Real Life. Real Business
Aug. 7, 2008
Dear Alumni and Friends,
I'm Chuck Williams, and it is my pleasure to write to you as the
new Dean of Butler's College of Business Administration. With our
"Real Life, Real Business" mission, exciting changes are taking
place in our undergraduate and MBA programs and in our work with
the Indianapolis business community, so I'll be emailing you each
month to keep you informed about the CBA's exciting people, events,
and plans.
While my monthly emails will normally be about the school, I
want to take this opportunity to introduce myself. I'm a native
Hoosier. While Indianapolis is my hometown, we moved to Gary in
1968, 40 years ago, so that my father could attend the Illinois
School of Podiatric Medicine in Chicago.
Of course, a lot has changed in Indianapolis in 40 years. Dick
Lugar was Indianapolis' mayor, not Indiana's senior Senator. The
red car on the pole at the Indianapolis 500 was A.J. Foyt's #14,
not Scott Dixon's #9. The Colts and their Hall of Fame Quarterback,
not Peyton Manning but Johnny Unitas, were in Baltimore. And, 40
years ago, the CBA had approximately 275 undergraduates, 235
graduate students (only 7 of which were women) and 26 combined
faculty and staff. Whereas, today we have 700+ undergraduates, 300+
MBAs and nearly 100 combined faculty and staff.
My wife, Jenny, who I met at Valparaiso University, also has
family in Indiana. After graduating from Valpo, we spent five years
in Lansing, Mich., where I earned my MBA and Ph.D. in Management at
Michigan State and worked 18 months for General Motors. I then
taught at Oklahoma State for five years, followed by 15 years at
Texas Christian University, where I was a professor, department
chair, and an Associate Dean. Over the last two years, I was Dean
at the Eberhardt School of Business at the University of the
Pacific in Stockton, California. So, if you want travel tips for
Northern California-Napa, Lake Tahoe, San Fran, Big Sur,
Yosemite-I'm your guy. Professionally, I've written three
management textbooks that are used at over 150 different
universities, published research in numerous management and
psychology journals, taught in London every summer for the last 12
years (I'll be taking Butler students to London next summer) and
have taught Executive Education for over two decades. Jenny and I
have three sons of whom we're very proud, one beautiful
granddaughter in Dallas who, thanks to our daughter-in-law and her
trusty videocam, is a YouTube star (well, at least for us), and
three dogs and two cats who are more trouble than our kids ever
were, but unlike our sons, are willing to follow us around for
snacks.
Become Involved with the College of Business
If you would like to address a class, interview students for
internships or job opportunities, could use an undergraduate or MBA
team to tackle a problem in your business, or are in need of
professional business consulting via the Butler Business
Accelerator, please contact me.
I look forward to meeting many of you over the next year in a
series of Meet the Dean events (details to follow), but, in the
meantime, feel free to contact me by email or at (800) 368-6852,
ext. 8491. I'm thrilled to be at Butler's College of Business and
look forward to serving you as Dean.
Chuck Williams, Dean
College of Business