Things You Didn’t Know About Dean of UMSL College of Business

By: Gabrielle Sealey and TJ Sheffer
For those of you who haven’t been introduced to UMSL’s College of Business Dean, you’re in luck. In a recent podcast, “In Your Business with UMSL Business” produced by the school, our students had the opportunity to sit down with the UMSL College of Business Dean Charlie Hoffman, and ask him a few questions to get to know him better.
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Click here to listen to the podcast!
We can start off by saying that Dean Hoffman’s career title wasn’t always “Dean of a University,” he had other careers that he pursued before his current role at UMSL. One of those, for instance, being done as a service to our country in the Air Force. Dean Hoffman has spent around 37 years in the business industry as well, working for a variety of companies such as IBM, Southwestern Bell Corporation, and Sprint PCS, and he has won awards, like the Cellular Telephone Industry Association’s Presidents Award, as well as UMSL’s award for Distinguished Alumni.
Although the word “dean,” is commonly heard of, how many people know just exactly what a dean does? Well, according to Dean Hoffman “a day in the life of a dean,” consists of administrative meetings, attending UMSL events, as well as dealing with fundraising. Dean Hoffman states that, “around 30% of his time is spent with fundraising, typically with Alumni.” It isn’t hard to tell that Dean Hoffman is not only the big man around campus, but also the busy man.
In the interview, Dean Hoffman highlights the important role UMSL plays for the community. He believes that the University is more than just a facility for people to take the next step in their education. The college has the strength of being one of the accredited business schools: Less than 2% of business schools are accredited in the world. Since the school was founded in 1963, they have around 54 years of graduating students, who also stay within the St. Louis area. This means that the university helps provide students with jobs in their respective field, and helps the local St. Louis economy.
Some great things will be happening for the College of Business in the near future. One of the biggest is the new business building that is expected to be completed by the Fall Semester of 2017. The new business building is going to be a great new addition for the university, by providing the students with a new place to gather for classes and studying. Dean Hoffman also mentions that the building will provide the teachers and students with new technology for teaching, and learning. The new addition will give the business school more of an identity as well.
Want to learn which invaluable advice Dean Hoffman gave to the students in his interview? Listen to the whole podcast on iTunes: https://tinyurl.com/umslbusinesspodcast