Dean of the Pamplin College of Business Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, Virginia
THE SEARCH
Virginia Tech, the leading research university in the Commonwealth of Virginia, welcomes applications and nominations for the next dean of the Pamplin College of Business (Pamplin). This is an exciting opportunity to lead a Top-50 business school at a university with a growing national and international profile. As a college that graduates some 1,500 students a year in undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs, Pamplin’s success is critical to the overall advancement of the university’s mission. Pamplin graduates consistently rank among the most sought-after students by employers on campus and among graduates of other business schools. With undergraduate and master’s programs centered in Blacksburg and a variety of graduate programs located in urban centers throughout Virginia, Pamplin enjoys generous support from business leaders and alumni. Donors gave more than $85 million to the college as it exceeded its goal in the university’s recently-completed $1.1 billion capital campaign. This deanship offers an opportunity to develop an ambitious plan from a strong foundation at a critical time in the college’s history. Outgoing Dean Richard Sorensen will be retiring in July 2013 after 31 years of exceptional leadership. During his tenure the school advanced on all dimensions: Pamplin expanded student enrollments and academic programs; developed new international, leadership, ethics, and diversity programs; created new advising and career services for students and outreach services for businesses; and completed two major fundraising campaigns.
Virginia Tech seeks an energetic, inspiring leader who will advocate for the college both within and outside of the university and enable faculty to conduct more research and scholarship. The next dean will also look for opportunities to increase collaboration within Pamplin and with other colleges at Virginia Tech while continuing Dean Sorensen’s track record of transparent and collegial leadership. This will all be done while maintaining Pamplin’s reputation for educating well-prepared and ethical business leaders in a variety of fields.
A representative search committee has been convened to conduct the search and to recommend finalists to the provost and the president. The university is assisted in the recruitment by the executive search firm, Isaacson, Miller. All inquiries, nominations, and applications should be directed in confidence as noted at the end of this document.
Virginia Tech Background
Dedicated to its motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech takes a hands-on, engaging approach to education, preparing scholars to be leaders in their fields and communities. Founded as a land-grant institution in 1872, Virginia Tech is Virginia’s most comprehensive university and its leading research institution as well as one of the nation’s senior military colleges. With more than 1,300 instructional faculty, Virginia Tech offers 215 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to nearly 31,000 students and manages a research portfolio of about $450 million. Its operating budget for 2011-12 is $1.14 billion and its endowment is approximately $600 million. The university fulfills its land-grant mission of transforming knowledge to practice through technological leadership and by fueling economic growth and job creation locally, regionally, and across Virginia. There are more than 220,000 living Virginia Tech alumni from every state and more than 100 countries.
The university offers about 65 bachelor’s degree programs through its seven undergraduate academic colleges: Agriculture and Life Sciences, Architecture and Urban Studies, Engineering, Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Natural Resources and Environment, Pamplin College of Business, and Science. It offers approximately 150 master’s and doctoral degree programs through the graduate school and a professional degree from the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, located on the Blacksburg campus. In addition, the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute in Roanoke, will welcome its third class this fall.
Virginia Tech ranks 28th in U.S. News and World Report’s ranking of national public universities. Its College of Engineering’s undergraduate program ranks 15th
in the nation among all institutions and 7th among publics. Undergraduate programs in architecture and landscape architecture rank No. 4 and No. 3, respectively, in the America’s Best Architecture & Design Schools study by DesignIntelligence. A Wall Street Journal survey of 479 employers ranked Virginia Tech 13th in the nation for preparing graduates to succeed on the job and IEEE Spectrum ranked Virginia Tech 10th among universities for the impact of its patents.
The Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center (CRC) is located adjacent to campus and offers opportunities for businesses to establish close working relationships with the university. The CRC helps entrepreneurs develop their businesses and pursue new inventions. Established by the Virginia Tech Foundation in 1985, the CRC consists of 27 buildings on approximately 120 acres of land. It is home to more than 140 research and development businesses and research centers that employ more than 2,200 people. The CRC received the 2010 Outstanding Research/Science Park Award from the Association of University Research Parks. Development of Phase II of the CRC, which will add 28 more buildings, is underway.
