NEW: Providence College Names New Dean of Business School
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Providence College announced today the appointment of Dr. Sylvia Maxfield as the dean of its School of Business (PCSB). Dr. Maxfield comes to Providence College from Simmons College in Boston, Mass. where she has served on the faculty at the Simmons School of Management since 2002.
As Dean of PCSB, Dr. Maxfield will lead the School forward in what Providence College hopes will be its new existence as an accredited school of business. The College is nearing the end of a multi-year effort to secure accreditation for PCSB from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). An AACSB team visited the College for its final site inspection last month. A decision is expected sometime late this summer.
PCSB currently has four undergraduate majors leading to a Bachelor of Science degree (Accountancy, Finance, Management and Marketing) as well as a practice-based MBA program. Earlier this year, a team from PCSB captured first place in the 2011 national accounting competition known as eXTREME Accounting (xAct).
“We are pleased to bring Dr. Maxfield aboard to lead our School of Business at this exciting time in its history. Sylvia has a great vision for the School and for the entire Business program at Providence College that includes more inter-disciplinary work with other majors. The School is already thriving and I am confident that Dr. Maxfield, working together with our outstanding business faculty, will help us take it to an even greater level,” said Providence College President Rev. Brian J. Shanley O.P.
During her tenure at Simmons, Ms. Maxfield chaired that institution’s MBA program, served as Faculty Senate President and was Professor & Director of the Principled Leadership Program building curricular and co-curricular focus on the social and environmental face of business. Earlier in her career, she was a member of the faculty at Yale University from 1988-1997, as Assistant and Associate Professor in that university’s Department of Political Science and its School of Management. She also served as the Director of Yale’s M.A. program in International Relations.
A specialist in the global economy, Dr. Maxfield has experience in both the academic and business worlds. In between her work at Yale and Simmons, she worked for several years with Lehman Brothers as Senior Sovereign Analyst and Vice President. She was responsible for research, publications and advising the emerging markets fixed income traders, sales staff, and the firm’s clients on country strategy. She also has consulted with organizations such as the World Bank and Mitsubishi International.
Dr. Maxfield is a cum laude graduate of Cornell University where she received a B.A. in Economics and Government in 1980. She earned her Ph.D. in Political Economy from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University in 1988. Dr. Maxfield is the author and editor of several books, most recently Gatekeepers of Growth (Princeton University Press). Her cases and research projects have appeared in many publications including The Wall Street Journal and Forbes. She is featured periodically as an economics and financial institutions commentator on radio andtelevision.
She will begin her official duties at Providence College on August 1, 2012.