Argyros Professor Thomas Turk To Serve As Interim Dean
As of August 1, Thomas Turk will take on the role of Interim Dean at Chapman University’s Argyros School of Business and Economics. Turk is a fitting choice for this role as he has served on the school’s faculty for 15 years and even acted as associate dean for one year. He is currently an associate professor of management at the business school.
Graziado Dean Writes Op-Ed on Ethical Implications of De-Regulation
Dean of Pepperdine’s Graziado School of Business and Management, Deryck J. van Rensburg, recently wrote an opinion piece that was published in U.S. News & World Report. The article analyzes the new administration’s marketplace de-regulation and what it could mean for businesses.
Chicago Booth Names Stanford GSB Professor as Its Next Dean
The path from the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business is becoming well worn, as Chicago Booth prepares to welcome its second consecutive dean from the Palo Alto campus. Madhav Rajan, who chairs the accounting department at Stanford GSB and served as Senior Associate Dean for academic affairs from 2010 to 2016, will take the helm at Booth on July 1, the school announced yesterday.
Sunil Kumar, who served as Chicago Booth’s dean from 2011 until leaving to become provost of Johns Hopkins University in July 2016, also came from Stanford, where spent 14 years, ultimately in the role of Senior Associate Dean. Since his departure, Douglas Skinner, also an accounting professor, has served as Interim Dean as Chicago Booth conducted a global search for a successor.
“We sought the most outstanding candidate whose values, ambition and abilities fully comport with the distinctiveness of Chicago Booth as one of methodological rigor in its research and education, and through that commitment one of high impact on the world,” President Robert J. Zimmer and Provost Daniel Diermeier said in a statement announcing Rajan’s appointment yesterday.
As Senior Associate Dean for academic affairs at Stanford GSB, Rajan led the school’s MBA program, including overseeing admissions, curriculum, the student experience and career management. While at the GSB, Rajan also launched new joint-degree programs with Stanford’s engineering school and led initiatives toward greater integration of the business school within the larger university.
He also served as boss to Derrick Bolton, Stanford’s long-serving Admissions Director. In an interview with Clear Admit in August 2016, Rajan shared that he had, in fact, pushed Bolton to pursue other opportunities, perhaps contributing to Bolton’s decision to leave the GSB this past September to head the recently launched Knight-Hennessey Scholars Program.
“I had been encouraging him to think about other things he could do because it is a difficult job and he has been doing it for 15 years,” Rajan told Clear Admit. “The way he does it, the intensity he brings to it, the effort level—I was amazed that he did it for as long as he did it.”
A Compassionate, Supportive Leader
Rajan’s comments to Clear Admit suggest that he is a compassionate, supportive leader who offers those who work for him the autonomy to chart their own course. Of Bolton he said, “There is literally nobody at the GSB who works harder than Derrick. The amount of time, love and dedication that he puts into admissions is amazing and beyond what anyone could be expected to do. That level of commitment I have never seen from anybody, frankly.”
Asked if Bolton’s replacement (who has yet to be named) might change the school’s enduring essay prompt, Rajan offered further insight into how he leads. “That will be completely up to the new admissions director,” he said. “We have very much a notion of empowering people in their roles here, and the person hired to manage admissions will have complete latitude to run things the way he or she sees fit.”
A Beloved Teacher and Respected Scholar
Rajan has also won accolades for his teaching. In 2000, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School bestowed upon him the David W. Hauck Award, its undergraduate teaching award. He taught at Wharton before Stanford, from 1990 to 2000. Next month, he is also slated to receive the Robert T. Davis Award for lifetime service and achievement, the GSB’s highest faculty recognition.
Rajan holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Madras in his native India, as well as two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University. His research has focused primarily on analyzing management accounting issues through an economics lens, especially as they relate to the choice of internal control and performance systems in firms. Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis, which he co-authored, is the leading cost accounting textbook used around the world. He also served as editor of the Accounting Review from 2002 to 2008.
Returning to a School on the Rise
Rajan is not a stranger to Chicago Booth, having served as a visiting professor in 2007-08. In a release announcing his appointment, he expressed his respect for the school and his excitement to return. “The values I have in research and education are deeply valued at Chicago Booth,” he said. “People come here to do rigorous, empirically based research and analysis, which provides the basis for a transformative student experience and an extremely effective MBA curriculum. We have an exciting opportunity to take Booth’s deep strengths and leverage them here and around the world. I am thrilled to have the chance to be dean at what is unquestionably the greatest academic business school.”
Chicago Booth has been something of a rising star among leading MBA programs over the past decade, threatening Wharton’s previously undisputed place alongside Stanford and Harvard Business School (HBS) as the best business schools in the world. The Economist has ranked Chicago Booth the number one business school for five years running, from 2012 to 2016. And in last year’s U.S. News & World Report ranking, Booth tied with Stanford for second, behind HBS and ahead of Wharton.
