People and Places: March 28, 2023
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 Christopher L. Shook has been named the next dean of the Collat School of Business at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. He will begin his new role July 1. Shook currently is dean of the Gordon Ford College of Business at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green. Prior to joining Western Kentucky in 2019, he was the Sprunk and Burnham Endowed Dean at the University of Montana College of Business in Missoula. Previously, he has been a faculty member at Auburn University in Alabama, the University of Texas at Arlington, and Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. His scholarship focuses on the exploration and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities, strategic decision-making processes, and methodological issues in strategy and entrepreneurial research. In 2022, he received the James G. Hunt SMA Sustained Outstanding Service Award from the Southern Management Association. |
 Bruce W. Weber has been appointed the Willem Kooyker Dean of the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College in New York. Currently, Weber is dean and professor of business administration at the Alfred Lerner College of Business & Economics at the University of Delaware in Newark. At the Lerner College, he launched the university’s first cross-college PhD program in financial services analytics and raised the college’s research profile. Previously, Weber was on the faculty at the London Business School, where he served as the founding chair of the management science and operations subject area. His early career began at the Zicklin School, where he was the founding director of the Subotnick Financial Services Center. He begins his new role at Zicklin on July 17. |
 David De Cremer has been appointed the new Dunton Family Dean of the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University in Boston. De Cremer comes to Northeastern University from the National University of Singapore (NUS), where he is the provost chair and professor of management and organization in the business school. He is also the founder and director of the Center on AI Technology for Humankind at NUS. Previously, he was the KPMG Professor of Management Studies at Cambridge Judge Business School in the United Kingdom. De Cremer, whose research focuses on human behavior in organizations, was named one of the Thinkers50 in 2021. |
 In July, Haresh Gurnani becomes the new dean of the College of Business at Stony Brook University in New York. Gurnani will join Stony Brook from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he is Thomas H. Davis Chair in the School of Business and program director of the Mathematical Business Program, a joint offering of the School of Business and the department of mathematics and computer science. He also serves as area chair in disciplines such as business analytics, operations management, marketing, and economics. Previously, Gurnani served in various positions at the University of Miami in Florida. At Stony Brook, Gurnani succeeds Manny London, who has served as dean of the College for the last decade. |
 In January, Veronica Hope Hailey became inaugural dean and professor of strategy for the University of Bristol Business School in the United Kingdom. Hailey was previously professor and dean of the School of Management at the University of Bath, where she was also university vice president for seven years. The new University of Bristol Business School was built on the university’s schools of management and accounting and finance. It also will draw on the wider expertise of the whole university, particularly in fields such as entrepreneurship, data science, artificial intelligence, and quantum technologies. |
 Jason Harkins has been named executive dean of the Maine Business School at the University of Maine in Orono. Harkins, an associate professor of management at the school, had served as interim executive dean since July and as associate dean since 2020. Harkins joined the University of Maine community in 2008. He founded and served as the CEO for the Scratchpad Accelerator, which added more than 3 million USD to the state’s workforce. He also leads the Maine Business Institute, which promotes thought leadership and consulting services throughout the state.
