Updates from Interim Dean Moliterno

Fasten your seatbelts—we’re embarking on a watershed year. Between the opening of the Business Innovation Hub this semester and the introduction of our new permanent dean, Anne Massey, in August, we’re looking at celebrations and transitions of the best kind in 2019.

Congratulations to Isenberg students Michael Famiglietti ’19 and Paige Kozlowski ’19 for earning Fall 2018 UMass Scholar-Athlete honors. Mike, an accounting major and a captain of the varsity Division 1 cross country and track and field teams, finished 16th at the NCAA Northeast Regional Championships—the top performer among Minutemen. A dual major in Sport Management and Operations and Information Management, Paige was the starting defensive midfielder for a UMass varsity women’s soccer squad that posted its best record since 2011.

Kudos to Associate Dean Linda Enghagen for her honor as a 2018 Online Learning Consortium (OLC) Fellow! A community of higher education leaders and innovators, the OLC advances quality in digital teaching and learning experiences to reach and engage today’s learners. Nominated by Frank Tomsic, Director of Health Forum Education at the American Hospital Association, Linda earned the OLC distinction for her prowess in translating complex copyright and fair use law in her years of training distance educators.

This academic year will highlight the inauguration of our iconic Business Innovation Hub, but our investment in new faculty is no less eventful. Thanks in large part to our growing national reputation, we have attracted eleven gifted, cutting-edge educators. Our new hires specialize in areas such as forensic accounting, real estate, human resources, and gamification.

Welcome back to Isenberg! And welcome to a milestone year of extraordinary excitement and importance for this wonderful institution. As your interim dean, I am looking forward to the year ahead, it will be a memorable time of transition, as the school prepares to embark on the next stage of its remarkable journey. It is truly an honor and a privilege to lead this exceptional institution at this moment in time. We are indeed poised for more great things.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the new leadership team for the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship. Over the past year we have been working to transition the Center and establish “Berthiaume 2.0,” and we now have a fantastic new team in place to move the Center forward and lead it into the new academic year.

In the years ahead, we will continue to build on the successes of the past, while pursuing bold new initiatives enabled by our status as a premier business school on the flagship campus in the state U.S. News ranks as #1 for education. In many ways, our work this year will set the table for this next chapter. This includes ensuring that we are organized in a way that will enable us to pursue the opportunities that lie before us. To this end, I have news today regarding the school’s Senior Leadership Team, which is made up of the Dean and the Associate Deans who report to the Dean. In...

Working hand in glove with Vice Dean Tom Moliterno has been one of the great joys of my tenure as dean. I am therefore pleased and proud that Tom is succeeding me in a one-year appointment as Isenberg’s Interim Dean. That appointment, which begins on July 1, will ensure continuity during a year of dynamic change at the school. Most eventful on our vibrant agenda will be the January 1 debut of our state-of-the-art, 70,000 square-foot Business Innovation Hub. In that enterprise, Tom’s leadership has graced every phase of its development.

For me, nothing is more gratifying than Isenberg alumni who energize our academic mission through their financial support for endowed faculty positions. It’s an endorsement of our faculty, who share like-minded interests with our alumni. I am therefore delighted to announce the appointment of two newly created professorships. The first, The John F. Kennedy Endowed Professorship, goes to David Piercey, chair of our Department of Accounting. The second, The Charles P. McQuaid Endowed Professorship, to Dean’s Faculty Fellow and Professor of Finance Bing Liang.

I have an important leadership change to share with you, and this is my first opportunity to share it broadly following our record setting #UMassGives event! Effective July 1, 2018, I will assume the role of vice chancellor for development and alumni relations for the UMass Amherst campus.

On December 31, Linda Shea will step down as Isenberg’s Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs. I am deeply grateful to Linda for her exceptional leadership and service to Isenberg and its students. During her 6 ½ years as associate dean, Linda has elevated and energized our programs and national reputation. She has built a state-of-the-art infrastructure for academic excellence and student services, dramatically increasing our national rankings. Linda’s innovations will continue to thrive when her successor, Bill Brown, Associate Chair and Clinical Associate Professor in our Department...

