revising the MBA as well as the Executive MBA programs.
“We’ll be looking at new possibilities for the programs across the board, including curriculum changes,” said Sheehan. “There are more options on the table now; online format capabilities are growing, and we want to gauge student and faculty interest in hybrid-format classes.”
Sheehan has a lot of experience in the faculty director position. He originally became faculty director of the EMBA Program in 200. He then moved into the position of associate dean for MBA and Executive MBA Programs until 2011.
A long-time faculty member, Sheehan joined the Smeal College in 1992. Prior, he taught at Purdue University, the University of Chicago and the University of Rochester. His current research is in corporate finance with papers on topics such as the extent and function of managerial stock ownership, the role of active shareholders in monitoring the firm, and the pricing of seasoned equity offerings by investment banks.
Sheehan holds a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University. Both of his degrees are in economics.
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Erin Purcell
Staff Writer, covering MetroMBA's news beat for New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.
