Three Top B-Schools Look for New Deans

(page 2 of 2)

A seven-faculty-member search committee has been named to identify a suitable replacement, who is expected to be chosen by university President Robert Zimmer. The committee is expected to look for someone with many of the same characteristics that Snyder brought to the position. Among them: a solid academic career and a strong focus on fund-raising and enhancing the school's brand. Harris expects the new dean will also have the Chicago pedigree. "I think there is a preference for someone who knows the school and is familiar with it," he says. A priority for the new dean will be faced to find a way to deal with the effects that the down economy has had on Booth. From 2008 to 2009, the number of students with job offers by graduation dropped 16 percentage points, to 79%, and the school's endowment dipped 23% to $389 million.

Of the names being mentioned by alumni, faculty, and student leaders as suitable candidates to fill the position at Chicago, Mark E. Zmijewski is getting the most attention. Zmijewski, a deputy dean of the part-time MBA program and an accounting professor, has taught at Booth since 1984 and is a founding partner and managing director of Chicago Partners, a fully owned subsidiary of Navigant Consulting (NCI). In his tenure at Booth, Zmijewski has served as executive director of the university's Center for Research in Security Prices and faculty director of the Summer Business Scholars Program aimed at undergraduates. Zmijewski is well-respected in the Booth community and also has the industry background that could come in handy for fund-raising matters.

Despite the buzz. Zmijewski says he's not a candidate. "I'm naturally very honored…However, someone else will better serve the needs of the school as dean," he said in an e-mail. "I am definitely not a candidate."

A New Dean by June

Another person being thought of as dean material by alumni and students is Stacey Kole, an economics professor and deputy dean of the MBA program at Booth. Kole earned both her master's and doctorate in economics from Chicago and worked as associate dean of MBA programs at the University of Rochester's Simon Graduate School of Business (Simon Full-Time MBA Profile) before joining the faculty at Chicago in 2004. Kole sits on the board of directors at the Graduate Management Admission Council and has worked closely with Snyder in corporate outreach, an area of great importance, especially now as more students struggle to find jobs. Kole declined to comment.

One individual who isn't getting as much buzz, but who's being mentioned as a candidate by alumni and other members of the Booth community, is Hassell H. McClellan, associate professor of operations and strategic management at Boston College's Carroll School of Management (Carroll Full-Time MBA Profile). McClellan holds an MBA from Chicago, a doctorate from Harvard, has both industry and academic experience on his résumé, and knows the ins and outs of running a business school, having been dean of Carroll's MBA program from 1996 to 2000. While McClellan isn't a member of the Booth faculty, this isn't a deal-breaker, considering Snyder wasn't on the faculty when he was named dean in 2001. Contacted by Bloomberg BusinessWeek, McClellan was suprised to learn that his name had surfaced in connection with the deanship. "This is the first I heard of it," he said. "I'm flattered—it's a great institution. But I have no knowledge of that whatsoever."

Harris expects the goal is to have a new dean in place by the time Snyder steps down on June 30. "I don't think they want to have to deal with the problem of having an interim dean," he says. A Web site has been created to keep the school's various constituencies up to date with the progress of the search at Booth, but apart from that, very little information has been made available about the search.

In the next installment, coming Monday, we look at the dean search at Harvard, where a search committee is looking for someone to replace Jay Light.

Gloeckler is a staff editor for BusinessWeek in New York.

Business Exchange

Track and share business topics across the Web.