New ProgramsThe McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin is offering a new part-time, online Master of Science in Business Analytics for Working Professionals. The 36-hour, 23-month program will blend self-paced online learning and live online classes. It also will include five on-campus immersives that allow students to engage with industry leaders in Austin, interact with the McCombs Career Management team, and apply coursework to real-world problems. In addition, students in the cohort-based program will have live weekly meetings with program faculty. They can customize the curriculum with electives in topics such as supply chain management and marketing analysis. The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Lubar College of Business is launching a new Master of Science in Digital Supply Chain Management in fall 2023. The program will explore how supply chains are affected by technologies such as the Internet of Things, machine learning, blockchain, connected systems, sensors, RFID, digital twins, and cloud architecture. It also will cover enterprise resource planning, big data, and real-time analytics. The program features applied projects with the university’s Connected Systems Institute, a multidisciplinary center that facilitates education and thought leadership related to advanced industrial processes. In addition, the program leverages the expertise of the Lubar College’s SAP University Competence Center. This fall, Niagara University’s Holzschuh College of Business Administration in New York will launch a new Master of Science in Accounting program. The curriculum covers financial reporting, auditing, taxation, accounting information systems, data analytics, internal controls, and ethics. The program, which is designed with flexible scheduling options, focuses on real-world scenarios and gives students opportunities to apply their knowledge in practical settings. Grants and DonationsThe Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has received a 20 million USD gift from Douglas and Diana Berthiaume to support faculty excellence. Of the total, 7 million USD will go toward creating endowed faculty positions and chancellor professorships; 11.5 million USD will support doctoral fellowships and a new behavioral research lab; and 1.5 million USD will fund expanded faculty research at the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship. The Business Innovation Hub at the Isenberg School will be named in honor of the Berthiaumes, who are the most generous cash donors in UMass Amherst history. Santa Clara University in California will receive a legacy gift currently worth 3.7 million USD from bioscience entrepreneur Thane Kreiner and his husband, Steven Lovejoy. The legacy gift, included in the couple’s estate plan, would benefit programs Kreiner has shaped or led: the Black Corporate Board Readiness Program, which is run by the Leavey School of Business, and the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship. Kreiner, who spent 10 years leading the Miller Center, is also an entrepreneur who has been part of several bioscience startups, including DNA chip company Affymetrix. Lovejoy is a retired chemist who spent decades with the Advanced Technology Center of Lockheed Martin Space Systems. CollaborationsThree organizations are teaming up to help businesses embrace environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. The Centre for Business and Industry Transformation at the Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University in the U.K. is partnering with Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and Think ESG, an ESG auditing company appointed by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The partners will deliver a series of workshops and test a range of business models known as More Sustainable More Profitable. One workshop will be offered in-person in the U.K., one will be in-person in China, and three will be available online. The team also will develop manuals and a toolbox to guide businesses through iteratively improving their existing business models. Up to 30 businesses across the globe will be chosen to participate in the two-year project. The project is funded by a 160,000 GBP grant (about 196,800 USD) from the British Council. Pace University’s Lubin School of Business in New York City has collaborated with venture capital firm AnD Ventures to create the Pace Entrepreneurship Studio (PES), which supports Pace students, faculty, staff, and alumni who are launching new business ventures. Three startups already have been selected from a pool of 23 to undergo a due diligence review with AnD Ventures’ investment team and key experts from a variety of sectors. During the due diligence process, the PES team will identify the main challenges for each company and develop a tailor-made roadmap for accelerating its growth. Other NewsSix European business schools are collaborating to launch the European Scaleup Institute (ESI), a platform that will draw on expertise from academics and practitioners across Europe to support scaleups, high-growth firms, governmental organizations, and policymakers. Behind the institute is Vlerick Business School in Belgium, the Rotterdam School of Management and the Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship in the Netherlands, ESSEC Business School in France, ESADE Business School in Spain, the Nova School of Business and Economics in Portugal, and the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany. The schools are joined by Nordic Innovation, an organization under the Nordic Council of Ministers that promotes entrepreneurship, innovation, and competitiveness in the Nordic countries. The goal of the institute is to enable Europe to become a leading global scaleup ecosystem through joint research and educational initiatives. MBA programs at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business in College Park are now STEM-designated, reflecting the school’s enhanced focus on technology and data analytics. A STEM-designated program allows students from outside the U.S. to be eligible for a 24-month extension of their Optional Practical Training. As part of its STEM focus, the Smith School offers a graduate certificate in technology management as a second-year elective track or a standalone credential. In the program, students explore the practical challenges of technology development and adoption, learn best practices in managing research and development, study the interface of public policy and private enterprise in science and technology, and craft strategies to cultivate emergent technology from concept to commercial use. If you have news of interest to share with the business education community, please send press releases, relevant images, or other information to AACSB Insights at [email protected]. |
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