History
In 1872 the state legislature re-designated The Preston and Olin Institute in Blacksburg as the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College – one of Virginia’s two land-grant colleges. Many developments over the next century helped shape Virginia Tech into the
institution it is today, including the enrollment of the first women to the university in 1923, the build up of the central campus in the 1930s, and the enrollment of the first black student in 1953 – making Virginia Tech the first of the formerly all-white southern land grant institutions to desegregate. Virginia Tech also established its proud military history, with contributions from thousands of cadets and alumni in the nation’s wars. Virginia Tech is one of only two universities in the nation that maintains a full-time Corps of Cadets within a larger university.
But while the university prospered over its first 100 years, the exponential growth of the next 40 years launched Virginia Tech from a regional agricultural school to a top research university with an international presence. Enrollment soared in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, doubling over a 10-year period to more than 20,000 students. The university opened new campuses and research centers throughout the state and founded its Center for European Studies in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland. The following decades saw the institution become increasingly selective in admissions and attract increasingly accomplished faculty. Support from alumni blossomed as well. Virginia Tech’s first capital campaign, closed in 1986, raised $119 million. A second campaign raised $337 million and, in October 2011, “The Campaign for Virginia Tech” closed, having raised $1.11 billion.
Despite declining state support and the economic downturn, the university has moved ahead on an aggressive campus master plan, with work on a signature engineering building and performing arts facility underway in Blacksburg and a recently-completed state-of-the-art research center in Arlington. But the campus improvement goes beyond the creation of physical buildings. The University attracts more than 20,000 new applicants every year, enjoys the support of donors and friends throughout the world, employs world-class faculty, and continues to grow its Top-50 research portfolio.
To continue its upward trajectory, Virginia Tech will pursue many new initiatives designed to build on its strengths and address areas of concern. The university will look to develop a distinct profile as a progressive and internationally-recognized research institution. It will pursue strategic growth in graduate enrollment and initiatives to provide a broader range of student research experiences. Leadership will continue to invest in a comprehensive educational portfolio in which the arts, humanities, business, and social sciences have an essential role in kindling curiosity and creativity to make Virginia Tech the national model for the merger and application of the arts and technology.
Location and Campus
Virginia Tech’s 2,600-acre main campus is located in Blacksburg. The town has approximately 43,000 residents and is one of three central communities that make up the New River Valley, one of the fastest-growing areas in the state. Situated on a plateau between the Blue Ridge and Alleghany Mountains, Blacksburg offers a high quality of life and low cost of living with nearby outdoor attractions such as the New River and the Appalachian Trail. In 2011, Blacksburg was named the “Best Place in the U.S. to Raise Kids,” by Bloomberg Businessweek and “The Best College Town in the South” by Southern Living. Nearby metropolitan areas include Roanoke (45 minutes to the north), Charlotte, N.C. (less than three hours to the south), and Washington, D.C. (four hours to the northeast).
Virginia Tech’s campus reaches well beyond Blacksburg through the Virginia Cooperative Extension and from campuses and research facilities throughout Virginia. These include: The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute in Roanoke; the Marion DuPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg; several locations in Northern Virginia including the recently-opened Virginia Tech Research Center; regional centers in Richmond, Roanoke, and Abingdon; and the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville. Virginia Tech’s international facilities include the Center for European Studies and Architecture in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland and the Caribbean Center for Education and Research in the Dominican Republic.
Leadership
Virginia Tech is governed by a 13-member Board of Visitors, appointed by the Governor. The board meets four times a year to discuss and guide the strategic direction of the university and vote on critical issues such as the university budget and tuition rates. President Charles Steger’s tenure began in 2000 and under his leadership, Virginia Tech has charted a course to expand the university's research enterprise and to be considered among the nation's best universities. He gained state support to establish the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, whose first phase investment exceeds $39 million. Bringing together the exciting new disciplines of biotechnology and information technology, the institute holds great promise to end disease, expand the world's food supply, and improve environmental protection. Dr. Steger has also established the Institute for Information Technology, which will draw together the university's outreach and research activities in the rapidly changing world of information technology. He also partnered in 2007 with Carilion Clinic to establish the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute in Roanoke.
Mark McNamee became provost at Virginia Tech in 2001, after 26 years at the University of California at Davis where he served as a faculty member, department chair, and dean of the Division of Biological Sciences. At Virginia Tech, Dr. McNamee has extended the university’s efforts to expand research opportunities in biomedical and health sciences, bioinformatics, information technology and nanotechnology. He led one of the largest reorganization’s in the university’s history – a restructuring that changed the departmental makeup of every college but Veterinary Medicine – in 2003.
