Dear Members of the Atkinson Community,
Happy New Year! I hope you all had a restful and most enjoyable holiday break and are feeling recharged for the new semester ahead. I spent my holiday break back at our home in St. Cloud, Minnesota, recharging by shoveling a lot of snow and braving the elements. There’s a good reason why they call that part of the country “America’s Icebox”!
We start the new year in Atkinson with some exciting news:
- I am delighted to report that we have completed our hiring of full-time faculty for this season. Shelter Teyi will join our school’s full-time faculty team as Assistant Professor of Management; Strategy and Entrepreneurship, next Fall Semester. Shelter is originally from Ghana and graduated from the University of Ghana with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in business administration. He is currently completing his doctorate at the Copenhagen Business School and scheduled to defend his dissertation before he joins us. Shelter is currently living in North Carolina, where he is doing a short-term research fellowship at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. I want to thank the search committee – Bill Forester (Chair), Ashley Nixon, and Jim Ostler – for their hard work in bringing this search to such a successful completion.
- Congratulations to Jake Hoskins on his appointment to the Guy F. Atkinson Professorship! Jake starts his new assignment this week as the holder of this endowed position, made possible by the generosity of the Atkinson family. In alignment with the strategic direction for this position, Jake will focus some of his teaching, scholarship, and service on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which may include the topics of sustainability, ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), Stakeholder Capitalism, EDI (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion), and other areas too. Jake has had long term intellectual, teaching, and research interests in these areas and sees this professional opportunity as allowing him to leverage those interests further. I have already discussed with Jake plans for him to help build out some new curriculum, build a new research stream, organize events, and provide other forms of service in the CSR area. His appointment is a great first step in Atkinson fulfilling those pieces in the new strategic plan that pertain to CSR.
- We are back on the Poets&Quants top 100 MBA programs rankings list! After exiting the list last year, we bounced back on it and in a big way. Read the full story here.
I want to remind everyone of the upcoming Spring Semester retreat, which will be held on Friday, January 13, in the Wilson Hines Room in Goudy Commons, from 8:30 to 11:30 am. Breakfast and refreshments will be served. We will use the retreat to, among other things, complete our discussion on the draft 2023-27 strategic plan.
I wish everyone a great start to the Spring Semester. Thank you for everything you all do for our school.
Best Wishes,
Örn Bodvarsson
Dean & Professor of Economics