June Message from the Dean

Dear Colleagues,

Though we are officially in summer, things are not slowing down — there is a lot of exciting news to share!  

As we have previously communicated, five individuals will be taking on new leadership roles over the next month or so. I’m pleased to welcome Matt Young as our new chief advancement officer. I also look forward to welcoming Gregg Latterman, our new executive director of the Zell Lurie Institute, and Wendy Taylor, president and CEO of the William Davidson Institute. I am also pleased to share that faculty members Saif Benjaafar and Joline Uichanco will begin their roles as co-directors of the Tauber Institute.    

As I look back on June, I also want to recap all of the impressive events of the month that many of you were involved with planning.   

• Seventh Annual Strategy Science Conference — Over 140 strategy faculty and scholars from around the world attended this event co-sponsored by the journal Strategy Science. The sessions showcased rigorous and impactful research from across the fields of strategy, including a session that included innovative work on when artificial intelligence does and does not contribute to better task and organizational performance. It was especially meaningful to host this year’s conference at Ross given our pre-eminence in the field of strategy over time, from Birger Wernerfelt and CK Prahalad’s contributions establishing the resource-based view of the firm to contributions from the likes of Cynthia Montgomery, Will Mitchell, and Gautam Ahuja whose work advanced important streams of work in the field. A special thanks to Felipe Csaszar, Brian Wu, Maggie Zhou, and all faculty from the strategy department for all the work in making this conference such a success. I also want to acknowledge Shawna Sloan, strategy department administrative assistant, and these four PhD students for their roles in organizing this conference: Eklovya Jain, Derek Leif, Weikun Yang, and Alice Wang.  
• The 36th Mitsui Symposium — This event brought together finance scholars around this year’s theme of new frontiers in asset pricing. The conference featured studies advancing new computational methodologies, including machine learning and big data applications, and those that explore expanding topics in asset pricing, such as investor heterogeneity, learning and ambiguity, the real effects of financial markets, the impact of climate risk, sustainability, and diversity on financial markets, and novel preference structures for pricing models. MP Narayanan, Gabby Ring, Uday Rajan, Shane Miller, and Mirela Sandulescu did an excellent job organizing the event, which rotates between Ann Arbor and Japan over the years.
• Last month, I mentioned the inaugural Equitable Opportunity Conference was coming up. It was also a great success, with more than 90 academics and practitioners attending. This conference showcased the latest academic research on equity issues and encouraged the exchange of ideas and best practices. Here is a recording of the event.  
• Leaders in Experiential Project-Based Education — Ross hosted this teaching-based conference to further advance our position as the thought leader in action-based learning in business schools. The conference brought together peers from other institutions that highly value action-based learning. Topics covered include measuring the impact of experiential learning on students and stakeholders, the role of AI with project-based courses, and best practices for student travel and client sourcing. Many thanks to the Sanger Leadership Center and Center of Positive Organizations for leading a couple of the sessions. And a special thanks to Gretchen Spreitzer, Megan Anda, Maica Mori, Amanda Schultz, and many more for all of the hard work that went into organizing this.

Also, on June 11, Stephen Ross visited campus to receive the U-M Presidential Medal of Excellence award from President Ono. This inaugural award was created to recognize donors and alums who have demonstrated extraordinary support for the mission of the university. During his visit, he also spoke at a leadership development program offered by our Executive Education team that included executives from all 32 NFL teams. 

I also want to thank the members of our ERG Black@Ross group for organizing our annual Juneteenth celebration. I very much enjoyed the opportunity to be a part of the gathering of staff, faculty, and students to remember and commemorate June 19 as a day of freedom and emancipation. The ERG Black@Ross group did a great job of arranging trivia contests, a raffle, food, and excellent company in celebration. 

In addition to these events, we held our first Ross summer gathering on June 18. The turnout was terrific, and I enjoyed seeing and catching up with so many of you. If you didn’t get to attend this one, please join us at the next summer gathering on July 11 in the S. Scott Stewart Lobby from 4-5 p.m. I also look forward to seeing you at our annual Summer Staff Soiree on July 31. These events are a great way for us to unwind and socialize with each other while enjoying the beautiful summer season.

As always, I want to remind everyone of my upcoming office hours. In July, the in-person office hours for faculty and staff will be held in the Davidson Winter Garden on the following dates and times:

• Tuesday, July 2, from 4:15-5 p.m.
• Tuesday, July 9, from 4:15-5 p.m.
• Tuesday, July 16, from 4:15-5 p.m.
• Tuesday, July 23, from 4:15-5 p.m.

The monthly virtual office hours will be held via Zoom on Friday, June 28, from 3-3:45 p.m. and Friday, Aug. 2, from 3-3:45 p.m. If you would like to attend either of the virtual office hours, please contact Heather Cooper (hmcooper@umich.edu) for an invite with the link to join.

To close, I hope all of you are enjoying the summer so far and have some fun plans for July 4th. I look forward to seeing you around sometime soon!

Kind regards,

Sharon