Introducing Dean Roger Huang

When Roger Huang was named acting dean of the Mendoza College of Business two years ago, he had two wishes: First, if he was to serve in the interim post, he wanted the full support of the University’s administration. Second, he absolutely did not want to be considered to succeed Dean Carolyn Woo, who had resigned to become CEO of Catholic Relief Services. He got one of his wishes.

The University’s provost, Tom Burish, extended his full backing. “He said to go full throttle with whatever I thought needed to be done to continue moving the College forward in the interim period,” Huang says.

As for the other wish, after an extensive two-year national search, Burish told the acting dean that the committee had concluded that he, in fact, was the best choice to continue leading Mendoza. The provost offered Huang the job, and he accepted in March.  

In hindsight it seems almost preordained that Roger Huang would succeed Carolyn Woo. For more than 40 years, their life paths have been interlinked. Both grew up Catholic in Hong Kong, both attended Catholic schools there, both left Hong Kong to study business at Purdue University—Huang enrolling at age 16—and both graduated in three years.

It was at Purdue, in fact, where they first met and became friends. “We worked together on a project for an econometric class and wrote the paper together, so we are each other’s very first co-authors,” the new dean says with a laugh. 

While Woo stayed on at Purdue, earning her Ph.D. and ultimately joining the faculty there, Huang pursued a doctorate in finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. There he studied under the famed scholars Hans Stoll and Robert Schiller, finishing his doctorate at the age of 24.

The young academic then returned to Purdue, where he taught for two years so that he might be close to his two younger brothers who had followed in his footsteps from Hong Kong. Then, for the next 20 years or so, the old friends’ life paths diverged. They lost contact except for annual Christmas cards sent by each other’s spouse.

From 1982 to 1986, Huang taught at the University of Florida at Gainesville. His old mentor, Hans Stoll, then recruited him to Vanderbilt University, where Huang became an endowed professor, renowned for his cutting-edge work with Stoll on the study of world financial markets.

Finally, in 2000, the paths of the old friends reconverged. Hoping to lure Huang from Vanderbilt, Notre Dame’s finance department invited the scholar to present a paper on his work. As he chatted with faculty outside the dean’s office before the seminar, Huang heard a familiar voice behind him. Turning, he saw Carolyn Woo, now dean of Mendoza. The seminar went well and, in short order, she convinced him to join Notre Dame.

“She explained the mission, what the faculty here was trying to do—‘business for good’—and how I could contribute,” Huang recalls. “Carolyn was very persuasive, and so I came.” At Notre Dame, he has served as the Kenneth R. Meyer Professor of Global Investment Management, chair of the Department of Finance until 2008, associate dean from 2008 to 2011, interim dean for the past two years, and now the Martin J. Gillen Dean of the College.

The change in leadership has been nearly seamless. Huang shares his predecessor’s passion for Mendoza‘s mission. He becomes animated when he starts talking about the College’s future.

“This is the way that I see it,” he says with intensity. “We have a brand of education that is good for the world. And it’s good for business. It’s not just about learning the tools of the trade. It’s helping future and current business leaders acquire the conviction to use those tools in the right way.”

Huang cites the financial industry’s recent scandals as an example of why Mendoza’s style of business education is so needed. “Everybody knows finance, accounting,” he points out. “But, in the end, it’s about trust, how people interact in a business way. Yes, it has to do with the rules of the game, but primarily it has to do with the people applying those rules in the proper way. We would like as many students as possible to be exposed to our brand of education.”

To make that so, Mendoza has some ambitious goals under its new dean. Beginning this summer, the College will expand its graduate degree offerings beyond its MBA, Master of Nonprofit Administration, Master of Science in Accountancy and Executive MBA programs. First to be introduced is a one-year Master of Science in Business degree for non-business students who have little or no work experience. Following that, either next year or the year after, two additional graduate programs are planned, a master’s in finance and a master’s in business analytics.

To further spread Mendoza’s gospel of “business for good,” Huang says a number of global efforts are in development. Beginning in May, Notre Dame began offering its Master of Nonprofit Administration degree to students from China’s Renmin University. Students from the Beijing school will attend two summer sessions at Notre Dame and will participate in a 10-week internship with various American nonprofit organizations.

In addition, Mendoza is planning a global education program (GEP) involving Notre Dame, Mannheim University in Germany and the University of Hong Kong. Small groups of three to five students from each institution will move from school to school, learning about each region, Huang says. Similarly, Notre Dame’s business school is investigating a variant of the GEP concept involving executive MBA students from various Catholic universities around the world.

Another priority for the new dean is maintaining Mendoza’s standing as the premier school in ethical business education.

“Right now, we’re ahead [of our peer schools] with courses in business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and environmental sustainability,” he observes. “That’s all good. But we also want to be the leader in certain specific areas such as social entrepreneurship, integral leadership and social impact. We want people to think of Mendoza when they think of those areas.”

To that end, Huang says the college intends to increase curriculum offerings in those fields, hold conferences, and recruit more “thought leader” experts such as Mendoza executive-in-residence Roxanne Spillett, who was CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and is highly regarded for her insights into the social impact of business.

“Going forward,” the new dean says, “my hope for Mendoza is that we will be better positioned to meet the challenges of a global economy in a fast-changing landscape, and that we maintain our premier status. That would be a success story to me.”

When Roger Huang was named acting dean of the Mendoza College of Business two years ago, he had two wishes: First, if he was to serve in the interim post, he wanted the full support of the University’s administration. Second, he absolutely did not want to be considered to succeed Dean Carolyn Woo, who had resigned to become CEO of Catholic Relief Services. He got one of his wishes.

