Schulich’s Top 10 News Stories in 2020
Dezsö J. Horváth Steps Down as Dean of Schulich After 32 Years
Dezsö J. Horváth, the longest-serving dean of any major business school in the world, stepped down as Dean of Schulich after a remarkable 32 years at the helm of the School. Under his leadership, Dean Emeritus Horváth turned Schulich into a global business school and expanded its reach and influence around the world, garnering an International Dean of the Year award in the process. He spearheaded the development of first-of-their-kind management degrees and programs and helped make Schulich a world leader in the field of Responsible Business. In tribute to the outgoing Dean, York University established a scholarship fund in Dr. Horváth’s honour and announced that it will also rename the Schulich Executive Learning Centre after him.
Schulich Welcomes New Interim Dean Detlev Zwick
York University announced in spring that Schulich professor Detlev Zwick would assume the role of Interim Dean beginning July 1, 2020, becoming the 8th dean in the School’s 54-year history. Professor Zwick has been a full-time Schulich faculty member since 2002 and has served as the School’s Associate Dean of Academics since 2018. He also served as Director of Schulich’s BBA/iBBA Program from 2013-2018. He led the School’s rapid transition to remote learning in March following the provincial government’s mandatory closure of all post-secondary college and university campuses.
Schulich’s Leading Change Campaign Surpasses Fundraising Goal
Schulich’s Leading Change Campaign – the School’s most comprehensive and ambitious fundraising campaign to date – officially concluded in June after launching in 2016. The Campaign, established to support campus expansion, research and discovery, innovative thinking, student success, and alumni engagement, exceeded its fundraising goal of $50M by $15 million, with donations coming from more than 2,500 Schulich alumni. One of the highlights of the Campaign was the opening last year of the award-winning new Rob and Cheryl McEwen Graduate Study & Research Building.
Schulich Develops Analytics Dashboard to Predict Spread of COVID-19 Cases
A team of academics and data scientists at Schulich developed an analytics dashboard that helped provide daily insights into the spread of the COVID-19 global pandemic. The team, led by Murat Kristal, Director of Schulich’s Master of Management in Artificial Intelligence and Master of Business Analytics programs, used publicly available data to create a dashboard that could predict the number of new COVID-19 cases over a rolling five-day period in each country around the world, with the added ability to view projected rate increases by region and province or state, where possible. The award-winning dashboard became an example of the cutting-edge research taking place at the School in the fields of Business Analytics and Artificial Intelligence.
Schulich Establishes New Centres of Excellence in Health and Supply Chain Management
Schulich announced the establishment of the Krembil Centre of Excellence in Health Management and Leadership, made possible by a generous $5 million donation from the Krembil Foundation and Schulich graduate Robert Krembil (MBA ’71, Hon LLD ’00), and the George Weston Ltd Centre for Sustainable Supply Chains, made possible by significant support from George Weston Ltd. The newly established Centres of Excellence will become leading global hubs of industry outreach, education and research at Schulich and help develop future industry leaders.
Schulich Establishes Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Working Group
Schulich established a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Working Group in July with representatives from the School’s student, staff, faculty and alumni communities. The Working Group was tasked with developing key recommendations, including identifying ways to create greater Black and Indigenous representation among the School’s students, staff and faculty; integrating Black and Indigenous perspectives into its curriculum and learning; and strengthening Schulich’s engagement with external stakeholders to create greater career and business opportunities for Black and Indigenous people.
Schulich Graduates Place Among Country’s Top One Percent
Schulich BBA graduate Michelle Per (BBA ’18) won the prestigious Governor General’s Gold Medal at the 2020 Common Final Examination (CFE) – the top result in the country. Five other Schulich BBA and Master of Accounting graduates – Robert Barkin (BBA ’19), Kristian Borean (BBA ’19, MAcc ’20), Kartiki Pandya (BBA ’18), Tatiana Tsoi (BBA ’17), and Mario Vujnovic (BBA ’19, MAcc ’20) – attained the distinction of making the CFE Honour Roll, and all six Schulich graduates placed in the top one percent of successful writers of the CFE exam, a three-day evaluation designed to assess candidates’ knowledge, judgement and ethics as well as a critical milestone of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada certification program.
Schulich Creates Online Open Course About the Pandemic
Schulich created a first-of-its-kind, inter-disciplinary online course on leadership lessons from the pandemic. Titled “Leading Through the Pandemic: Insights from Individuals, Organizations, Governments and Societies”, the course brings together the expertise of 11 Schulich faculty members from a wide range of disciplines – everything from strategy and marketing to real estate and sustainability – to provide students with important business insights about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Schulich Students Play Critical Role in Digital Main Street ShopHERE Initiative
During the spring, the City of Toronto and the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA) launched an initiative help the City’s main street retailers survive the COVID-19 crisis by bringing together the marketing skills of Schulich’s business students with the digital expertise of some the world’s leading tech companies, technology and e-commerce firms. As part of the Digital Main Street ShopHERE Initiative, 100 students from Schulich’s MBA, Specialized Masters’ and undergraduate programs worked with e-commerce companies such as Shopify, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, eBay and Mastercard to launch online stores virtually overnight at thousands of companies throughout the GTA.
Schulich Ranked One of World’s Top Business Schools for Careers in Finance, Marketing & Operations Management
Schulich was rated one of the world’s top business schools when it comes to pursuing a career in Finance, Marketing and Operations Management, according to a ranking published by QS. Schulich was ranked 17th in the world in terms of careers in Finance; 21st in the world regarding careers such as logistics and supply chain management in the field of Operations Management; and 22nd in the world in terms of careers in Marketing.
