Category Archives: College News

Hui Lin | Photo by Kathy Hillegonds

Hui Lin, an associate professor and international program administrator, has been named the next director of the School of Accountancy & MIS. Lin will assume her new role July 1. A member of the school’s faculty since 2008, Lin led the college’s international degree and study abroad programs as director of the Driehaus Center for International Business this academic year. She also serves DePaul as an associate director of regional initiatives, focusing on student recruitment and alumni engagement in China. Lin’s teaching and research expertise is in knowledge management, accounting information systems and internal controls.

“My priorities as director will be to attract more students to accounting, ensure resources and support for our faculty and staff, and engage and collaborate with our alumni,” Lin says. She succeeds Ray Whittington, who will return to teaching full time after serving two tenures as director of the school, before and after his 10-year run as dean of the business college from 2006 to 2017.

Incoming Driehaus College of Business Dean Sulin Ba was introduced to the Chicago alumni community at a spring business alumni reception that attracted nearly 300 attendees. | Photo by Kathy Hillegonds

Sulin Ba, a higher education leader dedicated to fostering research, interdisciplinary collaboration and global learning, has been appointed dean of the Driehaus College of Business, effective July 1.

Sulin Ba joins the Driehaus College of Business as dean on July 1. | Photo by Jeff Carrion

Ba is currently a professor and the Treibick Family Endowed Chair in information technology at the University of Connecticut. In her nearly 20 years at UConn’s School of Business, she has held multiple leadership roles, most recently as the associate dean of academic and research support. She also served as the executive director of the Connecticut Information Technology Institute and faculty director of the Center for International Business Education and Research.

“Sulin immediately impressed me with her deep understanding of today’s higher education landscape,” Provost Salma Ghanem says. “She recognizes what a leading business school like Driehaus must do to develop our students into talented global citizens who can make positive changes in the world. Her collaborative leadership style, visionary ideas and dedication to inclusive learning will without a doubt benefit DePaul University.”

As associate dean, Ba championed faculty research. She successfully implemented new policies and procedures to increase productivity and incentivize high-quality research. In order to better support junior faculty, she initiated and implemented the business school’s first mentoring program. Ba also launched several initiatives to foster collaboration across campus. Recognizing the importance of preparing students for the global economy, she led the development of dual-degree programs in business, Spanish and German studies. Each program includes a semester abroad at a partner university, as well as an overseas internship component.

She recognizes what a leading business school like Driehaus must do to develop our students into talented global citizens who can make positive changes in the world. Her collaborative leadership style, visionary ideas and dedication to inclusive learning will without a doubt benefit DePaul University.”
– Provost Salma Ghanem

As innovation plays an increasingly important role in the U.S. economy, Ba made it a priority for students to have more opportunities to engage in entrepreneurship and experiential learning programs across UConn and outside the university. She is a founding member of the board of directors for Innovation Place Hartford, an initiative jointly funded by the State of Connecticut and other public and private sectors to catalyze technological innovation. As part of the board’s work, she brought together UConn’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the University of Hartford, Trinity College and other organizations to launch several entrepreneurship programs, such as the InsurTech Accelerator and Ignite Hartford. Both programs are embraced by students as well as major insurance companies in Hartford.

“Universities can and must be engines of innovation for society. Business education is at an inflection point,” Ba says. “With its strong connection to the vibrant Chicago business community, the Driehaus College of Business has an outstanding foundation to be on the forefront of the rapidly changing business education landscape, to be a driver of economic growth and social mobility. I am honored to be the next dean of the Driehaus College. I look forward to working with the talented faculty, staff and students to elevate the college to even further levels of success.”

Strengthening diversity and inclusion among faculty, staff and students is a high priority for Ba. Through fundraising at UConn, Ba created a mentorship program to help underserved high school students find a pathway to college.

Interim Business Dean Thomas Donley welcomed Sulin Ba to DePaul by presenting her with a Driehaus College of Business jacket. | Photo by Kathy Hillegonds

There is great alignment between my experience and DePaul’s dedication to making education accessible to all,” Ba says. “I am eager to continue working toward providing inclusive access to a world-class business education.”
– Sulin Ba, incoming DePaul business dean

An award-winning researcher who publishes regularly in leading academic journals, Ba is an honorary distinguished professor at the School of Management at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. She also has previously served as a distinguished visiting professor at University of Mannheim in Germany, as well as an assistant professor in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. She has a PhD in management information systems and a master’s in library and information sciences from the University of Texas at Austin. Ba earned her bachelor’s degree in library and information sciences from Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China.

