DOLAN REPORT
CHARLES F. DOLAN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY | FALL 2024
Message From the Dean
“We stay true to the Jesuit mission by emphasizing ethics and developing ethical leaders for a better world and life-long success.”
Iam pleased to report that Fairfield Dolan had a banner year in 2023-24!
Our enrollment hit another record high, with approximately 2,800 students at Fairfield Dolan — a 50 percent increase, compared with 1,850 six years ago. The caliber of our students is also up, evidenced by the admission rate of 33 percent for incoming first-year students.
Fairfield Dolan achieved the best U.S. News & World Report rankings in history last year: #53 MBA (part-time), #118 undergraduate business (up 46 spots), and top-25 in specialty programs in Accounting, Business Analytics, Finance, and Marketing.
We stay true to the Jesuit mission by developing ethical leaders for a better world and life-long success. We recruited Gregg Caruso, PhD, a globally renowned scholar, to direct the Patrick Waide Center for Applied Ethics. Our student team participated in — and won — the Michael Smith Ethics Competition at Providence College. We launched the “Stags Ethics on the Road” program, which connects Dolan faculty and students with corporate practitioners (e.g., PwC) through discussions about ethics.
A historic number of Fairfield Dolan student teams shone in regional, national, and global competitions: placing among the top five teams globally in the Rotman International Trading Competition hosted by the University of Toronto, winning second place in the Business Analytics Competition at Manhattan College, and performing well in the Fed Challenge in Washington, D.C., and the CFA Challenge.
Fairfield Dolan continues to attract prominent speakers and visitors, including Zanny Minton Beddoes (editor-in-chief of The Economist), Travis Hill (vice chairman of the FDIC board of directors), Wes Bricker, (vice chairman of PwC), and Ursula Hurley (CFO of JetBlue).
We broadened geographical expansion to Latin America and Europe, entering 4+1 agreements with the Catholic University of Uruguay and Comillas Pontifical University in Spain. These agreements will offer their undergraduate students an opportunity to study in Fairfield Dolan’s graduate programs.
We continue to be cutting-edge in curricula and programs. In the last academic year, we launched an MS in Business Analytics in Shanghai, an MS in FinTech, and a BS in Integrated Business & Engineering in partnership with Fairfield’s School of Engineering & Computing.
We achieved a 92+ percent retention rate of first-years going into sophomore year, and more than 99 percent of our Class of 2023 obtained jobs or are going to graduate schools. You will enjoy more student success stories in this annual report!
Z han L i , DB a Dean and Professor, Dolan School of Business
DOLAN REPORT
Zhan Li, DBA
Dean
Anca Micu, PhD
Senior Associate Dean
Leanne De Los Santos
Senior Assistant Dean of Graduate Programs
Rev. Gregory Konz, S.J.
Special Assistant to the Dean
Sarah Bollinger, EdD
Senior Director, Career Development Center
Carolyn Montrose
Associate Director,
Career Development Center
Danielle Courtemanche, EdD
Assistant Dean and Director of Undergraduate Programs
Faye Troiano, MEd
Assistant Director of Undergraduate Programs
Sasha Cerabino
Associate Director, Communications and Events
Bella Podgorski
Senior Marketing Manager
Nancy (Gelston) Dobos ’91
Designer
Send Inquiries to:
Charles F. Dolan School of Business
Fairfield University 1073 North Benson Road Fairfield, CT 06824-5195
203-254-4000 ext. 2843 fairfield.edu/dolan
Photo by Joe Adams
2 Nationally Ranked Programs and Student Outcomes
4 International Expansion of Fairfield Dolan
6 AI at Fairfield Dolan: A Timeline
8 Applied Research at the Doctoral Level
9 Fairfield Dolan 30 Under 30 Awardees
10 Commitment to Ethics at Fairfield Dolan
12 Fairfield Dolan Year in Review: 2023-24 Highlights
14 Faculty Newsbreakers
U.S.
99% of Graduates Are Employed or Enrolled in a Graduate Program within six months of graduation. Undergraduate Class of 2023
UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS
STUDENT
OUTCOMES 85% of internships were paid.
100% of Graduate Students Are Employed within six months of graduation. Graduate Class of 2023 TOP 10% of Best Colleges for Accounting and Finance
1.5 Average number of internships per student:
INTERNATIONAL EXPANSION OF FAIRFIELD DOLAN
The Charles F. Dolan School of Business
continues to strengthen its international presence through strategic global partnerships, reaching a significant milestone with the first-ever in-person graduation ceremony for the Shanghai MBA program cohort at Fairfield’s Commencement on May 18, 2024.