Dr. McNamee expects the new dean to model a spirit of innovation and enable and encourage Pamplin to take a leading role on university initiatives such as online innovation and graduate enrollment growth. While funds at Virginia Tech are distributed through a centralized budgeting model, deans enjoy a good deal of autonomy and efforts to collaborate and develop new sources of revenue are embraced by senior administration. For instance, the strong demand for undergraduates to enroll at Pamplin will likely allow the university to implement a differential tuition model to increase revenues generated by the college. In short, university leadership wants the next Pamplin dean to be a strategic player who will enable the university to thrive in the increasingly competitive environment of higher education.
Pamplin College of Business
A school of business was established at Virginia Tech in 1961 and became a college in 1965. It was renamed The Pamplin College of Business in 1986 in recognition of a $20 million gift from 1933 Virginia Tech graduate Robert B. Pamplin and his son. The college offers majors in accounting and information systems, business information technology, economics, finance, hospitality and tourism management, management, and marketing. Its on-campus enrollment consists of about 3,800 undergraduates and about 300 full-time graduate students in the MBA, Master of Accounting and Information Systems, Master of Hospitality and Tourism Management, and Ph.D. programs. The college also enrolls 110 part-time MBA and 76 executive MBA students at Virginia Tech’s Northern Virginia Center in Washington, D.C. and about 65 professional MBA students who take classes in Roanoke and Richmond. The college’s degree programs are accredited by AACSB International and the Accreditation Commission for Programs in Hospitality Administration.
Pamplin’s undergraduate program is ranked No. 46 overall by U.S. News and World
Report and 26th among publics, putting it in the top 10 percent of the more than 600 accredited business programs in the country. Its undergraduate program is ranked No. 37 by employers by Bloomberg Businessweek. Its Master of Information Technology program is ranked No. 4 in the nation for teaching practices and student engagement and No. 10 for faculty credentials and training by U.S. News and World Report.
Through two student-run investing groups, Pamplin students manage about $10 million of Virginia Tech’s endowment. Student-managed Endowment for Educational Development (SEED) manages about $5 million in stock investments in what is believed to be the nation’s largest student-run portfolio that is managed as an extracurricular activity. Bond and Securities Investing by Students (BASIS) manages about $5 million in bonds and other fixed income securities. Students have a variety of experiential learning opportunities through ventures such as Business Horizons Career Day, an annual event organized and managed by undergraduates that typically draws more than 150 companies and some 600 recruiters to campus.
Pamplin faculty have been cited in government hearings and court testimony and have played a role in policy making. Several Pamplin faculty have attracted national funding for their research and the college ranks 88th in North America in the UT-Dallas Business School Research rankings, which measures faculty scholarship in the most prestigious academic journals. Six Pamplin faculty have received Fulbright awards and the college has had 22 winners of the university’s Wine Award for teaching excellence since it was established in 1957. Pamplin has also taken a lead in addressing the national shortage of business faculty. In June 2008, the college was one of four in the U.S. to launch a post-doctoral “Bridge to Business” program designed to prepare PhD’s in non-business disciplines.
The Pamplin Advisory Council comprises 76 alumni and friends of the college who provide broad guidance to the dean and his leadership team and similar advisory boards have been established in the MBA program and the college’s academic departments.
The Dean
Richard Sorensen was appointed dean in July 1982. He has led Pamplin College through major expansions in student enrollments and academic programs; developed new international, leadership, ethics, and diversity initiatives; created new advising and career services for students and outreach services for business; and completed two major fundraising campaigns that exceeded their goals. Pamplin Hall underwent a major expansion and renovation under his leadership.
During Sorensen’s second decade at Pamplin, the college’s Diversity Committee of faculty and students adopted a “Diversity as a Core Value” statement. It commits the college to a goal of developing students, faculty, and staff to successfully lead and participate in a pluralistic society and promises equal opportunity to all students, faculty, and staff while dedicating the college to continue to pursue the building of a supportive, open and diverse community. Pamplin also expanded its international programs, and overhauled its MBA program during Sorensen’s tenure. In partnership with the College of Engineering, Pamplin launched a master’s degree in information technology in 2001 that has received recognition as one of the top online programs in the nation.