The University’s provost, Tom Burish, extended his full backing. “He said to go full throttle with whatever I thought needed to be done to continue moving the College forward in the interim period,” Huang says.

As for the other wish, after an extensive two-year national search, Burish told the acting dean that the committee had concluded that he, in fact, was the best choice to continue leading Mendoza. The provost offered Huang the job, and he accepted in March.  

In hindsight it seems almost preordained that Roger Huang would succeed Carolyn Woo. For more than 40 years, their life paths have been interlinked. Both grew up Catholic in Hong Kong, both attended Catholic schools there, both left Hong Kong to study business at Purdue University—Huang enrolling at age 16—and both graduated in three years.

It was at Purdue, in fact, where they first met and became friends. “We worked together on a project for an econometric class and wrote the paper together, so we are each other’s very first co-authors,” the new dean says with a laugh.

While Woo stayed on at Purdue, earning her Ph.D. and ultimately joining the faculty there, Huang pursued a doctorate in finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. There he studied under the famed scholars Hans Stoll and Robert Schiller, finishing his doctorate at the age of 24.

The young academic then returned to Purdue, where he taught for two years so that he might be close to his two younger brothers who had followed in his footsteps from Hong Kong. Then, for the next 20 years or so, the old friends’ life paths diverged. They lost contact except for annual Christmas cards sent by each other’s spouse.

From 1982 to 1986, Huang taught at the University of Florida at Gainesville. His old mentor, Hans Stoll, then recruited him to Vanderbilt University, where Huang became an endowed professor, renowned for his cutting-edge work with Stoll on the study of world financial markets.

Finally, in 2000, the paths of the old friends reconverged. Hoping to lure Huang from Vanderbilt, Notre Dame’s finance department invited the scholar to present a paper on his work. As he chatted with faculty outside the dean’s office before the seminar, Huang heard a familiar voice behind him. Turning, he saw Carolyn Woo, now dean of Mendoza. The seminar went well and, in short order, she convinced him to join Notre Dame.

“She explained the mission, what the faculty here was trying to do—‘business for good’—and how I could contribute,” Huang recalls. “Carolyn was very persuasive, and so I came.” At Notre Dame, he has served as the Kenneth R. Meyer Professor of Global Investment Management, chair of the Department of Finance until 2008, associate dean from 2008 to 2011, interim dean for the past two years, and now the Martin J. Gillen Dean of the College.

The change in leadership has been nearly seamless. Huang shares his predecessor’s passion for Mendoza‘s mission. He becomes animated when he starts talking about the College’s future.

“This is the way that I see it,” he says with intensity. “We have a brand of education that is good for the world. And it’s good for business. It’s not just about learning the tools of the trade. It’s helping future and current business leaders acquire the conviction to use those tools in the right way.”

Huang cites the financial industry’s recent scandals as an example of why Mendoza’s style of business education is so needed. “Everybody knows finance, accounting,” he points out. “But, in the end, it’s about trust, how people interact in a business way. Yes, it has to do with the rules of the game, but primarily it has to do with the people applying those rules in the proper way. We would like as many students as possible to be exposed to our brand of education.”

To make that so, Mendoza has some ambitious goals under its new dean. Beginning this summer, the College will expand its graduate degree offerings beyond its MBA, Master of Nonprofit Administration, Master of Science in Accountancy and Executive MBA programs. First to be introduced is a one-year Master of Science in Business degree for non-business students who have little or no work experience. Following that, either next year or the year after, two additional graduate programs are planned, a master’s in finance and a master’s in business analytics.

To further spread Mendoza’s gospel of “business for good,” Huang says a number of global efforts are in development. Beginning in May, Notre Dame began offering its Master of Nonprofit Administration degree to students from China’s Renmin University. Students from the Beijing school will attend two summer sessions at Notre Dame and will participate in a 10-week internship with various American nonprofit organizations.

In addition, Mendoza is planning a global education program (GEP) involving Notre Dame, Mannheim University in Germany and the University of Hong Kong. Small groups of three to five students from each institution will move from school to school, learning about each region, Huang says. Similarly, Notre Dame’s business school is investigating a variant of the GEP concept involving executive MBA students from various Catholic universities around the world.

Another priority for the new dean is maintaining Mendoza’s standing as the premier school in ethical business education.

“Right now, we’re ahead [of our peer schools] with courses in business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and environmental sustainability,” he observes. “That’s all good. But we also want to be the leader in certain specific areas such as social entrepreneurship, integral leadership and social impact. We want people to think of Mendoza when they think of those areas.”

To that end, Huang says the college intends to increase curriculum offerings in those fields, hold conferences, and recruit more “thought leader” experts such as Mendoza executive-in-residence Roxanne Spillett, who was CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and is highly regarded for her insights into the social impact of business.

“Going forward,” the new dean says, “my hope for Mendoza is that we will be better positioned to meet the challenges of a global economy in a fast-changing landscape, and that we maintain our premier status. That would be a success story to me.”

Getting to Know ... Dean Roger Huang

Favorite book: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Last book read: Finance and the Good Society by Robert J. Schiller

Favorite movie: Indiana Jones trilogy

Person from history you’d most like to meet: Margaret Thatcher

First question you’d ask her: What makes you so strong in your convictions?

Person or people who influenced you most: my parents

Favorite TV show: NBA basketball games

Favorite sport: tennis

Your worst course in high school or college: Physical Education

Favorite thing about Notre Dame: the people

“Hardly anybody knows that …”  I am a big fan of Chinese comedy and action movies