Robert Dolan, a professor of business administration at the Harvard University School of Business, has been selected to head the University of Michigan Business school, University of Michigan President Lee Bollinger and Provost Nancy Cantor announced Friday.
- Paul Wong
- Dolan
“It is a great honor and thrill to be the next Dean of the Business School. I have been a long-time fan of the School,” Dolan said.
Dolan will assume the position July 1 following approval by the University Board of Regents.
“Bob Dolan is known for his own personal scholarly achievement and dedication to teaching students, his support of academic values, and his nurturing of young faculty,” Bollinger said in a statement.
Dolan said he is committed to cultivating a link between academics and research, which is also a primary focus of the Business School.
“I am very comfortable with the “fit” between the School and myself,” Dolan said. “We are along the same wavelength on what a great business school should be about.”
Dolan also said he felt comfortable working with University faculty.
“The spirit of scholarship and research excellence just comes through and the University”s history of effective collaboration across the different Schools within the University is a real asset for us in addressing the most important business problems of today,” he said. “Within the business school, I really liked the obvious commitment and special feelings that the faculty had about the place.”
Dolan will be a tenured professor of marketing and a Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Professor of Business Administration.
Dolan”s appointment comes after an eight-month search chaired by Prof. Joel Slemrod. The search considered more than 100 candidates.
“I think he”s an excellent match,” Slemrod said. “He has a record of outstanding scholarship.”
Outgoing Dean B. Joseph White will finish his second five-year term and plans to work with Dolan in the transition.
“I am extremely pleased and excited about Bob Dolan”s accepting the appointment as our next dean,” White said. “I am confident he will provide us excellent leadership and take the School to the next level of achievement,” he said in a statement.
White opted not to seek a third term at the helm of the Business School, choosing to take a leave of absence and then return as a regular member of the faculty.
Dolan, a specialist in product pricing and policy, will be in Barcelona, Spain, on a visiting professorship until the end of June. He would have served Harvard Business School”s Division of Research as senior associate dean and director beginning this summer.
Dolan has taught at Harvard since 1980. At Harvard, he was the chair of the MBA program faculty from 1996-97, taught marketing to senior executives in Harvard”s Advanced Management Program from 1990-95 and chaired Harvard”s marketing area from 1986-94. Dolan taught at the University of Chicago”s business school from 1976-80.