Dean Fuller sits down and answers frequently asked questions about the new addition to the Isenberg School of Management building, the Business Innovation Hub. Read on to learn more about the addition and its progress.

It is no state secret - our faculty are as driven as our students. Driven to inspire them as innovators and problem solvers. Driven to explore new business horizons and span interdisciplinary boundaries. Driven to advance the education and societal mission of UMass Amherst's flagship, land-grant campus. I am proud to introduce seven new Isenberg faculty members, all of whom will make an outstanding business school better. Without question, our new faculty will add value to our students, our reputation, and to Isenberg's unique driven culture.

Welcome to a new academic year, resonating with Isenberg’s growing academic reputation and expanding national footprint. One sure barometer for these gains is our success in attracting high-level students and faculty.

Isenberg’s Business Leadership Awards banquet on June 15 at the Colonnade Hotel in Boston attracted 350 enthusiastic members of the Isenberg community. A celebration of all things Isenberg, including the year’s honorees—Earl Stafford ’76 and Nick Markey ’13—affirmed Isenberg’s positive, driven culture and our mission to propel the school to top-5 status among the nation’s public business schools.

On May 12 and 13, Isenberg honored its 1,200 graduating seniors and 500 graduating master’s degree and PhD candidates at separate commencement ceremonies. The high-energy events included university-wide ceremonies and our own senior celebration at the Mullins Center. We also celebrated an annual Oath Ceremony for our MBA’s and a robing ceremony for our record number 18 PhDs.

The Class of 2017 is proving they are “Driven to Give”. We are nearing the monumental Senior Class Gift goal of 50% participation. Meeting this goal is so important to me that I will donate an additional $1,000 to the class gift when we reach it. For every percentage point beyond that, I will add another $100. In other words, if we hit 60% participation, I will double my gift to $2,000. Added incentive: When we reach 50% participation, Beth Gamel ’78—a dedicated alumna—will donate $1,000 of her own. If we reach 60%, she will up her gift by an additional $2,000.

The spring semester is rankings season for business schools and Isenberg continues to make steady progress. I’m especially proud of our rankings in the Financial Times survey of Online MBA programs, where we were #1 in the U.S. and #3 in the world. With 1,300 online students, our online MBA program is among the nation’s largest and most successful.

From Groundbreaking for our new 70,000 square-foot Business Innovation Hub to a stellar gathering featuring Apple’s Steve Wozniak to a full complement of visits by alumni to Isenberg, Fall 2016 was a semester to remember. . .And build on!

I recently sat down with BusinessWest editor George O’Brien for a discussion about Isenberg’s dramatically improved national reputation and our aspirations to elevate it further. In the interview—the magazine’s current cover feature—I outlined the strategic and tactical elements that we will continue to deploy in growing Isenberg’s reputational capital. I also underscored the importance of measurable execution in that pursuit.
Above all, improved reputation and rankings allow us to recruit better students and secure better jobs and salaries for our graduates. It’s a virtuous,...

I am proud to introduce thirteen new faculty members, each of whom will make an outstanding business school even better. They are sure add value to our students, our reputation, and to Isenberg's unique, driven culture.

Every semester, we elicit feedback from recruiters that come to Isenberg to interview undergrads (that’s you!). We ask them questions about their overall experience, their experiences with our students, and their experiences with the Chase Career Center. We in the Dean’s Office and in the Chase Career Center compile, review, and evaluate this feedback every week throughout the semester. We also examine trends across academic years.

Welcome back to what is sure to be an eventful academic year. We have started construction on the Business Innovation Hub, which, when it opens for business in 2 ½ years, will be home base for today’s Isenberg freshmen and sophomores. It is one of many strategic investments in Isenberg’s academic “infrastructure” and reputation that are propelling us toward top-ten status among the nation’s public business schools.

It gives me great pleasure to announce that Professor Muzaffer "Muzzo" Uysal is joining our faculty as the new Chair of our Hospitality & Tourism Management (HTM) program. The hands-down choice of our search committee, Professor Uysal brings many career highlights that underscore his leadership in the hospitality and tourism field. He is a relationship-builder with both industry and academe, a dedicated and innovative educator, and an internationally renowned hospitality researcher.