The MBA program is available to professionals in partnership with Golden Education — one of the largest education management training companies in China.
“It is a truly historical moment that the Shanghai MBA graduates attended Fairfield University’s Commencement this year,” said Fairfield Dolan Dean Zhan Li, DBA, noting that the Shanghai MBA was the first Fairfield University degree program to be offered in a foreign country, starting in fall 2020.
Following the successful collaboration with Golden Education in Shanghai, Fairfield Dolan announced new partnerships with Jesuit universities in Spain and Uruguay, marking yet another milestone on the business school’s international expansion journey.
The new 4+1 degree agreements will enable undergraduate students from Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid (Comillas ICADE) and Uruguay Catholic University to pursue graduate degrees at Fairfield
Dolan upon completion of undergraduate studies at their home institutions. These agreements will further the international students’ education and expand their global opportunities.
“Beyond Shanghai and India, Fairfield Dolan is growing its partnerships in Latin America and Europe to globalize its visibility and reputation, build pipelines for graduate enrollments, and broaden its geographical expansion,” said Dean Li. l D
“Beyond Shanghai and India, Fairfield Dolan is growing its partnerships in Latin America and Europe to globalize its visibility and reputation, build pipelines for graduate enrollments, and broaden its geographical expansion.”
Zhan Li, DBA Dean
FAR LEFT: University President Mark R. Nemec, PhD (center), Fairfield Dolan Dean Zhan Li, DBA (far left), and Dr. Ying Zhang (far right) pose with Shanghai MBA students at Bellarmine Hall .
Photo by Cassidy Kristiansen
LEFT: Dean Zhan Li, DBA, and Senior Associate Dean Anca Micu, PhD, hosted Dr. M. Teresa Corzo Santamaria, dean of ICADE Business School, and Dr. Lourdes Fernandez, head of Business Analytics Studies at Comillas Pontifical University in Spain
Photo by Kristie Kistner
AI at Fairfield Dolan: A TIMELINE
2015
CURRICULUM
First AI course, Data Mining and Business Intelligence, is developed with MS in Business Analytics program (MSBA).
SPRING 2016
CURRICULUM
MSBA program launches, first grad students register for AI class.
SPRING 2018
CURRICULUM
AI is integrated into Data Mining and Applications course.
APRIL 2018
FACULTY EXPERTISE
Fairfield Dolan faculty member becomes a NIVIDIAcertified instructor.
FALL 2019
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
Business Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Lab opens in the new Dolan School of Business building.
SPRING 2020
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
MSBA student Anthonie Hollaar uses AI to complete Mozart’s unfinished symphony Fantasia in D Minor for his capstone project.
OCT. 28, 2021
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP & EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
MSBA students publish the book Baby AI: Cyborg Essays, a collection of essays coauthored by an artificial intelligence tool, OpenAI GPT-3, during its beta-testing.
SEPT. 19, 2022
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
A campus presentation and discussion titled “The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence” is co-sponsored by the Patrick J. Waide Center for Applied Ethics.
NOV. 24, 2022
THOUGHT
LEADERSHIP & EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING AI for Kids is published, written as an experiment conducted by MSBA students in a nocode AI class.
DEC. 12, 2022
THOUGHT
LEADERSHIP & EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING First-of-its-kind generative AI art exhibition features “Best-Self” portraits of MSBA students.
OCT. 26, 2023
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
XLabs CEO and Co-Founder Radhika Dirks presents “The Promise and Peril of Artificial Intelligence” at the Quick Center.
SPRING 2024
CURRICULUM
AI is integrated into Marketing Research and Digital Marketing coursework.
FEB. 24, 2024
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING Fairfield Dolan student team places first in Michael Smith Business Ethics Case Competition, with project on the ethical ramifications of AI.
FALL 2024
CURRICULUM
New undergraduate course, AI, is added to the curriculum.
Why a Fairfield Dolan Executive DBA?
Applied Research at the Doctoral Level
After Glenn Heller II received his bachelor’s degree in 2016, he hit the ground running. While working a full-time job in Hartford as a portfolio manager, he began night classes at the University of Connecticut, earning an MBA in 2021, with concentrations in finance and real estate, and a graduate certificate in genetics in 2022.
“The certificate wasn’t through UConn’s business school, but its medical school,” he said. “I was the only one studying genetics on a business track.”
The genetics certificate was, he said, “an appetizer.” Now he’s moved on to the entrée, having enrolled in Fairfield Dolan’s Executive DBA program.
When the time came to work toward his doctorate, “I figured, I only have one go at this,” Heller said, noting that he is “the only one in my family to graduate from college. My parents never got that opportunity but they knew the value of education, so they pushed me…that bachelor’s
degree was as much for them as it was for me.”
Heller was cautiously optimistic about enrolling in Fairfield’s Executive DBA program.
“At first it was scary, taking that risk,” he said. “But the faculty gives you support — not just your faculty advisor, but all faculty members.”
“It was great to have meet-and-greets with them; that’s how I found my advisor, Dr. [William] VasquezMazariegos. It was like speed dating,” Heller quipped.
Entering his second year in the Executive DBA program, the insurance professional continues his remarkable juggling act of keeping up with classes while holding down a high-level job; in his office at work, he keeps five computer monitors going at once.
Fairfield has helped Heller keep his perspective. “More and more people in the business world have master’s degrees, so you want to stand out any way you can,” he said.
“An MBA from Fairfield Dolan is impressive, of course, but a Dolan School DBA really stands out. When I tell
people about it, they pay attention.”
Heller, who last year was a recipient of Fairfield Dolan’s inaugural 30 Under 30 award, described the six students in his Executive DBA program cohort as “extremely close.”
“I’m the youngest in the program by far,” he said. “Most of the others are seasoned professionals with wellestablished careers, managing and leading teams.”
Heller said he would “highly recommend” Fairfield’s Executive DBA program. “I now see it as the best decision I ever made; it gives me the flexibility to pursue what I really want to pursue.”
Having finalized his dissertation topic on gene therapies and their impact on the insurance industry, Heller hopes to complete his doctoral studies by 2026. l D
RIGHT: Dean Zhan Li, DBA, with Executive Doctor of Business Administration candidate Glenn Heller II at the 2024 Dolan Awards Ceremony.
Photo by Joe Buglewicz
FAIRFIELD DOLAN’S INAUGURAL 30 UNDER 30 AWARDEES
Samantha Barry ’24
Maria Betancur ’24
Claire Brunner ’24
Isabella Cappolla ’25
Emily Carra, Grad Student
Ainsley Corriveau ’25
Nicole Farmer ’25
Lucille Fowler ’25
Glenn Heller II, DBA Candidate
Evan Keiser ’24
Allie Kirby ’24
Lilly Lashar ’24
Emily Mager, Grad Student
Zachary Maloy ’25
Morgan Mancini ’24
Andrew Martin ’25
Whitney McVeagh ’25
Paige Meader ’25
Caitlin Murphy ’24
Cian O’Donnell, Grad Student
Christian O’Rourke ’24
Antonio Papa ’24
Isabella Poschmann, Grad Student
Kerianne Rodrigues ’24
Abigail Snider ’24
Dean Tobin ’24
Wenpei Wang, Grad Student
Emma Wentland ’24
Guoyu Yang ’24
Giovanni Young ’25
LEFT: Dawn W. Massey, PhD, CPA and Joan Lee, PhD, CPA received the Excellence in Accounting Ethics Education Award from the American Accounting Association.
Photo by Joe Buglewicz
A COMMITMENT TO ETHICS
Ethics has B een part of f airfie LD U niversity ’ s D na from the start, baked into a Jesuit tradition that feeds the mind, body, and spirit, while also teaching social responsibility. All undergraduates are required to take one religious studies or philosophy course. And, in the Charles F. Dolan School of Business, all business majors are required to take an ethics course.
Joan Lee, PhD, who is entering her 27th year as a professor of accounting at Fairfield, is a national leader in ethics education and president of Colleagues in Jesuit Business Education (CJBE).
“Schools have two choices when it comes to teaching ethics: integrate it into the courses themselves, or require an entire course just on ethics,” said Dr. Lee. “I believe that when it’s in everything, it’s in nothing, which is why Fairfield has required a separate business ethics course for years. It’s part of the Ignatian pedagogy.”
Dr. Lee and Dawn Massey, PhD, professor of accounting at Fairfield Dolan, have received Excellence in Accounting Ethics Education Awards from the American Accounting Association for their outstanding contributions to integrating ethics into accounting education and their innovative approaches to “teaching students to use their RADAR.” RADAR, an acronym for “Research, Analyze, Decide, Act, Reflect,” is a framework for ethical leadership that helps individuals to identify and respond to ethical issues.
Dr. Lee has seen pragmatic solutions come to life in her classroom. For the past four years, her students have entered a competition held in the spring at Providence College. Two weeks beforehand, contest officials provide the same ethical question to every competing team. Students must then create a 15-minute PowerPoint presentation to show a panel of judges and prepare to take questions for ten minutes. If they make the finals, they repeat this in front of another panel of judges later in the day.
