What’s next? A new vice dean for faculty and research will help build for it

Sometimes the work that seems mundane and operational is the very work that’s transformative to an organization, a business—or a young graduate school.

“I like to say that I joined in startup phase II,” says Valerie Suslow, who became vice dean for Faculty and Research in 2015. “When I arrived, a big part of what I worked with others to do was to either formalize existing norms of how the school worked on the faculty side – policy and processes – or develop new ones.”

That groundwork helped propel Johns Hopkins Carey Business School into the exciting and energized phase it’s in now: hiring nearly a dozen new faculty from prior positions at highly respected institutions, adding to about 100 existing faculty, launching its first centers, and advancing its reputation as an innovative home for research and higher education.

New vice dean

On August 16, Suslow passed the baton to newly named Vice Dean for Faculty and Research Goker Aydin. Aydin will continue building on the foundation Suslow solidified, with a focus on growing, developing, and magnifying Carey’s faculty and their research, teaching, and outreach missions. Primarily, he will oversee recruitment, support, and retention of diverse and highly qualified faculty across tracks and disciplines. He will also create and sustain partnerships with other Johns Hopkins University schools to extend and deepen Johns Hopkins University’s positive impact on society through collaborative research and innovative implementations. And, of course, there will be policy development and implementation.

“I am excited about the opportunity to serve our faculty, staff, students, and our broader community in this role,” says Aydin, who joined Carey in 2017 as a full professor after faculty roles at Indiana University Kelley School of Business and the University of Michigan. “Every day I feel privileged to work with such accomplished and talented colleagues who bring great passion and enthusiasm to their research and teaching.”

At Carey, there’s an edgy energy, distinguishing the school from more staid and traditional institutions, to set the path for an innovative and modern business school. There’s also the life of an academic, requiring long-valued forms of support and standards of professional work and advancement. The place where these two features overlap is where Aydin will live.

“I look forward to growing our talented faculty body and expanding its diversity in all forms,” says Aydin. “I am excited to support our faculty members as they pursue their goals in research, teaching, and outreach; to foster an environment in which our faculty members – individually and in collaboration with others – can set and achieve ambitious professional goals and, in doing so, help to solve the increasingly interdisciplinary challenges we face as a society.”

Building for what’s next

Underpinning those pursuits are the building blocks Suslow helped lay: not only policies and processes but also the faculty requirements leading to Carey’s AACSB accreditation, a powerful and agile Teaching & Learning system, and a no-siloes approach to academic disciplines that encourages collaboration while still holding up to rigor.

“We have been very fortunate to have Valerie’s leadership,” says Aydin. “She has done marvelous work to grow our extraordinary body of faculty and to lay the foundation for further growth of the school. I have learned a great deal from her, and I know I have big shoes to fill.”

“Goker will be excellent in this role,” says Suslow, who will now serve as senior advisor to the dean, as well as resuming her full faculty position. “I will support the transition in any way that’s beneficial, but I know that he will do well, and the faculty will thrive with his leadership.”

Dean Alexander Triantis shares that confidence.

“Goker has distinguished himself as an outstanding educator, researcher and leader here at Carey,” Triantis says. “In a highly impressive field of candidates for the role, he stood out as being exactly right for what Carey, its students, and its faculty seek most at this point in the school’s rapid evolution.”

With collaborative leadership as a philosophy as well as an established Carey value, both Aydin and Suslow look forward to a smooth transition, and a future of even greater faculty successes that benefit not only the school and its students, but also society.

And there’s nothing mundane about that.