AUSTIN, Texas — University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chancellor Michael Hooker has recommended Dr. Robert S. Sullivan, director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Innovation Creativity Capital (IC2) Institute, to become dean of the Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Since 1995, Sullivan has been director of the institute, a non-traditional international center for research and education on innovation, creativity and capital, as well as commercialization. The institute runs the nationally recognized Austin Technology Incubator and two other commercialization centers. He holds the J. Marion West Chair for Constructive Capitalism in the Graduate School of Business at Texas and was dean of the Graduate School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie Mellon University.
Sullivan’s appointment has been approved by the UNC-CH Board of Trustees and is scheduled for consideration by the UNC system’s Board of Governors Friday (Nov. 14). If approved, he would begin work Jan. 1, 1998.
“Robert Sullivan represents a major coup for Kenan-Flagler and the entire university,” Hooker said. “He is the ideal candidate to guide the school at a time when it is so well-positioned to lead in the global, knowledge-based economy of the future. I have been particularly impressed with Dr. Sullivan’s ability to guide bold, ambitious technological initiatives that inspire students, faculty and the business community.”
Under Sullivan’s leadership, the IC2 Institute has started a master’s of science and technology commercialization degree program. As a professor in the department of management science and information systems, his graduate course, “Topics in Innovation, Technology and Commercialization,” was the first at Austin to be offered by video teleconference to another country –Lima, Peru.
Sullivan’s research interests include manufacturing systems and project management. He focuses on newtork simulation, strategies for computer-integrated manufacturing, and job scheduling and sequencing.
Since returning in 1995 to Texas, where he was a faculty member and administrator for 15 years, Sullivan has co-founded the Texas Telecommunications Policy Institute and the Institute for Computational Finance; co-chaired a subgroup of the campuswide Digital Initiatives in Science Committee; served on a panel charged with defining the core purpose of the university; and completed a 1996 stint as chairman of the Greater Austin Quality Council.
At Carnegie Mellon, Sullivan was dean of the Graduate School of Industrial Administration from 1991 to 1995. During his tenure, the school’s rankings rose sharply and he led a complete overhaul of the educational and research programs. That effort included integrating technology into the field of finance, increasing manufacturing productivity, and creating experiential and distance learning offerings for students in the United States and abroad. He helped develop one-of-a-kind degree programs by combining the school¡s own resources with those in other Carnegie Mellon departments and at other universities.
From 1976 to 1991, Sullivan served at Texas in posts including the Joe B. Cook professor of management and associate dean for research and academic affairs in the Graduate School of Business. He was co-director of the Center for Technology Venturing, director of the Bureau of Business Research and director of the Manufacturing Systems Engineering Program in the College of Engineering. His research has been published in professional journals such as “Management Science,” “Operations Research,” “The International Journal of Production Research,” “Naval Research Logistics Quarterly” and “Annals of Operations Research.” He has written two books with colleagues: “Service Operations Management,” published in 1982, and “Quantitative Systems for Business,” which came out in 1986. His other professional activities include serving on the editorial boards of two academic journals — “Interfaces” and the “Journal of Manufacturing and Operations Management.”
A native of Newton, Mass., Sullivan is a 1966 graduate of Boston College who holds a master’s degree in production management and quantitative methods from Cornell University and a doctorate in operations management from Pennsylvania State University.
Sullivan said the Kenan-Flagler Business School, which has “world-class faculty and students,” has put an extraordinary infrastructure in place with the McColl Building, a $44 million state-of-the-art facility dedicated in September by Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve System’s Board of Governors.
“Now is the opportunity for Kenan-Flagler to define business education for the 21st century,” Sullivan said. “This new model will not just emulate what others already have attempted, but will require the confidence and courage to try new learning and scholarship methods. Our goal will be to develop new initiatives in business education and to use cutting-edge technologies to enable worldwide impact.
“Kenan-Flagler will always have as a highest priority its commitment to community — the difference it makes to individuals, its impact on job creation, its ability to stimulate new ventures and new industries, and its capacity to enhance quality of life,” he continued. “Kenan-Flagler Business School will be known for meaningful high-impact innovation. As a result, the school certainly will be increasingly important to the community. We have the highest expectations.”
Kenan-Flagler, founded in 1919, offers top-ranked business education programs, including the bachelor’s of science in business administration, master’s of business administration, executive MBA, master’s of accounting, Ph.D. in business administration and executive education. The school serves more than 1,300 undergraduate and graduate students, as well as 4,000 executives annually.
For additional details, access IC2 Institute’s URL at: www.utexas.edu/depts/ic2 or UNC-CH’s URL at: www.bschool.unc.edu.
NOTE to MEDIA: Dr. Sullivan can be reached at (512) 475-8927
UNC-CH News Services Contact: Mike McFarland (919) 962-2091
Kenan-Flagler Business School Contact: Cyndy Falgout, (919) 962-1048, falgout@unc.edu
