People and Places: June 28, 2022
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 Catherine Cassell has been appointed executive dean of Durham University Business School in the U.K. Cassell joins Durham from the University of Birmingham, where she is dean of the Birmingham Business School. During her tenure, she has led the school in achieving accreditation from AACSB, EFMD, and the Association of MBAs. She has previously been deputy director of Alliance Manchester Business School and deputy executive dean of Leeds University Business School, both in the U.K. She assumes her new role on September 1, taking over from Kieran Fernandes, interim executive dean. |
 Eugene “Gene” Anderson has been named the new Henry E. Haller Jr. Dean of the University of Pittsburgh’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration in Pennsylvania. He will also join the faculty as a full professor in the Katz School. Anderson has served as dean of the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University in New York since 2017. Prior to that role, he was dean of the University of Miami Business School for five years. He has also served in various positions at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business in Ann Arbor. The school’s current dean, Arjang A. Assad, will leave his role on June 20; associate dean Sara B. Moeller will serve as acting dean until Anderson joins the university on August 1. |
 Dan Moshavi has been selected as the new Thomas and Evelyn Page Dean of the Fowler College of Business at San Diego State University in California. His appointment will officially begin on August 3. Moshavi comes to San Diego State University from San Jose State University (SJSU) in California, where he has served as dean of the Lucas College and Graduate School of Business for the last five years. During this time, Moshavi created new student learning and professional development experiences, expanded industry and community engagement, and strengthened the research and teaching culture of the college. Prior to his role as dean at SJSU, Moshavi served as professor of management and dean of the business schools at both Dominican University of California and Montana State University. |
 On July 11, Virginia Franke Kleist becomes dean of the Mike Ilitch School of Business at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Kleist comes to Wayne State from West Virginia University in Morgantown, where she served as the associate dean of graduate programs, research and academic affairs; she also was a professor of management information systems within the John Chambers College of Business and Economics. In her 23 years at West Virginia University, Kleist was chair of the University Faculty Senate and chair of the department of management and information systems; she also oversaw the Robbins Center for Global Business and Strategy and the Center for Chinese Business. She succeeds Robert Forsythe, who has served since 2014 and who will remain as dean until Kleist’s arrival. |
 On July 18, Mohamed Djerdjouri becomes dean of the Thomas School of Business at the University of North Carolina Pembroke. He currently serves as dean of the Johnson College of Business and Economics at the University of South Carolina Upstate. During his tenure at USC Upstate, Djerdjouri led a successful reaffirmation of AACSB accreditation and created a master’s degree program in business analytics. He previously served as chair of the department of management, information systems and analytics at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. He also has been a professor in the School of Commerce at Laurentian University in Ontario, Canada. At UNC Pembroke, Djerdjouri follows dean Barry O’Brien and interim dean Susan Peters. |
 William Hardin has been named dean of the Florida International University School of Business in Miami. He has served as interim dean since May 2021 and is Ryder Eminent Scholar Chair and Research Fellow in the Tibor and Sheila Hollo School of Real Estate. Hardin joined the FIU Business faculty in 2006 as director of real estate programs and the Jerome Bain Real Estate Institute. He was founding director of the Hollo School of Real Estate, created in 2012, and most recently served as associate dean of the Chapman Graduate School of Business. |
 Peter Demerjian has been named director of the School of Accountancy at Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business in Atlanta. He joins Georgia State from the University of Illinois at Chicago where he is an associate professor and acting head of the department of accounting. Demerjian serves on the editorial advisory and review board of The Accounting Review and the editorial board of the Journal of Accounting, Auditing, and Finance. |
New ProgramsStarting in January 2021, the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City will add an online version of its Master of Business Creation (MBC) program, which helps aspiring entrepreneurs build and scale their businesses. The online option offers the same benefits as the full-time option, including an applied curriculum, personalized mentorship, scholarship opportunities, peer support, and access to 5 million USD in startup funding. In addition, the online version allows participants to complete the program on a part-time basis over a longer period of time—14 months, as opposed to nine months for the full-time program. The MBC is an offering of the department of entrepreneurship and strategy in partnership with the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. Columbia Business School in New York City has announced a new online course, The Business of Sports. The course, which is supported by Morgan Stanley’s Global Sports & Entertainment division, will feature insights from more than two dozen sports executives, including team owners, agents, and specialists from the sports media. The Business of Sports will cover topics such as managing, financing, marketing, and investing in sports organizations. It also will address the business mechanics of the industry, including regulation, management, and mergers and acquisitions. Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business in Atlanta has redesigned the curriculum of its Regynald G. Washington Master of Global Hospitality Management. Students in the 12-month, three-semester program take six core hospitality courses, as well as a four-course career track in artificial intelligence business innovation, disruptive innovation and entrepreneurship, or fintech innovation. Students who complete the program earn graduate certificates in their career tracks along with their master’s degrees. This fall, the Price College of Business at the University of Oklahoma in Norman will launch two master’s degree programs in business analytics and supply chain management. Each online program can be completed in as few as 16 months. In the supply chain management program, students gain specialized knowledge of the profession as well as leadership skills such as problem solving, strategic and system-level thinking, ethics, and sustainability. The business analytics program focuses on analyzing business performance through the application of statistical modeling, data warehousing and mining, programming, forecasting, and operations research. Indiana University is set to offer five new online degrees in business fields through a collaboration across multiple campuses in the university system. The programs include bachelor’s degrees in accounting, actuarial science, and applied statistics, and master’s degrees in management and strategic finance. The bachelor’s degree in accounting meets requirements for students to sit for the Uniform Certified Public Accounting and Certified Management Accounting exams. CollaborationsImperial College Business School in London has expanded its partnership with Corndel, a management and technology training provider in the U.K., to launch two new executive education offerings. The Data-Driven Professional Program is designed to help human resources, marketing, finance, and operations professionals enhance their data literacy; the more specialized Data Analyst Program is aimed at tech-oriented employees who work with data and need to upgrade their skills in machine learning, AI, and data science. In addition to taking courses at Imperial, participants will receive one-on-one mentoring and support through Corndel’s coaching model. Participants will also be able to take advantage of the U.K. government’s Apprenticeship Levy, which supports employers in providing workplace training for staff in order to boost skills in areas such as leadership, management, data skills, and project management. After a successful pilot program in East Africa, the Partnership for Enhanced and Blended Learning (PEBL) in West Africa is developing additional initiatives to increase access to higher education in countries where demand outstrips supply. Through a new program created in collaboration with the Association of Commonwealth Universities and the Government of Australia, PEBL West Africa will support academics and students across 12 universities in Ghana and Nigeria. The alliance, which is funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, will build sustainable capacity for blended learning through training, collaboration, and the development of credit-bearing blended courses. Grants and DonationsCornell University in Ithaca, New York, has received a 30 million USD gift from alum Paul Rubacha of real estate investment company Ashley Capital. The gift will be used to create the Paul Rubacha Department of Real Estate, which will be managed between the College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP) and the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. The Baker Program in Real Estate, already jointly administered by the SC Johnson College and AAP, will serve as the new department’s primary professional master’s degree-granting program. Over time, the department will add academic offerings, including a research-focused master’s degree and a PhD program; it also will implement collaborations with Cornell colleges in Ithaca and New York City. York University’s Schulich School of Business in Toronto has received a 1.25 million CAN (about 967,000 USD) commitment from financial services firm CIBC to establish the CIBC Chair in Sustainable Finance. The chairholder will pursue research in areas such as green energy transition; the low carbon economy; and the political, regulatory and governance challenges of a sustainable financial system. Other NewsThe Entrepreneurship Development Academy at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) in Johannesburg, South Africa, is recruiting 50 South African women to participate in a business management and investment readiness program called the Road to Growth. The intensive, seven-week program, which is run by the Cherie Blair Foundation, helps women entrepreneurs develop confidence as they build business skills, gain financial literacy, and expand their networks. The program at GIBS, which will be delivered primarily online, will cover topics such as contextualizing and understanding the market, mastering digital marketing and communication, and managing finances. It will be offered to participants free of charge. The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women’s Road to Growth program is currently also running in Nigeria, Kenya, and Guyana, and has previously run in Mexico, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Twenty universities in the U.S. have formed the Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Research Universities (HSRU) to increase opportunities for those historically underserved by higher education. The institutions represent every university that has been both categorized as R1 by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education and designated as a Hispanic-Serving Institution by the U.S. Department of Education. By 2030, the alliance aims to double the number of Hispanic doctoral students enrolled at HSRUs and increase the Hispanic professoriate by 20 percent at these schools. Members of the alliance include seven schools from Texas, four from California, two from Arizona, two from New Mexico, and one school each from New York, New Mexico, Colorado, Illinois, and Nevada. 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]. |
Paul Tesluk will be the next provost and vice president for academic affairs at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Tesluk currently is the dean of the University at Buffalo School of Management in New York. At Buffalo, he led an expansion of the business school’s initiatives in entrepreneurship, leadership, healthcare management, social innovation, global programs, and diversity and inclusion, all while launching new undergraduate, graduate, and certificate programs. He also guided the School of Management through a strategic planning process that resulted in a renewed mission and set of strategic priorities, and he oversaw the launch of new degree, nondegree, and microcredential programs. Tesluk will begin his term at Bentley on August 1.
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