In The Dean’s List, Matthew A. Waller provides a roadmap for anyone who leads or aspires to lead a business college. Waller, dean of the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas since 2015, offers a variety of practical tools and insights for leading effectively and confidently in the challenging, ever-evolving landscape of collegiate administration. Waller provides a field-tested framework for leadership as he explores twelve areas that are critical for leading a successful business college, including institutionalizing innovation, operating as the communicator in chief, managing the college’s finances, and delivering appreciation.

The role of a dean has changed dramatically in the last few decades. In addition to managing up, down, and sideways while dealing with students, staff, and faculty, there’s a growing demand for deans to work with parents, alumni, and donors as well as business and community leaders. The Dean’s List highlights examples from Waller’s career to illustrate practical advice for dealing with the specific challenges deans regularly face. The result is a handbook for shortening the learning curve for anyone who is, or aspires to be, the dean of a business college.
 

Matthew A. Waller is the dean of the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, where he also serves as the Sam M. Walton Leadership Chair and a professor of supply chain management. He is the coauthor of The Definitive Guide to Inventory Management, Integrating Blockchain into Supply Chain Management: A Toolkit for Practical Implementation, and Purple on the Inside: How J.B. Hunt Transport Set Itself Apart in a Field Full of Brown Cows. He is the former coeditor of the Journal of Business Logistics, the leading academic journal in the discipline.
 
Stephen Caldwell is a writer, editor, and entrepreneur whose work appears on a range of platforms. In a career that spans more than thirty years, Caldwell has been a writer and editor for newspapers, magazines, and websites; collaborated on more than two dozen books; and developed leadership and functional training for Fortune 500 companies. The founder and chief word architect for WordBuilders Communications, he helped launch the award-winning magazine The Life@Work Journal.