Ghanem thanked Thomas Donley, who has served as interim dean since July 2020, for leading the college through one of the most challenging periods for DePaul and higher education due to the pandemic. “I am incredibly grateful for all he has done to support our faculty, staff and students during these challenging times. The Driehaus College of Business is poised for much future success, thanks to his leadership.”

By Elizabeth Clements 

Lorraine “Lori” Holland (BUS ’84) | Photo by Kathy Hillegonds

To honor the legacy of his late wife, Lorraine “Lori” Holland (BUS ’84), Robert A. Holland has made an $8 million bequest to DePaul University to support student scholarships. Mrs. Holland was a first-generation college graduate who rose to become managing director of investment management firm Neuberger Berman and serve as chair of DePaul’s Board of Trustees.

The contribution will be divided between two funds: the John and Regina Letsos Endowed Scholarship and the Lorraine L. Holland Memorial Endowed Scholarship. The Letsos scholarship, created by the Hollands in 2015 and named for Mrs. Holland’s parents, is designed to benefit finance students.

Institute for Housing Studies Executive Director Geoff Smith | Photo by Kathy Hillegonds

The Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University (IHS) at the Driehaus College of Business received a three-year, $300,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to support its mission to produce research that informs housing policy and practice in the Chicago region.

“We’re excited to continue our long-standing partnership with the MacArthur Foundation through this latest substantial investment in our applied research and technical assistance work,” says Geoff Smith, executive director of the IHS. “This funding will advance our efforts to help local housing and community development stakeholders be data-informed as they develop, implement and evaluate strategies for tackling the region’s affordable housing challenges.”

The grant supports the IHS’s ongoing research, which includes rental housing reports, price index updates and briefs on emerging Chicago-area housing policy topics. Smith says it also will fund new inquiries that probe “how the COVID-19 economy is affecting Chicago neighborhoods, especially historically underinvested communities, and what an equitable recovery could look like.”

Nichole Jackson (MEd ‘00), owner of Chicago-based Bronzeville-Wingz and a member of the DePaul/YWCA cohort.

The Women in Entrepreneurship Institute (WEI) has partnered with the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago to offer WEI’s business accelerator program to Chicago-area entrepreneurs who are women of color. The first cohort of YWCA-identified participants completed WEI’s two-month accelerator workshop last spring.

“Women entrepreneurs are less likely than men to have access to capital and resources, and it’s even more challenging for women of color,” says Abigail Ingram (LAS MA ’15, JD ’18), WEI director. “Our new accelerator program helps women of color at a time they might not typically have access to help, when they’ve been in business a few years and want to grow.”

Business College and Accountancy School Reaccredited

The Driehaus College of Business and its School of Accountancy & MIS have each earned five-year renewals of their accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International. AACSB grants accreditation to programs that meet rigorous standards and demonstrate the highest quality in teaching, research and student achievement. It is a distinction held by only 5% of
business schools worldwide.

Professor Named Among “Most Powerful Women in Accounting”

Associate Professor of Accountancy Kelly Richmond Pope made the national list of the “2020 Most Powerful Women in Accounting,” issued by the American Institute of CPAs. An innovative teacher and scholar, Pope is an expert in forensic accounting who has produced two award-winning financial crime documentaries and an e-learning game that are used as educational tools in universities and corporations nationally. Pope’s TEDxDePaulUniversity 2017 talk, “How Whistle-Blowers Shape History,” went viral and was chosen to appear on the official TED Talk website.

MBA Partnership Formed with College of Mount Saint Vincent

The Kellstadt Graduate School of Business has formed a partnership with the College of Mount Saint Vincent (CMSV) to offer the DePaul MBA to CMSV alumni and professionals in the New York City area. Scheduled to begin in fall 2021, the DePaul MBA@College of Mount Saint Vincent will be taught by DePaul business professors online, with plans for quarterly in-person residencies at CMSV’s Queens campus. The 16-course evening program is expected to produce its first cohort of DePaul graduates in summer 2023.

DePaul Ranked in Top 50 for Entrepreneurship Education

DePaul’s graduate entrepreneurship program ranked No. 19 and the university’s undergraduate entrepreneurship program placed No. 32 in The Princeton Review’s “Best Colleges for Entrepreneurs 2021,” which surveyed more than 300 institutions nationally. The success of DePaul alumni entrepreneurs was one factor that led to the recognition. Over the past decade, more than 450 DePaul alumni have founded new ventures, raising a combined $210 million, according to data gathered for the survey.

Alumnus Joe Adams

Recent generous gifts from DePaul alumni and foundations are supporting student success and faculty excellence at DePaul’s business college.