Chicago Booth’s upward trajectory began under Edward Snyder, who preceded Kumar as dean from 2001 to 2010. In that time, the school almost doubled its number of endowed professorships, more than tripled its scholarship assistance to students, moved to a new Hyde Park campus, expanded its presence in Singapore, established a new campus in London, successfully completed a capital campaign and more than doubled its endowment. Snyder also successfully courted an unprecedented $300 million naming gift from alumnus David Booth before leaving to lead the Yale School of Management. Kumar continued that momentum, helping raise more than $300 million, focusing on student recruitment—including increasing the female enrollment of full-time programs from 35 percent to 42 percent—and expanding courses for undergraduates. Now it’s Rajan’s turn to take the baton. It will be interesting to see what his leadership holds in store.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from Clear Admit.
DePaul Names New Interim Dean of the Driehaus College of Business and Kellstadt Graduate School of Business
As of mid-February, Misty Johanson has been named as as Interim Dean of the Driehaus College of Business and Kellstadt Graduate School of Business, effective July 1. Continue reading…
NYU Stern Dean Plans to Resign, Citing Economic Trends
Members of the NYU Stern School of Business community today learned that Dean Peter Blair Henry will step down from his position at the end of this calendar year, having decided that the current state of the world calls for him to contribute in other ways.
“I did not make this decision lightly, but given the current trends affecting the national and global economy, I feel compelled to re-engage now with policy and recommit, full-time, to scholarship and my lifelong interest in the linked fortunes of advanced and developing economies,” he wrote in a letter to the Stern community. “At a time when advanced-nation rhetoric and a seeming unwillingness to commit to the reforms needed for growth are at odds with global population trends and an increased need for investment in the developing world, I believe now is the time for me to make further contributions as an economist, advisor and Stern professor,” he continued.
The Jamaican-born Blair is an expert on the global economy, led the external economics advisory group for then-Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008 and was later chosen to lead the Obama Transition Team’s review of international lending agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Obama appointed him in June 2009 to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships. Before joining Stern, Henry taught at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was also associate director of the Center for Global Business. He joined NYU Stern as its youngest ever dean in 2010.
His contributions as NYU Stern Dean in his eight years have been noteworthy. He arrived at a business school known for its expertise in finance and its proximity to Wall Street in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis, which is to say, with his work cut out for him. “Over the past seven-plus years, together we doubled-down on existing strengths and achieved new heights in areas where we were lagging, notably fundraising,” he wrote to the Stern community.
Indeed, prior to Henry’s arrival, the school had yet to break the $40 million mark for fundraising in a given year, according to a letter sent out today from NYU President Andrew Hamilton and Provost Katherine Fleming. The school has raised more money under Henry’s leadership—more than $225 million—than under any prior dean, including more than $40 million in each of the last three fiscal years and an all-time high of $54.6 million in the most recent fiscal year.
NYU Stern Dean Peter Blair Henry
“Access to higher education for the most qualified students, regardless of their means, motivated Peter’s fundraising,” Hamilton and Fleming wrote. Of last year’s record funds raised, $45.7 million went toward scholarships. Before Henry arrived, Stern had no full scholarships for undergraduate students; today it boasts 37. Another thing that’s grown under Henry’s leadership is the number of Nobel Prize winners on the Stern faculty, tripling from the lone Nobelist it claimed when he arrived.
Record Fundraising Supports Multiple Firsts at Stern
The record fundraising efforts Henry led also helped to almost triple the number of experiential projects Stern students can take part in, propelled a first-of-its-kind FinTech MBA specialization, established the unique Urbanization Project directed by Stern Professor Paul Romer, and paved the way for new centers like the Center for Business and Human Rights and the Center for Sustainable Business, also both firsts for a leading business school. Henry has also worked to both widen and deepen the school’s relationships with tech companies, venture capital firms and fashion and luxury brands.
“These innovations have positioned the Stern School as a leader in research and student engagement in areas from digital currency to the global infrastructure challenge that hold the key to inclusive growth in the 21st century,” wrote Hamilton and Fleming.
“NYU is exceptionally proud of Peter’s accomplishments, his unwavering and unapologetic focus on business as a force for doing well and doing good, and his service not only to the Stern School but also to the university, as our partner in global education, an undisputed leader in fundraising, and a voice for our community as part of the NYU Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Task Force,” they continued.
Henry, for his part, cites getting to know students as one of his biggest joys as dean. “From the classroom to the catwalk, in the hallways, office hours and on the basketball court, seeing students thrive at Stern and then watching them flourish after graduation has been, and will continue to be, a source of great inspiration.”
Henry will remain on as dean for the next 10 months as the school conducts an international search for his successor.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from Clear Admit.
Graziadio Dean on the Future of the Job Market
Dean David Smith of Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Management recently wrote a piece for the LA Daily News on the state of California’s most recent unemployment rate.
In a guest commentary, Smith addressed the state’s 4.9 percent jobless number, which, while markedly lower than last year’s figure, is still cause for close attention by recent grads.
