People and Places: January 2024
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 Lynne Richardson has been named interim dean of the Michael E. Stephens College of Business at the University of Montevallo in Alabama. She is an alumna of the university. Richardson recently retired as dean of LaPenta School of Business at Iona University in New Rochelle, New York, where she served for two years. She previously had held deanships at the College of Business at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia; the College of Business at Mississippi State University in Mississippi State; and the Miller College of Business at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Her new appointment at Montevallo is for two years. |
 Brent D. Williams has been appointed dean of the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Williams, who is the Garrison Endowed Chair in Supply Chain Management, has served as interim dean since August 2023, when former dean Matt Waller transitioned back to faculty as professor of supply chain management. When Williams becomes the dean on February 1, he will serve as the Sam M. Walton Endowed Leadership Chair in the Walton College. |
 On June 1, James D. Sterling becomes vice provost and founding dean of the Kummer College of Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla. Sterling currently is a professor in the Henry E. Riggs School of Applied Life Sciences at the Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) in Claremont, California. He serves as director of the school’s intellectual property and technology transfer committee and its PhD program. Sterling, who joined KGI in 2000 as a founding faculty member, formerly was vice president for academic affairs, dean of the faculty, and director of the professional sciences master’s degree program. He also co-founded and chairs the board of directors of Claremont BioSolutions, an entrepreneurial KGI spin-off. |
 Nodir Adilov has been announced as dean of the Doermer School of Business at Purdue University in Fort Wayne. Adilov, who has been serving as interim dean since July, is a professor of economics specializing in space economics, media economics, industrial organization, energy economics, and applied economics. Last April, he was recognized with the university’s 2022–23 Outstanding Research Award, which honors a tenured, full-time faculty member for research, scholarly activity, or creative endeavors. |
On January 1, Michael Capella became dean of the Mitchell College of Business at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. Capella, who spent nearly a decade working in sales before turning to academia, most recently served as dean of the College of Business at Loyola University New Orleans. Previously, he was a professor of marketing and the associate dean of graduate and executive programs at the Villanova School of Business at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. |
 Andrew J. DeGuire has been named the James H. Keyes Dean of Business Administration at Marquette University in Milwaukee. DeGuire, an alum, currently is vice president of corporate strategy at financial services company Northwestern Mutual. In that role, he is responsible for driving the company’s strategy, performance reporting, competitive research, and analytics. DeGuire will start his new position on July 1, succeeding Tim Hanley, who has led the college on an interim basis since March 2020. |
 Shalei Simms has been named dean of the School of Business at the State University of New York at Old Westbury. She has been acting dean since the summer of 2021, and during that time, the school earned accreditation from AACSB. In addition to being a tenured faculty member, Simms has served as director of graduate programs for the School of Business, as vice chair of the faculty senate, and as interim assistant vice president of academic affairs. In that last position, she oversaw educational pipeline initiatives, extramurally funded academic programming, and administrative support for applied learning. |
Imperial College London has appointed Peter Todd as the new dean of the Imperial College Business School. He most recently served as director general and dean of HEC Paris, where he oversaw the launch of a 200 million EUR fundraising campaign. Before that, he was dean of the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University in Montreal, where he was instrumental in obtaining a faculty naming gift. He has served on the board of directors of AACSB and on the global advisory board of Coursera. He will begin his deanship on September 1, taking over from interim dean Franklin Allen. |
 Al Renshaw has joined the board of directors of The PhD Project. Renshaw, AACSB’s senior vice president and global chief marketing and communications officer, leads the association’s marketing, advocacy, thought leadership, and web strategies. He and other members of the board, who come from both business and academia, will focus on helping The PhD Project advance its mission of increasing diversity in business by diversifying the faculty in business schools.