Sorensen is leaving the college with a solid foundation characterized by a strong demand for undergraduate seats, a reputation for preparing students well for the business world, and burgeoning master’s degree programs across the state. The next dean will draw on these strengths and the reputation Sorensen has built for the college as s/he takes on challenges such as generating greater demand for the full-time MBA program, creating additional revenues to attract faculty and students, creating better connections amongst its various graduate programs, and increasing visibility of the college on campus and beyond.
OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES
Reporting to Provost and Senior Vice President Mark McNamee, the dean is the chief academic and executive officer of the Pamplin College of Business. S/he will provide leadership and vision for the development of the college’s strategic future. The goals of the college are to attract high-caliber students and to provide them with a top-quality business education in preparation for productive careers; to invest in faculty development to enhance Virginia Tech’s reputation as a research university and a leader in education; and to forge new links with industry and government to facilitate economic development throughout Virginia and the nation.
The following will be key opportunities and challenges for the next dean:
Provide a resonant strategic vision
Pamplin serves an essential role within the university as both a professional school and one of the largest undergraduate colleges on campus. Virginia Tech’s role as a leading research and land-grant institution is also inextricably linked to Pamplin’s impact in conducting research and scholarship and educating business leaders for the 21st century. The next dean will be an important driver as Virginia Tech sets its sights on goals outlined in its recently completed strategic plan, including continuing to grow
graduate student enrollment, investing in a comprehensive educational portfolio to produce graduates with superior analytical and critical thinking skills, and developing partnerships with business and government. The dean will encourage innovation and partnerships and leverage the momentum of the university, its dedicated alumni base, and its presence and reputation throughout the state and beyond.
Expand graduate education
While undergraduate education is the largest piece and main driver of the college historically, the university-wide call for growth in research and graduate students presents an opportunity for the next dean to innovate around a variety of graduate programs. The college has recently seized several opportunities to build new graduate business programs by partnering with traditional areas of strength at the university such as the Myers-Lawson School of Construction. Pamplin has leveraged the momentum of other burgeoning relationships through initiatives such as the dual-degree program with the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine for aspiring physicians who stand to benefit from a strong business foundation.
Other opportunities to generate additional interest for graduate programs at the college and prepare students for the complex demands facing workers in the 21st century include potential programs in sports management and entrepreneurship. The next dean will assess the benefits of existing proposals, encourage other collaborations from faculty, and generally lead and model active outreach to Virginia Tech’s other colleges so Pamplin is well-positioned to not just react to opportunities but to drive programmatic innovations.
The benefits of this outreach expand beyond programmatic development. While the full-time MBA and PhD programs are centered in Blacksburg, the university’s various graduate programs teach students in Richmond, Roanoke, and Northern Virginia. Virginia Tech’s reputation for technological innovation should create opportunities for the college to better leverage distance learning to create more efficiencies and coherence among graduate programs. The next dean will work with administrators and faculty to explore the potential benefits of this quickly-evolving field.
Build faculty research and scholarship
The next dean will build on past success and leverage the university’s research excellence. Pamplin’s No. 88 ranking in the UT-Dallas Research Rankings indicates both positive momentum and potential for growth in the college’s research and scholarship mission. Faculty have expressed a desire for more time and institutional support to conduct research and scholarship. The dean will advocate for resources and work with the provost and with his/her department heads and faculty to ensure that resources are maximized and used creatively and efficiently to enable faculty to achieve their research goals.
Serve as a persuasive advocate for the school
Pamplin enjoys tremendous support from an active alumni base of some 42,000 graduates. The next dean will build on this support as the external face of the college, touting the school’s achievements and encouraging faculty outreach. Additionally, s/he
will play a key role in connecting to the business community to develop new revenue-generating programs; to support faculty research, teaching, and service opportunities; and to strengthen student internship and employment opportunities.
Internally, the dean will advocate for the college by working collegially with the provost and other deans as part of a close-knit group of academic leaders. Virginia Tech finances are distributed centrally and Pamplin bases its budget model on weighted student credit hours. University leadership is open to exploring other budget models and responds to vision and thoughtful persuasion. The next dean will best serve the college not by simply explaining its needs, but by articulating how initiatives will benefit the entire university community and by working with other colleges to find solutions to problems and seize opportunities.
