Dear LMU Community:
I am pleased to announce the reappointment of Dayle M. Smith, Ph.D., as dean of the LMU College of Business Administration. Dean Smith’s outstanding leadership has greatly benefited the college and the university, and I look forward to our continued work together.
Since joining LMU on June 1, 2018, Dean Smith has successfully led CBA with a vision and strategy that prioritizes three key goals: embracing business as a force for good; ensuring an entrepreneurial and agile perspective; and building a global, interdisciplinary, and inclusive mindset – all of which align with the CBA mission “to advance knowledge and develop business leaders with moral courage and creative confidence to be a force for good in the global community.” I look forward to what Dean Smith will accomplish in her next term and share a few of many highlights from the past five years:
- New programs, partnerships, and college-wide growth have brought Dean Smith’s vision to life. She was instrumental in CBA becoming a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) initiative with a commitment to advancing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). She brought international attention to the college as a member of the board of trustees for the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI), where she supported an innovative global collaboration course on sustainable transformation jointly taught by seven institutions around the world. She ushered CBA into the Global Business School Network (GSBN), providing access to new partnerships, programming, and opportunities for collaborative research.
- Under Dean Smith’s leadership, CBA’s graduate portfolio has expanded from three to eight programs with the addition of an M.S. in Business Analytics; M.S. in Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Innovation; M.S. in Management; M.S. in Taxation; and Joint Master in Global Entrepreneurial Management with partner Jesuit schools Fu Jen Catholic University in Taiwan and IQS in Spain. Additionally, in the past five years CBA undergraduate enrollment has increased from 1,467 students to over 2,000 students.
- CBA continues to build reputational excellence through Dean Smith’s engagement with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), most recently as a member of a special taskforce on innovation focusing on DEI, technology, and the importance of business education on societal impact. This summer, Dean Smith will begin her appointment as president of the International Association of Jesuit Business Schools (IAJBS). Closer to home, Dean Smith recently joined the World Trade Center-Los Angeles Board of Advisors and has been named to the Los Angeles Business Journal’s L.A. 500 “Most Influential People in L.A.” list for three consecutive years (2020, 2021 and 2022).
- Dean Smith has been a leader in fundraising, including a major endowment for the D.K. Kim Foundation Business for Good Program featuring a required course for first-year CBA students. She raised funds to bring Bloomberg Terminals to campus and opened the Finance Learning Lab, providing students with free access to Bloomberg Market Concepts (BMC) certification and Bloomberg ESG certification. She also launched the Business Innovation Zone, a space for interdisciplinary creative collaboration.
- Dean Smith has recruited 25 tenure-line and clinical faculty to CBA with an additional seven tenure-line faculty joining in fall 2023. She partnered with faculty in securing a four-year, $1 million Center for International Business Education (CIBE) grant from the U.S. Department of Education to support international business education and research, which was renewed for another four years. In collaboration with faculty, she helped CBA become the official education partner for ASCEND LA, a program that offers entrepreneurship training for women and people of color in underrepresented communities.
- Dean Smith designed a structure for growing the number of CBA advisory boards from three to 11 (with nearly 200 members) by implementing targeted affinity councils (TACs) with the goal of supporting departments and centers, increasing alumni and donor engagement, and building industry partnerships and friends of the college.
I am grateful to Dayle for her resolute spirit, her embodiment of the magis, and her bold leadership.
Please join me in congratulating Dean Smith on her many successes, thanking her for the leadership she has provided, and celebrating her willingness to continue serving in this important role at Loyola Marymount University.
Sincerely,
Thomas Poon, Ph.D.
Executive Vice President and Provost
Professor of Chemistry
