Dean of business hired

After a 14-month search, GCSU has hired Dr. Matthew Liao-Troth as the new dean of the J. Whitney Bunting College of Business.

Liao-Troth, currently the chair of the department of management at Western Washington University, in Bellingham, Wash., will officially start at GCSU on July 1.

Liao-Troth will work with Dr. Dale Young, the interim dean for the College of Business, to help ensure a seamless transition. Liao-Troth plans to visit Milledgeville every month until he starts to work with Young.

“Dr. Young contacted (Liao-Troth) and arranged a series of telephone and face-to-face meetings,” Vice President for Academic Affairs Sandra Jordan said. “Dr. Young is going to make absolutely certain that Dr. Liao-Troth is ready to ‘hit the ground’ prepared to lead Georgia College’s College of Business.”

Upon arrival, Liao-Troth plans to enact his vision for the business college.

“For the undergraduate program, I want to better integrate it with the rest of the college,” Liao-Troth said via telephone. “We need to clearly articulate why you should get a business degree at a public liberal arts college.”

Liao-Troth also wants to develop connections between the business college and the community.

“I’ll be focusing on more of external relations, building up friendships with the J. Whitney Bunting College of Business and others,” Liao-Troth said.

Liao-Troth will also foster internal relations with the students, faculty and staff in the business college. He seems to have already made an impression on the search committee.

“I’m really enthusiastic about (Liao-Troth) coming on board,” said Joe Schwartz, associate professor of marketing and search committee member. “He’s clearly someone who not only has great ideas for how to move the college forward, but he’s also very concerned about doing that in a way that is consistent with what is best for our students, our faculty and our staff.”

The search for a new dean began back in October 2008 following the resignation of Dr. Faye Gilbert in July. Sandra Gangstead, the dean of the College of Health Sciences, chaired the search committee for the opening. Other committee members were all College of Business faculty members.

To help hire the best candidate possible, the committee used a national firm in the search process.

“The firm, Parker Executive Search, is very respected, . and they have access to a lot of qualified candidates who we might not have been able to reach otherwise,” Schwartz said.

Liao-Troth flew to an interview to meet with the search committee in early October.

“They really sold me on GCSU,” Liao-Troth said. “They were very gracious.”

Later on in the interview process Liao-Troth visited Milledgeville and the campus in person.

“I’d been through Macon before, and I’d been to Atlanta before, but not Milledgeville,” Liao-Troth said. “It was great meeting with students, and with the faculty and staff.”

Liao-Troth even visited some of the downtown hot spots in Milledgeville.

“I got some coffee at Blackbird (Coffee),” Liao-Troth said. “I like that they have a roaster in the window.”

Now that Liao-Troth has accepted the position and been officially hired, he plans to move, along with his wife and two daughters, to Georgia in June.

“The fact that’s selling (my daughters) is that it’s only a good day’s drive to Disney World,” Liao-Troth said. “And it will be nice to see the sun on regular basis.”

Posted by Matt Chambers on Jan 29 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry