Message From the Dean

This is a wonderful time to be at the Naveen Jindal School of Management. I hear from my colleagues at other universities that they are having a difficult time bringing their students back to campus. Meanwhile, here we are seeing record enrollment with nearly 10,500 students. The hallways are filled daily with many of them. We have enrolled a record number of students in our Jindal Young Scholars Program and four students from the first cohort graduated this past spring.

The Jindal School’s atrium has a new name — the ECLAT Foundation Atrium — thanks to a generous donation from the Education Changing Lives and Times (ECLAT), a Dallas-based nonprofit that was created to serve Asian students. I am delighted that we have such engaged community partners.

I am excited to announce that this semester we have added more than 20 new faculty members to our roster, including nine tenured or tenure-track assignments. This is the most we have hired since before the COVID-19 pandemic, yet another sign that life is returning to normal.

In program news, both our undergraduate and graduate supply-chain programs are now ranked in the top 10, not just among public universities but all North American universities. Knowing that our peers and corporate partners are taking notice is truly gratifying. It helps that we are producing graduates who are ready to make meaningful contributions to their companies from day one.

Also, our Executive Education Area has realigned some of its programs to offer more flexibility to our students who are juggling their executive jobs, family lives and educational pursuits, trying to find the proper work-life balance.

Our centers of excellence are making moves, too. We have a new Center for the Management of Financial and Digital Asset Technologies. Its mission to advance fintech and digital- asset research aligns well with our school’s mission to conduct research that advances management knowledge. The center will create an entirely new area of research focus for our faculty members. Our Center for Retail Innovation and Strategy Excellence has formed a new student organization that is a member of the prestigious National Retail Federation Foundation. This partnership will be a great opportunity to form relationships with industry and further promote the Jindal School’s brand.

In student and alumni news, five UT Dallas students and alumni, including four from the Jindal School, have become Texas Business Hall of Fame Scholar Awardees for their entrepreneurship efforts. Another JSOM alumna has become the U.S. Space Force’s first commissioned officer in cyber warfare. Finally, another JSOM alum is now the coach of the nationally ranked UT Dallas chess team, which, by the way, includes two Jindal School students. You can read about these outstanding Jindal School community members within the pages of this issue.

All these accomplishments would not have been possible without our dedicated faculty and staff members, outstanding students and generous donors and community members. The theme of this issue, appropriately enough, is “Making Moves.” The members of the Jindal School and UT Dallas community have found remarkable ways of doing that during these challenging times. As dean, I am proud and humbled to lead these efforts and am forever appreciative of this remarkable community.

Best Wishes,

Hasan Pirkul
Dean and Caruth Chair