The Daniels College of Business (DCB) announced the appointment of two new department chairs and three new endowed chairs in a news release last Thursday.
“They all bring an extraordinary amount of expertise in their respective areas,” said interim DCB Dean Charles Patti.
Patti says the new positions could lead to the development of new majors and minors, more internships for students, and a high level of applied learning to the DU community.
According to the release, the department chair appointments include Barbara Jackson, director of the Franklin L. Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management, and Andrew Urbaczewski, chair and associate professor of the Department of Business Information and Analytics.
Similarly, the endowed chairs include Sharon Alvarez, the first Koch Chair in Entrepreneurship in the Department of Management, Robert Giacalone, distinguished chair of ethics in the Department of Business Ethics and Legal Studies, and Jack Strauss, the first Miller Chair of applied economics in the Reiman School of Finance.
Patti says the new faculty members will contribute significantly to DU.
“They’re all very accomplished researchers and scholars, but they do so by bringing their research in a very applied, understandable, problem-solving way to the communities that we’re involved in here,” he said.
Patti points to the connections the new faculty bring with them as further benefits.
“[They bring] a whole new level of expertise, and all of the connections that are around that expertise,” he said. “Eventually those bring internship opportunities for students.”
According to Patti, department chairs are in charge of running academic departments, while endowed chairs are very highly qualified faculty members that have a national or international reputation in a specific area.
For example, Patti points to Alvarez’s expertise in entrepreneurship. He says DCB plans to build on that expertise to expand entrepreneurship learning opportunities across campus, including the possibility of adding an entrepreneurship minor or major in conjunction with various departments on campus.
“[Alvarez] will be working with other faculty members here to build out some learning opportunities throughout the campus, not just Daniels students, because we know that entrepreneurship…exists in all fields,” said Patti.
One of the newly appointed chair positions—the Miller Chair of Applied Economics—was created using a one million dollar endowment given by alumni John and Sandy Miller last year, according to a Daniels 2012 press release. Patti said another of the positions—the Koch Chair of Applied Economics—was filled this year after DCB received clarification about uses of that specific endowment. The three other positions have existed at DCB in previous years and needed to be filled this year due to retirements and other openings, according to Patti.