Manage the school
Pamplin department heads are selected by the dean through a formal headship model, rather than as rotating chairs. They enjoy significant autonomy in their partnership with the dean as issues such as faculty evaluations are handled at the department level. The dean must be a strong partner who can work with a group of accomplished, veteran academics. S/he must be a collaborative leader who wins others over through persuasion rather than relying on top-down authority.
The most recent campus climate survey indicates that morale is high across the college. Dean Sorensen has built a reputation of transparent management and clear operating budget procedures. But the next dean will need to manage with a deft hand to address a number of delicate issues such as cooperation between departments on MBA offerings, faculty workloads, undergraduate advising, salary compression and inversion, and the balancing of teaching and research demands.
Form collaborations
Among Virginia Tech’s top strategic priorities is the goal to increase commercialization and partnerships emanating from faculty research and Pamplin College is uniquely situated at this nexus between economic development and research excellence. A variety of university initiatives have been designed to help achieve this goal – from Pamplin’s Business Technology Center to Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties in the CRC, to the University’s Office of Economic Development. The next dean should display an innovative and thoughtfully adventurous spirit. S/he will leverage existing relationships and develop new initiatives to encourage collaborations inside and outside the university to fulfill Virginia Tech’s mission of benefitting the commonwealth through outreach and engagement.
Raise funds
Pamplin College played a major role in the successful completion of the largest capital campaign in Virginia Tech’s history, raising some $86 million to surpass the campaign’s initial goal for Pamplin of $50 million. The college is in the process of establishing an endowed dean’s chair, having raised half of the $2 million goal. With public higher education institutions in Virginia continuing to rely more on private funding, the next dean will be expected to build on this momentum by reaching out to the alumni base, business
leaders, and other friends of the college to lead advancement efforts in coordination with the development office and the president.
Improve diversity
Over the past decade, Virginia Tech has launched several initiatives to improve the diversity of students and faculty on campus and Pamplin has played a central role in those efforts. As the only business school in the country that offers a minor in business diversity, the college has established the ability to work with diverse clients and colleagues as an important part of a student’s education. Dean Sorensen has co-chaired the college’s diversity committee and helped establish several partnerships between Pamplin and various HBCUs in the mid-Atlantic. Pamplin’s LEAP summer transition program for new students puts a particular emphasis on easing the transition for minority students. The college’s Multicultural Diversity Council has attracted corporate speakers and financial support as well as numerous student participants for its conferences on diversity issues.
Over the past 20 years, more than 60 percent of Pamplin’s hires have been women or members of underrepresented minority groups. But while these efforts have produced a more diverse group of faculty, students, and administrators, college and university leaders are mindful that more work needs to be done on this front. The next dean will look for opportunities to continue efforts to establish more diversity within the college and will recognize the importance of diversity to its mission.
QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE
The successful candidate will bring many of the following professional qualifications, skills, experiences, and personal qualities:
S/he must possess a terminal degree and have a record of success in research, scholarship, or professional experience that would support an appointment to the rank of professor in the college;
A demonstrated ability to lead the college to achieve excellence in teaching, research, and outreach;
A clear understanding of the importance of research and scholarship in business education;
First-hand experience in addressing real-world business issues and a deep understanding of current business trends;
Effective communication and interpersonal skills; the ability to lead and work collaboratively with a variety of constituencies;
A commitment to building a strong learning environment for students that stresses academic quality, student engagement, experiential learning, global perspectives, and the judicious use of innovative delivery strategies, including those involving technology;
Evidence of a commitment to diversity;
Successful experience or demonstrated potential in fundraising, development activities, and industry collaboration;
An energetic, entrepreneurial, and creative leader who can inspire faculty, students, and staff, and build pride in and commitment to the Pamplin vision; A track record of effective planning, administration, personnel, and fiscal
management;
A commitment to the land-grant mission of learning, discovery, and engagement.
TO APPLY
Nominations and applications are welcome. Applications are encouraged by November 1, 2012, however all applications will be considered until the position is filled.
Nominations and inquiries should be sent to: Philip Jaeger, Vice President
Greg Esposito, Senior Associate Isaacson, Miller
1875 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 710 Washington, DC 20009
E-mail: [email protected]
Electronic applications strongly encouraged.
Virginia Tech does not discriminate against employees, students, or applicants for admission or employment on the basis of race, gender, disability, age, veteran