“The question this year was whether AI should be restricted on ethical grounds,” said Dr. Lee. “Our team recommended some restrictions without completely harnessing AI’s growth and development. They viewed it through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching and applied those principals.”
Fairfield Dolan’s team took top prize in the competition. Dr. Lee noted that her students — all sophomores — were competing against teams “of almost always seniors, many with two years of intern experience.” l D
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l 1 Dean’s Executive Forum
Fairfield Dolan welcomed Travis Hill, vice chairman of the FDIC Board of Directors. In this moderated discussion, Hill bridged the gap between academic affairs and industry knowledge, sharing his extensive experience in the regulatory field.
l 2 Inaugural 30 under 30 Winners Recognized at Dolan Awards Ceremony
Thirty Dolan students were recognized as exceptional business students for academic, professional development, community engagement, social responsibility, and “whole–person” achievements.
l 3 2024 StartUp Showcase
Fairfield Dolan celebrated its annual StartUp Showcase with five teams. The well-attended event was hosted by Fairfield Dolan alumna Mariana Antaya ’23, a product manager at Microsoft and alumna of the StartUp Showcase.
l 4 Deans Executive Forum
Fairfield Dolan welcomed Anne Valentzas, senior vice president of consumer marketing and sponsorships, North America at Mastercard. She shared her experience in Mastercard’s innovative campaigns, including the highly successful collaboration with the Grammys and Sza.
l 5 Immersion Trip to Silicon Valley
For a second consecutive year, a group of 20 undergraduates, graduate students, and alumni from Fairfield Dolan visited NVIDIA, Google, KPMG US, SalesForce, Uber, and Intel to meet with industry leaders — gaining insight into the evolving American and international economy.
management, government oversight and regulatory issues, as well as economic policies.
l 9 Dolan Students Receive Student Achievement Awards
l
6 Career Development Events
The Dolan Career Development Center hosted events leveraging alumni involvement, including Stags in Marketing with Madison Square Garden and Fox Business, as well as Stags in Management, Wall Street, and Analytics and others for Dolan students.
l 7 Fairfield Dolan Faculty
Recognized for Excellence
Milo Peck III, JD, adjunct professor of state and local tax in the Accounting Department of the Charles F. Dolan School of Business, was awarded the graduate Excellence in Teaching Award. Numerous faculty members were also recognized at the Dolan Awards Ceremony.
l 8 MS in Management Immersion
Trip to Aix-en-Provence, France
Students focused on topics including starting a new business, employment laws and practices, sustainability, innovation, workforce
Nicholas Calabrese ’24 received the undergraduate Ignatius Loyola Medal. Lilly Lashar ’24 was honored with the William J. Kramer Class of 1960 Humanitarian Award, and a select number of students were recognized for academic and service-related accomplishments.
l 10 Gonzalve Bich (CEO of BIC) spoke with StartUp Club Bich returned to campus to share his experiences within his role, as well as his efforts to innovate and stay competitive in his industry.
l 11 Editor-in-Chief of The Economist Visits Fairfield Dolan Zanny Minton Beddoes, the first female editor-in-chief of The Economist, visited professor of finance Katsiaryna Salavei Bardos’ “Financial Management” class.
l 12 Fed Challenge Team Visits D.C. Fairfield Dolan’s Fed Challenge team visited Washington, D.C., to learn more about the Federal Reserve and network with students from other schools. While there, the group had the opportunity to meet and shake hands with Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve.
FACULTY NEWSBREAKERS AT FAIRFIELD DOLAN
Featuring Research Showcased in Prestigious Publications Such as the Journal of Education Advancement & Marketing, Research Policy, The Journal of Portfolio Management, and More
Anca Micu, PhD, senior associate dean, published her research paper, “Fostering Effective Collaboration Between Faculty and Marketing Staff for Institutional Success,” in the Journal of Education Advancement & Marketing. Faculty and staff collaboration is increasingly important for higher education institutional success. Creating an environment of cooperation with faculty-staff cross-silo dialogue requires mission-driven, clearly communicated, and measurable strategic goals, where staff have a clear vertical structure of responsibilities and perceive faculty being incentivized to work with them, and faculty have a thorough understanding of the beneficial outcomes of their collaboration with staff.
