People and Places: June 22, 2021

Transitions

The University of Texas at Austin has named Lillian Mills as the permanent dean of the McCombs School of Business. Mills has held the role of interim dean since April 2020 following the appointment of its previous dean, Jay Hartzell, as president. Mills is the first woman to serve as permanent dean of the school. She joined McCombs in 2006 and has held the Beverly H. and William P. O’Hara Chair in Business since 2014. She has also served as chair of the accounting department. Before joining McCombs, she spent eight years at the University of Arizona and a year at the U.S. Treasury Department as the Stanley Surrey senior research fellow in the Office of Tax Analysis.

Paulo Goes has been named dean of Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business in New Orleans, effective August 23. He currently is dean and Halle Chair in Leadership at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management in Tucson. As dean of the Eller College, Goes built interdisciplinary programs in entrepreneurship and innovation, digital transformation economics, and business; he also oversaw growth of the school’s online graduate programs in management information systems, cybersecurity, healthcare management, and accounting. At Tulane, Goes will replace Ira Solomon, who will step down in June after 10 years as dean of the Freeman School.

Kimberly Gladden Burke will be the new dean of the Meredith College School of Business in Raleigh, North Carolina. Burke comes to Meredith from Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, where she has served as dean of the Else School of Management since 2012. During her tenure as dean, she led several curricular innovations, including creating Millsaps’ first online course offerings and developing and launching a graduate certificate in data analytics. Burke also held roles as assistant dean, acting dean, and professor of accounting at Millsaps. Burke takes up her new role at the Meredith College on July 1.

To replace Burke, Harvey Fiser has been named interim dean of the Else School of Management. Fiser, who has a JD degree, currently holds the Selby and Richard McRae Chair of Business Administration as a professor of business law. He has practiced law in employment and commercial litigation; he has published in the areas of employment law, family law, and neuroscience and the law. Fiser oversees the college’s mock trial team, which has achieved top rankings in regional and national competitions.

Norm O’Reilly has been named dean of the University of Maine Graduate School of Business in Orono. He most recently was a professor and former assistant dean at the University of Guelph in Ontario, where he founded the International Institute for Sport Business & Leadership. He previously was the Richard P. and Joan S. Fox Professor of Business and chair of the department of sports administration at Ohio University. He also is a partner consultant in the Toronto-based T1 Agency, a marketing firm. O’Reilly assumes his new role July 1.

On July 30, Tim Carroll will become the Sara Hart Kimball Dean of Oregon State University’s College of Business in Corvallis. Since 2018, Carroll has served as dean and professor of management at the Eberhardt School of Business at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. While there, he led the development of a new college strategic plan, increased student retention and enrollment, and expanded fundraising. Carroll replaces Jim Coakley, senior associate dean for analytics and operations, who has served as interim dean of the OSU College of Business since summer 2019.

Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago has announced that Rajagopal “Raj” Echambadi will join Illinois Tech as its 10th president. Echambadi currently is Dunton Family Dean at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University in Boston. Prior to joining Northeastern, Echambadi served as the Alan J. and Joyce D. Baltz Professor and the senior associate dean of strategic innovation at Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He will take up his new position August 16.

S. Tamer Cavusgil, the Fuller E. Callaway Professorial Chair at Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business in Atlanta, has been appointed a Regents’ Professor, the highest recognition within the University System of Georgia. Cavusgil is also executive director of the Center for International Business and Research at Georgia State.

New Programs

This September, Strathclyde Business School in Glasgow, Scotland, will offer three new master’s programs focused on global issues. The MSc in Economics and Policy of Energy and Climate Change will address the rapid changes within the global energy system and the way in which the energy system is impacted by climate change. The MSc in Health Analysis, Policy and Management will equip students with the practical and analytical skills needed to influence and develop strategy and performance in the healthcare sector. The MSc in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship will explore contemporary social and sustainable issues within the context of business venturing and entrepreneurial management.

The Canisius College Richard J. Wehle School of Business in Buffalo, New York, has introduced a new master’s degree in business analytics, which will begin in fall 2021. The program, which can be completed on a full- or part-time basis, overlaps with the college’s MS in data analytics to provide students with strong technical skills. The program also emphasizes teamwork, communication, and the ethical stewardship of data. Students gain real-world analytics experience by completing internships, and they master leadership skills through a professional development program.

Trinity Business School at Trinity College Dublin has launched a flexible executive MBA that consists of 20 percent on-campus learning and 80 percent remote delivery. The two-year, part-time program will welcome its first cohort in September. Students from around the world will join via the Matrix Room, an interactive hub developed exclusively for the program.

Collaborations

A new network of four European business schools is establishing the European Management Track (EMT), a cooperative project for their Master’s in Business and Management students. The partner institutions are Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, ESSEC Business School in France, IE Business School in Spain, and the University of Mannheim Business School in Germany. The goal of the EMT is to enable students to learn more about Europe, its politics, and its corporate world. Each school will offer a specialization track in a high-demand field such as international finance, sustainability in governance and investments, and entrepreneurship. Students in the first cohort will start their studies in August of 2022 and eventually earn joint program certificates.

Centers and Facilities

The Saunders College of Business at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York state will break ground this fall on a 19 million USD expansion to its current building. The addition of 35,000 square feet will almost double the footprint of the existing facility. The expansion has been made possible by a 7.5 million USD gift from philanthropist E. Philip Saunders. Additional funding has been secured in the form of a 4.7 million USD grant from New York state as part of the Higher Education Capital Matching Grant Program, 1.8 million USD from alumnus Chance Wright, and contributions from other RIT supporters. The money will also be used to renovate spaces in the existing building.

New Research

Workers are much more likely to challenge unethical behavior in their organizations if their manager is seen as an ethical leader, according to four researchers from the U.K. The new study was conducted by Yuyan Zheng of the University of Sheffield; Olga Epitropaki and Les Graham of Durham University; and Nick Caveney of the University of Northampton. The scholars reached their conclusion after surveying almost 1,000 U.K. police officers, staff, and working professionals, asking them to rate their own personal ethical values and integrity; the levels of ethical leadership within their teams; and the likelihood that they would raise concerns about unethical practices among their co-workers.

Organizations can use a number of strategies to encourage leaders to be ethical, say the researchers. For instance, companies can create a formal set of ethical principles to help leaders communicate values to workers, instill these values into everyday working practices, and actively show that they value integrity. The research showcases the importance of leadership in creating a company culture where unethical practices are challenged among co-workers and not just by leaders themselves.

More than half of prospective students believe that admissions exams improve reliability, fairness, and transparency in evaluating graduate business school candidates, according to a new survey by the Graduate Management Admission Council. However, 15 percent disagreed with the statement that a school’s use of admissions exams enhances the transparency of the admissions process. Nearly 1,800 respondents participated in the mba.com Prospective Students Survey.

International candidates are more likely than domestic candidates to believe that admissions exams enhance transparency and fairness. Perceptions of admissions exams also vary by region. For instance, 68 percent of prospective students from Africa, 68 percent of those from Central and South Asia, and 64 percent of those from East and Southeast Asia agree that the use of admissions exams demonstrates the importance that graduate business schools place on the quality of their students. That compares to 45 percent of candidates from the U.S. and 50 percent of those from Western Europe who feel the same way. GMAC suggests that business schools seeking to attract a diverse pool of candidates need to recognize regional differences in the way candidates perceive admissions exams as indicators of the quality of business schools.

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