Dean
Sam M. Walton College of Business
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas
 

The University of Arkansas invites applications and nominations for the position of Dean of the Sam M. Walton College of Business.  After successfully leading the Walton College for the past six years, incumbent Dean Dan Worrell will be returning to the faculty in July, 2012. The Dean is the chief academic and administrative officer of the College and holds the Sam M. Walton Leadership Chair in Business. The Dean reports to the Provost/Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.

Leading candidates for the Dean of the Walton College will have a distinguished record of accomplishment in higher education and/or other fields of professional endeavor and will have demonstrated significant leadership skills.  Experience in the following areas is also highly desirable: a strong record of achievement in teaching, research and service; a clear understanding of prestigious programs and national education policies; an effective and proven track record in fundraising; the ability to envision and provide leadership to advance the University of Arkansas and the Walton College to greater national recognition; strong administrative and management skills; and using collaborative thinking and multi-disciplinary approaches to add value to the student experience.

The Walton College is a nationally competitive business school that combines excellent student learning experiences with quality research serving Arkansas and the world. Since its founding at the University of Arkansas in 1926, the Walton College has grown to become the state’s premier college of business – as well as a nationally competitive business school. The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business – AACSB International – accredited the college in 1931. U.S. News and World Report recognizes the Walton College among the top 25 public undergraduate and graduate business schools in the nation.

The Walton College offers a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science in International Business in eight disciplines. The graduate programs include four master’s programs (MBA, Master of Accountancy, Master of Economics and Master of Information Systems); Ph.D. in Business Administration; and Ph.D. in Economics. The college encourages research through its eleven research and outreach centers that also provide a link to and serve the needs of the business community and the state. The Walton College had 3,394 undergraduate students, 317 graduate students, 88 full-time faculty, and 104 staff in the fall of 2010.  The classroom technology is cutting-edge, and the facilities are state-of-the-art. The Walton College has a four building business campus joined by a plaza, which includes a Graduate School of Business, a Global Financial Markets Trading Center and a world class behavioral business research lab.

Last year, 77 percent of Walton College undergraduates seeking employment had accepted an offer by graduation, and 83 percent of the full-time MBA class had accepted an offer by graduation. The college utilizes an innovative, integrated pre-business core curriculum for undergraduates to successfully prepare them for upper-level classes. The college also offers an exceptional Honors Program to attract top students. Students learn to put business theory into practice through Bloomberg training, student managed investment funds, enterprise systems training, internships and extra-curricular activities such as operating an on-going, not-for-profit business.

Founded in 1871 as a land grant institution, the University of Arkansas is the flagship of the University of Arkansas System that enrolled more than 21,400 students in the fall of 2010. Located in Fayetteville in Arkansas’ northwest corner, the U of A is the state’s foremost partner and resource for education and economic development. The U of A has enormous influence over Arkansans’ social, cultural and recreational life. Fayetteville is consistently rated as one of the nation’s top communities for its beauty, livability and safety.

Applicants are requested to electronically submit their letter of application, a comprehensive curriculum vita and the names, telephone numbers and email addresses of five professional references to:

Kathy Jones
Assistant to the Dean/Secretary to the Search Committee
4183 Bell Engineering Center
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, AR  72701
kjj2@uark.edu

Other inquiries or questions may be directed to Prof. Ashok Saxena, Chair, Sam M. Walton College of Business Dean Search Committee, Dean of Engineering at asaxena@uark.edu.

References will not be contacted until advanced stages of screening.  The selection process will begin September 30, and continue until the position is filled.  Under the state’s Freedom of Information Act, after selected candidates are invited to campus, their names are available to the public.  This position is subject to a pre-employment criminal background and financial history background check.  A criminal conviction or arrest pending adjudication or adverse financial history information alone shall not disqualify an applicant in the absence of a relationship to the requirements of the position. Background check information will be used in a confidential, non-discriminatory manner consistent with state and federal law.

The University of Arkansas is an equal opportunity, affirmative action institution, committed to achieving diversity in its faculty, staff, and student body.  All applicants are subject to public disclosure under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, and persons hired must have proof of legal authority to work in the United States.