New ProgramsThe Haas School of Business and the Rausser College of Natural Resources at the University of California Berkeley have designed a concurrent MBA/Master of Climate Solutions (MCS) degree program that will begin enrolling students for the fall of 2024. Students will spend the first year taking MBA courses in leadership, marketing, management, finance, data analysis, ethics, macroeconomics, and sustainability. When they move to Rausser, they will take courses focusing on the climate and environmental sciences; climate economics and policies; and technological, business, and nature-based solutions. The MBA/MCS program takes five semesters to complete and is designed for early-career professionals interested in addressing sustainability and climate change challenges. Trinity Business School at Trinity College Dublin is launching a Master of Science in Responsible Business and Sustainability. The one-year, full-time program will prepare students for careers in corporate sustainability, business and human rights, and other socially responsible fields. The program will include eight core modules, including those dedicated to sustainable corporate governance; climate action; and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting. Students will address current sustainable business challenges either by writing individual research dissertations or working in small-group consulting projects for corporate, public sector, or civil society organizations. Classes will begin September 2024. This spring, Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business in Washington, D.C., will begin offering an MBA certificate in the business of healthcare. Taught in person, the certificate program is open to students in the full-time, Flex MBA, and Flex MBA Online programs. All students will enroll in the core Structure of Global Industries course and the Business of Healthcare elective before choosing six credits from healthcare electives offered within the business school and the university. This fall, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business will offer a new Master of Finance program designed for recent college graduates from quantitative fields of study. Students can choose to complete the program in 15 months on the standard track or in 10 months on the accelerated schedule. As a cohort, students will take courses in investments, corporation finance, data analytics, and financial accounts. They also will choose five finance electives and four electives from a subset of MBA courses. The Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has launched an accelerated full-time MBA that students can complete in three semesters instead of four. The new program features the same faculty and networking opportunities as the two-year program and most of the same curriculum. To qualify for the accelerated MBA, applicants must already have taken accounting, finance, marketing, microeconomics, and operations courses. Admitted students also will be required to complete a refresher business course. The school estimates that, by taking the accelerated program, students could save about 50,000 USD in tuition and fees. IESE Business School is introducing a new executive education program tailored to local managers attending the school’s Munich campus. The six-month General Management Program (GMP) will start in November and provide participants with a fundamental understanding of general management as well as a holistic view of entrepreneurial challenges. The GMP will be taught in a part-time format in which students come to campus two-and-a-half days every three weeks. The program also includes a module taught from IESE’s Barcelona campus. In addition, IESE has launched a series of activities for Munich students, including specialized sessions for alumni and entrepreneurs. CollaborationsESSEC Business School and the International Institute of Well-Being have established a global strategic partnership in La Défense, Paris. The collaboration is designed to advance international education, enhance entrepreneurial leadership, and train global talent. This fall, EDHEC Business School in France, ESMT Berlin, and Imperial College Business School in London will launch the Global Economic Transformation and Technology (GETT) Europe master’s degree. During the three-year program, students will take courses that include risk modeling, predictive analysis, AI and society, design thinking, and technology and innovation management. Graduates will earn a master’s degree in management from EDHEC, a certificate from ESMT Berlin, and an MSc in Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Management from Imperial. The program is a companion to EDHEC’s existing GETT USA–Asia program, in which students take classes at EDHEC in Paris; at the University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business; and at Sungkyunkwan University’s Graduate School of Business in Seoul. Grants and DonationsThe Purdue Research Foundation at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, is receiving 100 million USD from Lilly Endowment Inc., a private foundation created by the family that founded pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. Half the money will go to the Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. School of Business and half to Purdue Computes, a university initiative that focuses on computing, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and quantum. Together, these commitments represent the largest gift in the university’s history. Part of the Lilly Endowment funding will support the construction of a new facility for the Daniels School, a 164,000-square-foot building that will connect to the school’s existing spaces. The grants, while given separately and for distinct purposes, will operate together to boost Indiana’s economy by preparing future business leaders who can manage rapid technological change. The Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville has received a 5 million USD commitment from Stephen Bachand, former president and CEO of Canadian Tire Corporation, and his wife, Phyllis. The university will match the gift with 5 million USD from its Bicentennial Professorship Fund to create a professorship focused on business ethics. 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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