Concordia University Irvine didn’t go far to find a new dean for its School of Business.
Thirteen-year veteran administrator Stephen Christensen will move into the post from his current duties as executive vice president for external relations. He also teaches an entrepreneurship course in the school’s Master of Business Administration Program.
Christensen was part of the dean selection committee when Craig Olson, chairman of the university’s Board of Regents, tapped him for the position.
The committee gave Christensen a weekend to “pray on it and come back on Monday to say yes.”
He took the job with a caveat—the interim dean, George Wright, was to stay on permanently as chief operating officer, taking care of the daily operations of the business school, including finance, administration and academics. That’s expected to free up Christensen to focus on the school’s vision and strategy and on expanding relations and partnerships in the business community—where he’s “lived for the last 30 years,” he said.
“Christensen is an energetic innovator and builder with a long history of working with business leaders and faculty,” said Concordia President Kurt Krueger. “His varied higher education experiences will help move our business school forward with exceptional vision.”
Christensen’s career path has led him through Orange County’s three biggest universities.
He attended California State University Fullerton and in 1983 joined the University of California, Irvine’s advancement department. There, he founded the Chief Executive Roundtable, an “alliance of business and university leaders” that remains active with some 70 members.
Chapman University hired him in 1995 as vice president for external relations. He worked directly for Chapman President Jim Doti until leaving for Concordia in 2001.
Christensen’s appointment follows a recent restructuring effort that split the School of Business from the School of Professional Studies last year. He said the move was prompted by the need for a more focused curriculum to serve 350 students in its business undergraduate program and another 160 enrolled in its MBA program.
The business school’s previous dean, Tim Peters, is currently serving as dean of the School of Professional Studies.
The first item on Christensen’s action plan is pursuing accreditation from the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education, a Lenexa, Kan.-based agency that focuses on “mission-driven and outcomes-based programmatic accreditation.”
“It is time to raise the bar by outside measurements,” Christensen said.
He said he plans to expand “practical assignments” for students participating in the school’s Institute for Strategic Marketing, a business outreach program, and that he also wants to introduce entrepreneurship instruction across the university’s curriculum and expand social entrepreneurship, or work with nonprofit organizations.
He’ll also focus on spending “more time building our brand and name recognition.” He said he wants Concordia to be on par with other leading OC educational institutions.
“There are the big three schools in OC,” he said. “We all know who they are—UCI, Chapman and Fullerton. We want this to be a four-university region, and we want to be at the table.”