Projected Dean Search Timeline
 

• May 31, 2011 Charge to the Committee
   
• June 30, 2011 Approval of position announcement
   
• October 1, 2011 Begin reviewing applications
   
• October 31, 2011 Select list of 8-10 candidates for committee interview
   
• December 15, 2011 Complete committee interviews and selection of finalist for campus interviews
   
• Jan-Feb, 2012 Complete campus interviews
   
• March 1, 2012 Recommendations to Provost

Dean Search Committee
2011-2012
 

Ashok Saxena Search Committee Chair	asaxena@uark.edu
Ann Bordelon Sr. Vice President/CFO, Sam’s Club	ann.bordelon@samsclub.com
Fred Davis Distinguished Professor, Information Systems	fddavis@uark.edu
Alan Ellstrand Management Department Chair	aellstra@uark.edu
Gary Ferrier Economics Department Chair	gferrier@uark.edu
Greg Lee Retired CAO & International Pres., Tyson Foods, Inc.	Greg.lee@tyson.com
Barbara Lofton Director of Diversity Programs	blofton@uark.edu
Claudia Mobley Director, Center for Retailing Excellence	cmobley@uark.edu
Linda Myers Professor, Accounting	lam007@uark.edu
Katy Nelson Senior Director of Development & External Relations	lknelson@uark.edu
Bruce Pontious Assoc. Vice Chancellor for Development	pontious@uark.edu
Carol Reeves Associate Vice Provost for Entrepreneurship	creeves@uark.edu
Reynie Rutledge Chairman, First Security Bancorp	rrutledge@fsbancorp.com
Kalyn Williams UGEG Student Representative	kxw022@uark.edu
Tim Yeager Associate Professor, Finance	tyeager@uark.edu
Kathy Jones College of Engineering (Committee Support)	kjj2@uark.edu

• U.S. News and World Report’s 2012 edition of America’s Best Graduate Schools ranked the Master of Business Administration and the part-time M.B.A. program at the Sam M. Walton College of Business among the top in the United States. The Best Graduate Schools ranked the full time program 25th among public institutions, while ranking the part-time program in 29th place. Each program is listed in the top tier of its category nationally. The full-time program ranked 51st and the part-time program ranked 50th among both private and public institutions.
   
• The U.S. News & World Report's 2012 America’s Best Graduate Schools guide rated the supply chain management and logistics specialty of the Walton College in a tie for ninth place among all public graduate business schools and in a tie for 14th place among all universities, up from the 2011 report, in which the specialty was ranked 23rd overall and 15th among public universities.
   
• For the fourth year in a row, the Walton College tied for 24th among top public undergraduate business schools, according to the U.S. News & World Report 2011 America’s Best Colleges.
   
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  The BiologicsMD graduate student business plan team in Times Square

  The accounting department’s undergraduate program was ranked in 11th place in the CCH Public Accounting Report’s 2010 Top 25 Undergraduate Programs – Group II Category. The graduate program was ranked 18th in the Top 25 Graduate Programs – Group II Category.
   
• The Walton College has established a new supply chain management department to strengthen its educational and research resources in the field, the fourth such department in the nation to be created as a stand-alone program.
   
• About 20 percent of Walton College graduates have an international experience in study-abroad, language immersion, and exchange programs.
   
• Among the many distinguished accolades and successes earned by Walton College alumni is the election of Ricardo Martinelli, a 1973 Walton College alumnus, as president of Panama.
   
• More than 400 executives representing over 250 companies serve on Walton College boards and advisory committees.
   
• The college has five student-managed investment funds totaling almost $10 million.
   
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  Walton College team members from the 2011 Governor's Cup Competition

  In 2010, the Walton College has the most successful year in the history of business plan competitions: graduate teams won over $900 thousand in cash, in-kind awards and investment guarantees, and won both the Moot Corp and Rice University business plan competitions.
   
• At the 2011 Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Arkansas business plan competition, a team of Walton College graduate students saw their cycleWood Solutions plan take the $20,000 first-place award, the $5,000 Graduate Agriculture Award and the $2,000 Elevator Pitch Award.
   
• In the 2011 tri-state Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup competition featuring teams from Arkansas, Oklahoma and Nevada, the cycleWood Solutions team from Walton College earned a second place in the graduate division and claimed a $15,000 prize.
   
• During the University’s billion-dollar capital campaign completed in 2005, the Walton College raised $223 million – more than doubling its campaign goal of $100 million.

One of the reasons the Sam M. Walton College of Business operates from a position of strength is because of its home at the University of Arkansas and its location in the vibrant, growing and gorgeous region of northwest Arkansas.

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  Old Main on the University of Arkansas campus

  The University of Arkansas is the state’s flagship university and Arkansas’ major land-grant institution.
   
• The university’s more than 200 buildings sit on 345 hilltop acres overlooking the Ozark Mountains.
   
• It offers nearly 200 academic programs, more than some universities twice its size.
   
• The university's more than 21,000 students come from every county in Arkansas and some 100 nations.
   
• The university maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio (currently 17:1).
   
• The Carnegie Foundation placed the university at its highest possible research classification during its 2011 reclassification of the nation’s 4,633 universities and colleges. The University of Arkansas is one of just 108 schools with this distinction.
   
• More than a quarter of all University of Arkansas students study abroad sometime during their college career.
   