Winner of the Fairfield Dolan 2024 Outstanding Research Paper Award, Stanislav Vavilov, PhD, assistant professor of management, had the research paper, “Global Development Agenda Meets Local Opportunities: The Rise of Development-Focused Entrepreneurship Support,” co-authored with Stephen Manning and published in Research Policy
Emerging economies provide abundant opportunities for entrepreneurship with social impact, but they often lack the resources to support it. This dilemma has led to the emergence of “developmentfocused entrepreneurship support” (DFES), which is typically provided by development organizations in the Global North, and which targets impactoriented entrepreneurs operating in the Global South. This study examines —based on rich qualitative data from the U.S., Rwanda, and Uganda — how international DFES organizations (iDFESOs) support entrepreneurs.
Philip Maymin, PhD, associate professor of analytics, co-authored the research paper “Fairy Tails: Lessons From 150 Years of Drawdowns,” published in The Journal of Portfolio Management. Co-authored by Ashwin Alankar, Daniel Ding, Allan Maymin, and Myron Scholes.
The authors identify, examine, and categorize the largest downside tail events in the U.S. equity market over the past 150 years, using monthly data. They define a downside tail event as any peak-to-trough loss of at least 15 percent. Using Gaussian mixture models to cluster the tail events based on pre-drawdown observables, five distinct environments emerge: hiking, easing, disinflationary, inflationary, and exuberance.
Lin Lu, PhD, assistant professor of analytics, co-authored the research paper “Measuring Service Quality With Text Analytics: Considering Both Importance and Performance of Consumer Opinions on Social and Non-Social Online Platforms,” published in Journal of Business Research. Co-authored by Pei Xu, Yen-Yao Wang, and Yu Wang.
Online word-of-mouth (WOM) has attracted considerable attention from researchers due to its abundant information on customer perceptions that drive product and service improvement. This study develops a novel weighted service quality (WSQ) metric derived from online customer opinions, leveraging the importanceperformance analysis framework. Data collected from social and non-social online platforms confirms that this WSQ approach outperforms the widely used average sentiment score approach and significantly predicts the industry service quality standard, Airline Quality Rating (AQR).
RIGHT: Fairfield Dolan offers a Jesuit business education that prepares students for careers, and life.
Photo by Joe Adams
Fairfield University’s Charles F. Dolan School of Business boasts experienced faculty who teach students the fundamentals, ethics, and new developments in business on a local and global scale.
THANK YOU 2024 CORPORATE PARTNERS
At Bank of America, we are focused on driving responsible growth by deploying capital, creating jobs, developing communities, fostering economic mobility, and addressing society’s biggest challenges.
“Bank of America is proud of our expanding partnership with Fairfield University, which is preparing students with real-world experiences through Fairfield Dolan’s Professional Development Series.”
Bill Tommins
Southern CT Market President
NFP, an Aon company, is a leading property and casualty broker, benefits consultant, wealth manager, and retirement plan advisor.
“At NFP, we know that when you invest in your people and do things the right way, success follows. This approach requires courageous leadership, aligned values, and inclusive collaboration.
Fairfield Dolan cultivates leaders who are ethical, socially responsible, and committed to their employees and communities. As a proud alumnus and University Trustee, I’m honored NFP is a corporate partner of such an exceptional institution.”
Doug Hammond ’86 CEO
Phoenix Tower International is an industry-leading owner of wireless towers and other wireless infrastructure throughout the world.
“As a successful entrepreneur, I think it is of vital importance to invest in the appropriate training and education for the next generation of business professionals, including technical skills as well as strong ethics, proper governance, and social responsibility. These values are so important in today’s business world and I was lucky enough to receive an education in these areas as a young student at the Dolan School. Phoenix Tower International is proud to support Fairfield Dolan as it prepares the next generation of business leaders.”
Dagan T. Kasavana ’99 Founder and CEO
Thank you to our 2024 StartUp Sponsors:
Linda and Joseph Bronson ’70
Kerri and Phillip Cagnassola ’92
Colony Grill Development
John Hill
Christopher Hillock ’00
Dagan Kasavana ’99
Padraic (Packy) Kelly ’90
Thomas and Jodi King, P’23
Irelsa and Christopher Stephens Jr.
The Charles F. Dolan School of Business is committed to the Jesuit Catholic tradition of educating the whole person (cura personalis) by fostering an engaging and diverse learning community of educational excellence and relevancy, with nationally recognized programs and innovative curricula, informed by the balanced teaching, research, and service contributions of outstanding faculty and staff, and supported by local and global partnerships. We develop socially responsible, intellectually curious, ethical, compassionate global business leaders who excel in their careers and lead meaningful lives.
1073 North Benson Road
Fairfield, Connecticut 06824-5195
