From the Dean's Desk

Official start

Martijn Cremers

Martijn Cremers

Monday, 1 July 2019
Today marks the start of my official tenure as the Martin J. Gillen Dean. I am very grateful for all your help and support (and patience!) during my service as interim dean, and look forward to continuing to work with you as the full-term dean.
I am honored to serve in this challenging role, and I am grateful for the trust being placed in me. I am fully committed to advancing Mendoza’s distinctive mission as a Catholic business school, where we seek to do top academic research and educate business leaders who contribute to human flourishing, cooperate in solidarity and compete with excellence.
I’d like to briefly reiterate the vision for the College that I presented during the recent faculty and staff meetings, namely to elevate, cooperate and integrate.
For our programs, this means to explore the following questions:
  • How can we elevate our curriculum, e.g., by offering more challenging courses?
  • How can we better cooperate across campus, serving all Notre Dame students?
  • How can we present an integrated vision of business, integrating the business disciplines with both the humanities and analytics?
There are three areas of focus:
  • Integrating coding, analytics and big data across all majors, concentrations and programs.
  • Expanding experiential learning, with more opportunities for our students to participate in internships, consulting projects and service learning.
  • Emphasizing business as a force for good, based on the C/catholic (universal) human values that make Mendoza distinctive.
I think that over this past year, we’ve made great progress toward this vision by introducing new undergraduate minors, opening courses to first-year business students and non-business majors, doubling the enrollment in the MBA course Business on the Frontlines and reorganizing the structure of the College’s administration to include five associate deanships, to name a few items.
You all have important roles to play in shaping the future of Mendoza. I encourage you to consider me as always available, to let me know how I can better serve you, and I look forward to your feedback and ideas.
In Notre Dame,
Martijn

Circle of excellence awards

Martijn Cremers

Martijn Cremers

Monday, 24 June 2019
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The latest biannual edition of the Mendoza Business magazine was distributed to approximately 25,000 alums, faculty, staff, students, prospective students and faculty, and friends of the College. As a publication, the magazine presents a comprehensive view of Mendoza, from our alumni stories to research to thoughtful pieces about significant trends in business and society.
We were recently informed that the College has won three CASE Circle of Excellence Awards, namely a gold for magazine redesign, a silver for the Acumen enewsletter and a silver for the Dean's Report. The COE awards are considered to be perhaps the most prestigious awards for higher education communications and public relations. (Here's a link to the press release for more information.)
This outstanding achievement and the success of the Mendoza Business magazine, Acumen and the Dean's Report, among the many contributions of the Communications team, can only be attributed to the amazing work from the team which includes Carol Elliott, Melissa Jackson, Zara Osterman and Candice Cleveland. I am personally grateful to this team for their ongoing hard work and commitment to produce work that is so is timely, visually interesting, interesting in content and award winning!
In Notre Dame,
Martijn 

Staff retirements, part 2

Martijn Cremers

Martijn Cremers

Monday, 17 June 2019
Last week, we highlighted three of our staff retirees — Sharon Clancy Orban, Paul Slaggert and Phil Corporon. Following are farewell comments from three more:
Marlene Wasikowski
Current Title/Department: Administrative Assistant, Department of Finance
Starting Title/Department: University Archives, Assistant Archivist
Started at Mendoza/ND: 1995
I am very grateful for the tremendous educational opportunity that my job at Notre Dame provided for my three children. Two are ND grads and one graduated from Saint Mary's and all have good jobs. I will miss all the people whose friendships I hold dear, the day-to-day interactions with faculty, staff, and students, and the enlightening conversations I have had with the most learned professionals in academia. I look forward to retiring to a less hectic pace of life in our own ‘Mayberry,’ travels with my husband, and a new grandson to love and spoil.
Judy Truitt
Current Title/Department: Employer Relations Program Manager/Graduate Business Career Services
Starting Title/Department: Temp/MBA Career Development
Started at Mendoza/ND: 2005
Since childhood, Notre Dame has been an integral part of my life. I have appreciated the opportunity to give back to the University that has given me so much.
Karen Casey
Current Title/Department: Administrative Assistant, GBP/MSA
Starting Title/Department: Administrative Assistant, MSA
Started at Mendoza/ND: 1990
I will miss seeing many of the nice people I've gotten to know and Ken Milani's jokes. I appreciate ND helping pay for my daughter's Butler education and the opportunities that were given to me to learn so much about other cultures, professions and people.
I appreciate the generous and appreciative attitude reflected in all six of the retirees' comments. They remind me what a privilege it is to be part of the Mendoza and Notre Dame community.
Please join me in thanking them for their many contributions and wishing them all the very best. And they will keep their ND email addresses — so stay in touch!”
In Notre Dame,
Martijn 

Farewell to our retirees

Martijn Cremers

Martijn Cremers

Monday, 10 June 2019
In the coming weeks, six of our staff colleagues will retire from Mendoza. Combined, they represent more than 168 years of service to the University. Following are farewell comments from three of them – Sharon Clancy Orban, Paul Slaggert and Phil Corporon. Next week, we’ll feature three more – Marlene Wasikowski, Judy Truitt and Karen Casey.
Sharon Clancy Orban
Current Title/Department: Academic Advisor, Office of Undergraduate Studies
Starting Title/Department: Secretary, Department of Marketing
Started at Mendoza/ND: 1969
“For many years now, I have missed Yusaku Furuhashi, Vince Raymond and Sam Gaglio, my former bosses. Now I will add to that list Dale Nees and the Undergraduate Advising team in Mendoza 101. There are others too numerous to list. Had I not worked for and with the best, I surely could not have stayed 50 years! As goes an old Irish proverb: ‘However long the road, there comes a turning.’ As I take that turn in my road, I wish you all God's blessings on your roads as He has blessed me on mine.”
Paul Slaggert
Current Title/Department: Director, Stayer Center for Executive Education
Starting Title/Department: Director, Non-Degree Programs, Executive Education
Started at Mendoza/ND: 2001
"One of my favorite things to do is to welcome people to Notre Dame. It has been my privilege to do this for the past 18 years. I will miss having the opportunity to continue to be the one representing the University when we welcome people to campus for the first time."
Phillip Corporon
Current position: Manager, Mendoza IT Operations
Previous Positions:
Nine years at the College of Engineering, Dean’s Office, and the Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Senior Computer/Electronic Specialist, 1986-1995
24 Years at the Mendoza College of Business, Information Technology
1995 - 2000: Systems Engineer
2000 - 2006: Web Project Manager
2006 - 2012: Director of Web Technologies
2012 - 2019: Manager, Operations Group: 2012 - present
*January 2018 - April 2018: Interim Director, Mendoza IT
“I'm forever grateful that Notre Dame has kept me busy for over 33 years, to have worked with such extraordinary people, and to have contributed to something much greater than oneself. As a member of the University community, it's an honor to have played some small part to inspire curiosity and seek knowledge, and to help make the world a better place for now and the generations to come.”
I am most grateful for their many contributions, through which they have enriched our community with their expertise, commitment to service, faithfulness, friendship, caring and humor. They will all be missed.
In Notre Dame,
Martijn 

Thanks, Faculty Support

Martijn Cremers

Martijn Cremers

Monday, 3 June 2019
Now that the spring semester has wrapped up, I want to recognize a team that makes so much of what we do possible — Faculty Support.
Maggie Neenan-Michel, Denayia Phillips, Tami Springer, Rachel Karnafel and Amy Spangler along with six student assistants provide services ranging from copying, editing, monitoring copyrights, handling mail, scanning exams, stuffing envelopes, proofreading and many other tasks.
Here are a few “fun facts” about their operations from July through May:
  • Provided support to 160 faculty and 15 departments/centers
  • Processed 6,730 work requests
  • Made more than 3 million copies
  • Printed, compiled and mailed approximately 25,662 letters for Graduate Business Programs Admissions
  • Processed about 13,500 Scantron sheets
  • Received and distributed approximately 4,650 UPS, USPS and FedEx packages
  • Prepared and sent out about 230 UPS packages
In addition to all of that, the department earned a LEAP 2 Green Office certification from the Notre Dame Office of Sustainability in recognition of their efforts to conserve waste and recycle.
I especially want to highlight a service that some faculty may not be aware of. Tami and Rachel both provide copyediting services. They review research paper manuscripts and perform cross-reference checks to make sure citations and the bibliography are accurate. They also proofread and provide guidance in grammar and punctuation. Perhaps most importantly, they can reformat a paper to meet the specifications of a particular journal. They also can help with exams, from creating one from scratch to updating existing ones.
To request copyediting services, please direct requests via email to Tami or Rachel. Special requests are fielded by Maggie prior to assignment to ensure the project is within the scope of the department’s skills. Faculty members should include specific instructions about the services needed with the request. For help with journal formatting, they also should attach the publication’s specifications. Faculty members are also encouraged to meet with Maggie, Tami or Rachel to discuss the details or clarify instructions if the project is complex.  
The numbers above don’t suffice to describe the level of professionalism, collaboration, positive attitude and excellence that the Faculty Support team members bring to their jobs and to many other efforts at Mendoza, including coordinating daily Mass schedules and overseeing the annual Lenten Food Drive.
We are very fortunate to have such a great faculty support team at Mendoza. Please take a moment to join me in thanking the team for all they do.
In Notre Dame,
Martijn 

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