• The Fayetteville campus is the flagship of the University of Arkansas System – five universities, five community colleges, a college of medicine, two schools of law, the Clinton School for Public Service, a math/science high school, and divisions of agriculture, archeology and criminal justice.
   
• Fayetteville, site of the university for all of its nearly 150 years, is in many ways the quintessential college town with a diversity of restaurants, performance venues and cultural events. It is home to more than 62,000 residents. And growing.
   
• Fayetteville is the southern anchor of a metro area in northwest Arkansas that takes in the cities of Springdale, Rogers and Bentonville and that includes the home offices of major international corporations such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Tyson Foods Inc., and J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc.
   
• More than 1,230 companies have offices in the region, including approximately 60 Fortune 500 companies. Procter & Gamble employs over 400 people at their northwest Arkansas office – the second largest P&G office in the world.
   
• Publications routinely rank Fayetteville and the surrounding metro area as among the best places to live and work in all of the United States. The Kiplinger newsletter listed Fayetteville No. 7 on a recent list, and the Economist magazine said Fayetteville is among the top five places in the world to “reinvent oneself.”
   
• For more information on the University of Arkansas and Northwest Arkansas visit www.uark.edu and http://www.collegetownprofile.com/arkansas/universityofarkansas/.

On behalf of the Search Committee for the next Dean of the Sam M. Walton College of Business, I am very excited to share with you the names of the four finalist and the dates for their on-campus interviews:

• download cv
  Dr. Sarah Gardial, vice provost for faculty affairs, professor of marketing and Beaman Professor of Business at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; will speak at an open forum from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 23, in the auditorium of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Enterprise Development. Gardial received her doctorate in marketing, with a minor in social psychology, from the University of Houston in 1986, after earning a B.S.B.A. and an MBA from the Walton College. She has served as vice-provost at Tennessee since 2008. She was associate dean for academic programs at the University of Tennessee College of Business Administration in 2004-2008 and also was assistant dean in charge of the full-time MBA program. Her primary expertise and research interests are in the areas of customer value and satisfaction, the decision processes of customers and consumers, consumer information processing and buyer-seller relationships. She is the co-author of Know Your Customer: New Perspectives on Customer Value and Satisfaction.
   
• download cv
  Dr. David Urban, executive associate dean of the school of business and professor of marketing at Virginia Commonwealth University, will speak from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 30, in the Reynolds Center auditorium. He received a bachelor of science in commerce from the University of Virginia and holds both an M.A. in psychology and a Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of Michigan. Urban has been executive associate dean of the business school at Virginia Commonwealth since 2010 after serving as interim dean of the business school in 2009-2010. He formerly had a joint appointment as director of the Survey and Evaluation Research Laboratory in the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs. Urban's primary research interests are in customer satisfaction research, retailing and distribution channel management. He has published over 30 articles in publications such as the Journal of Advertising Research, Industrial Marketing Management and Human Resource Management, among others.
   
• download cv
  Dr. Stephen Mangum, senior associate dean and professor of management and human resources at The Ohio State University will speak from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 6, in the Reynolds Center auditorium. Mangum received his Ph.D. in economics in 1984 from George Washington University, where he also earned an M.Phil. in economics. He received his B.A. and an M.S. from the University of Utah. He has served as senior associate dean since 1996 and was interim dean of the business school in 2007-2009. Mangum has published in a variety of professional journals, including Labor Law Journal, American Journal of Economics and Sociology and the Industrial and Labor Relations Review. His research topics are diverse: military manpower, national training policy, returns to post-school occupational training, regional economic development, physician migration, contingent employment and poverty. Mangum serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Manpower. His work in international human resource development includes activities in Mauritania, Oman, Northern Ireland, India, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.
   
• download cv
  Dr. Eli Jones, dean, Distinguished Professor and E. J. Ourso Endowed Chair in Business at Louisiana State University; will speak from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 13, in the Reynolds Center auditorium. Jones earned his undergraduate, MBA and Ph.D. degrees from Texas A&M University, receiving his doctorate in 1997. Jones has been widely published in major marketing journals and is co-author of Selling ASAP: Art, Science, Agility, Performance and Strategic Sales Leadership: BREAKthroughThinking for BREAKthrough Results. Jones research primarily focuses on issues related to the changing sales force sales force diversity, sales force change management and sales force technology adoption and performance, salespersonmotivation and buyer-seller relationships. Before becoming a professor, Jones worked in sales and sales management for three Fortune 100 companies. In March 2009, he was named a Mays Business School Outstanding Alumnus.
   

Ashok
Chair, Sam M. Walton College of Business Dean Search
Dean of Engineering
Distinguished Professor and Irma F and Raymond F. Giffels Endowed Chair in Engineering