RSM US Foundation and RSM US LLP employees, including alumni, made a matching gift totaling $1 million to establish two RSM fellowships at the School of Accountancy & MIS. Joe Adams (BUS ’77, MBA ’79), RSM managing partner and CEO, spearheaded the fundraising effort. The fellowships support efforts to attract and retain outstanding accounting faculty. Associate Professor Mary Mindak has been appointed as the first RSM Fellow.

The estate of the late Lyndell C. Ayres Jr. (BUS ’59) gave nearly $500,000 to the college. The gift will make an immediate impact this year as scholarship awards to students who are experiencing economic hardship due to the pandemic.

First Midwest Bank has provided a $500,000 gift through the First Midwest Charitable Foundation to the John L. Keeley Jr. Center for Financial Services, which provides co-curricular programming for finance students. Over the next five years, the gift will allocate resources to diversify the Keeley Center’s student cohorts through outreach, targeted programming, scholarship support and internship placements at the bank.

Business College Refreshes Curricula

The business college introduced new programs this fall and is revising others to make its curricula even more current. A new entrepreneurship major in the Bachelor of Science in Business (BSB) program debuted in September, as did a business minor for nonbusiness majors. Core classes in the BSB are also being revamped to provide a greater focus on business analytics. Other new programs include a revised MBA program that emphasizes analytics and experiential learning, an online MBA in hospitality leadership and an MBA in business analytics.

College Recognized in Rankings

The business college recently received rankings that recognize the quality and achievements of its entrepreneurship program and the diversity of the college’s graduates. Poets & Quants, an online news source for prospective business students, ranked the college’s entrepreneurship program No. 40 in the world for MBA students. Diverse Issues in Higher Education’s “Top 100 Degree Producers” recognized DePaul business programs in 54 categories of its annual survey, which ranks the top 100 colleges nationally by the number in each academic discipline.

Academic Departments Merge

The college’s finance and real estate departments have merged administratively to create the Department of Finance and Real Estate. The merger helps the college meet reaccreditation standards and provides students with more opportunities for cross-disciplinary study. Degree programs and centers associated with the two disciplines remain unchanged. Thomas Berry (MBA ’77), a longtime finance faculty member who also served as associate dean, was appointed chair of the merged department.

Incoming Interim Dean Thomas Donley | Photo by Kathy Hillegonds

DePaul University Interim Provost Salma Ghanem has named Thomas Donley Interim Dean for the College of Business, effective July 1.

Prior to his appointment, Donley, a professor of economics, held a series of administrative roles in which he helped shape the business college’s academic programs and operations,
as well as DePaul’s faculty governance. He will succeed Misty Johanson, who steps down June 30 to return to the School of Hospitality Leadership as a senior faculty member after a year’s leave.

“In his 30 years at DePaul, Tom has consistently demonstrated dedication to delivering an excellent education to our students,” Ghanem says. “From his leadership roles on Faculty Council to his international business expertise, Tom will be an effective advocate for continuing the business college’s success during this time of transition.”

As an associate dean for Driehaus since 2018, Donley oversees the college’s academic operations and manages its international program strategy, which includes graduate business programs in Bahrain and more than a dozen international business study abroad seminars annually. In his previous role as special assistant to the dean, he assessed academic unit performance to position the college for success.

“As interim dean I plan to focus my leadership on developing new market-driven programs and technology-enhanced course delivery modes that meet the needs of today’s students,” Donley says. “I also look forward to leading our college’s efforts to be reaccredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.”

Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Donley joined DePaul’s faculty in 1990 and was promoted to professor of economics in 2002. He served from 2007 to 2016 as chair of the Department of Economics, where he established the Master of Science in Economics & Policy Analysis and its innovative fellowship program in Washington, D.C. DePaul presented Donley with its Spirit of DePaul Award in 2015.

As interim dean I plan to focus my leadership on developing new market-driven programs and technology-enhanced course delivery modes that meet the needs of today’s students.”

Donley served as president of the DePaul Faculty Council from 2004 to 2006. In this role, he updated the council’s faculty representation model and initiated a revision of the Faculty Handbook.

Donley’s research expertise is in applied microeconomics and econometrics, with a focus on labor markets and wage inequality. He teaches courses in microeconomics, macroeconomics and public economics, and has received college teaching excellence awards.

He earned a PhD and Master of Science in Economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where his dissertation examined family income inequality. Donley also holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

“As associate dean overseeing academic operations, Tom has done an excellent job of guiding our college department leadership,” Johanson says. “I am confident that under his leadership, the college will advance in the achievement of its strategic goals.” The Office of the Provost expects the dean search for the Driehaus College of Business to begin in the 2020-21 academic year.