Three finalists for the Martin J. Whitman School of Management dean position will be visiting Syracuse University this week and participating in open forums with students.

The candidates will be on campus for interviews and presentations. The candidates will participate in the open forum Monday through Thursday, with a new candidate each day.

One of the finalists, Rajiv Dewan, professor of computers and information systems at the University of Rochester’s Simon Business School, will take part in Monday’s student forum from 1:45 to 2:30 p.m. at Milton Room inside the Whitman building.

The other two candidates, whom the university has not yet announced, will be participating in students forums later this week — one on Tuesday from 3:45 to 4:15 at Milton Room and another on Thursday from 1:15 to 2:00 p.m. at Whitman room 402. Candidate profiles will be sent to students about 24 hours prior to a candidate’s visit, according to an email sent from Whitman dean’s office to Whitman students. Students will be subsequently getting a survey following each visit as a method to collect and share feedback with the dean search committee and Provost Michele Wheatly.

During last University Senate meeting, Wheatly said the dean search is nearing its end.

“The search committee for the next Whitman Dean has been working diligently, alongside our partners at Isaacson Miller, to identify highly qualified candidates for consideration as the next Dean of the Whitman School of Management,” the Whitman dean’s office wrote in an email to Whitman students last week.

Dewan, whose teaching and research interests include business analytics, the information technology industry and financial information systems, served as the Rochester business school’s senior associate dean for faculty and research from 2009 through 2014, according to his biography. He managed the faculty, budget and human resources under the title.

Some of his accomplishments included increasing tenured full professors and tenure-track professors from 36 in 2009 to 44 in 2014, leading development of a one-year MBA program and helping implementation of enrollment increase strategy.

The university has been searching for a replacement of former Dean Kenneth Kavajecz, who was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of patronizing a person for prostitution in the third degree.

Authorities said Kavajecz allegedly agreed to pay $80 to an undercover police officer posing as a prostitute on March 9 at about 8 p.m. at the Candlewood Suites on South Bay Road in Salina.

His arrest was the result of a prostitution sting that resulted in eight people facing the charge of patronizing a prostitute in the third degree, including Kavajecz.

Kavajecz has pleaded not guilty, and his court appearances have repeatedly been adjourned. His last scheduled court appearance, in March, was pushed back to May 25.

S.P. Raj, chair of the marketing department, took over the deanship on Oct. 19 in an interim role.

Published on April 23, 2017 at 8:14 pm

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