Dean of the College of Business and Innovation open forums
Four finalists for the Dean of the College of Business and Innovation position have accepted our invitation to visit campus. The MSUM campus and community are encouraged to meet each candidate at their open forum presentations during their campus visit.
Open forum topic: “What is your vision for leading the College of Business and Innovation in the 21st Century?”
All open forums will be held in CMU 105 from 3-4 p.m.
Recordings of the open forums are available online and require authentication with a StarID. You have until Feb. 21 to view and turn in comments.
Dr. Michael Stevens’ open forum is Monday, February 10.
Michael Stevens is a Brady Distinguished Presidential Professor at the Goddard School of Business at Weber State University, where he is the outgoing Chair of a large and thriving interdisciplinary Department—a role he served in for ten years. He has 26 years of experience in higher education and more than two decades providing leadership development and training services to corporations, non-profits, and government organizations. Dr. Stevens’ primary areas of expertise include leveraging people and culture for competitive edge, the interplay between leadership and culture, and interpersonal effectiveness in diverse workplaces. He has conducted award-winning research in the areas of measuring aptitudes for working successfully in teams and culturally diverse work environments; his assessments have been used by more than 180,000 people to date in more than 100 countries. Outside of higher education, he has held leadership and board positions in industry and not-for-profit enterprises, and served as a commissioned military officer prior to graduate school. Dr. Stevens received his B.A. in Economics from the University of Utah, where he graduated summa cum laude, and completed his Ph.D. at the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University.
Dr. Kuan-Chou Chen’s open forum is Wednesday, February 12.
Kuan-Chou Chen is the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies, Thomas M. McDermott Sr. Endowed Chair Professor in Economic Development, and Professor of Management Information Systems at Purdue University Northwest (PNW). He received Ph.D. in Applied Economics from Michigan State University, and an MBA and BBA in Management Science from National Cheng-Kung University in Taiwan. He joined PNW in 2002, and since 2005 he has served in a variety of administrative roles from Department Chair, School Director to college Associate Dean. He was awarded with the “Outstanding Administrative Leadership award” for the year 2019-2020 at the University level. He has taught a variety of courses in information systems, management, economics, and accounting, at institutions both large and small, public and private, and from open-enrollment to highly-selective, culminating in an Outstanding Teaching Award from Purdue University Northwest in 2005. He has initiated experiential and service learning opportunities with community partners and was awarded several external grants to design and research service learning project with a local community to create service learning courses connecting the real-world and academia. Dr. Chen has more than 90 scholarly publications, most in peer-reviewed journals. Currently he is an Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning. In addition to his experience in academia, he also has prior industry experiences: he had worked for as a System Engineer and Project Manager at EDS (Electronic Data Systems). He has also taught at several universities: Purdue University West Lafayette, Bowling Green State University, IVY Tech State College, Lansing Community College, and Davenport University.
Dr. Chittibabu Govindarajulu’s open forum is Friday, February 14.
Dr. Govindarajulu has 20+ years of experience in academia in various roles as a teacher, department Chair, Associate Dean, and project director reporting to the Office of the Provost. In his current role as the Associate Dean for Program Support at Metropolitan State University of Denver, his responsibilities include reviewing/approving curriculum proposals, managing MBA program, course scheduling oversight, enrollment management, assisting Dean in reviewing faculty tenure & promotion and annual portfolios, and representing College of Business in various university committees among others. He also serves as an advisory board member for SBDC, Denver. Dr. Govindarajulu has a wealth of experience in AACSB accreditation standards and is proficient in tech-enabled process improvements. He has presented his research in several international/national level conferences and published in several reputed journals including Communications of the ACM and Information & Management. Dr. Govindarajulu holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree and an MBA from India and a Ph.D. in Business Administration (MIS) from the University of Mississippi.
Dr. Chittibabu Govindarajulu’s CV
Dr. Kai Koong’s open forum is Monday, February 17.
Dr. Kai Koong is Dean of the Brimmer College of Business and Information Science at Tuskegee University. His doctoral area of specialization is business information systems and quantitative analysis. Professor Koong has over 100 peer-refereed publications, about 77 of them are in ranked outlets in the academy. His areas of research are energy finance, healthcare, information security, labor markets, and research and development accounting. Prior to his current appointment, he was a Distinguished Professor and Foreign Expert at Xidian University, China. Before that he has held other administrative positions in Texas (Department Chair), Louisiana (Program Director) and South Dakota (Founding Dean). He is a recipient of the Decision Sciences Institute South-West Outstanding Educator Award (2012) as well as the Shaanxi Province (China) Distinguished Educator Award (2017). Dr. Koong is also a journal editor and has been a featured keynote speaker for conferences in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.