Hany Guirguis, Ph.D. with previous Fed Challenge team members.
MANHATTAN UNIVERSITY / LINKEDIN.COM
Barbara Vasquez, Production & Web Editor
Hany Guirguis, Ph.D., has accepted the role as full-time dean of the O’Malley School of Business after serving as interim dean for the past year. The decision was announced by Provost Kenneth Sumner, Ph.D., in an email sent out on March 11.
Since his appointment as interim dean last March, Guirguis has been hard at work improving the school of business and the overall college experience for students.
“I never perceived it as an interim dean position, and the first time I met with faculty I was very clear that I was going to take the position as a permanent position,” Guirguis said. “We don’t have one year to waste waiting for someone else to come along, or for myself to start thinking about what needs to be done. So from day one, we’ve been focusing on our long-term plans.”
These long-term plans largely involve increasing enrollment, which has been on the decline at Manhattan University for the past few years. However, increasing enrollment is just the end product in a long process that Guirguis has begun.
“You can’t just start by saying ‘all my policies focus on enrollment’– enrollment is the side effect of other things,” Guirguis said. “So you have to focus on quality. You have to focus on expanding your service. You have to focus on morale amongst the students and the faculty. You have to have your own long-term plans, and then enrollment will come and accreditation will come, but it’s just a side effect of what you are trying to achieve.”
Guirguis has been associated with the university since joining the school as a professor in 2000. He’s deeply involved in the business school, currently teaching as well as acting as advisor to the MU Fed Challenge team, all alongside his current role as dean. According to Clay Pinkham, a junior finance and economics double major who has worked closely with Guirguis, he has a reputation amongst students for being extremely hardworking and caring.
“To the students who are close to him, he cares very much and will drop anything he’s doing to aid whatever it is you may need from him,” Pinkham wrote in an email to The Quadrangle. “He works hard, he is intense, his classes are challenging, but it comes from a place of love for the students and their ability to succeed.”
Sean Li, another junior finance and economics double major, shared similar sentiments about Guirguis.
“I have a lot of respect for him and I look up to him very greatly, simply because I know what his work ethic is like,” Li said. “I see him working and I see what he does. He constantly tells us and other [Fed Challenge team] members about the many sacrifices that he’s had to make to reach certain points in life and be as productive as he is, so I have very high reverence for the dean.”
For some students, the decision to appoint Guirguis as permanent dean is one that can only be beneficial.
“Continuity is the most important thing for the school right now,” Pinkham wrote. “He [Guirguis] has been here longer than most. He knows this school better than most. And he will probably be here for the remainder of his career. He cares about this school and the students like it’s one of his children. I have full confidence, not a doubt in my heart that this permanent decision will drastically benefit the school. Simply put he knows what needs to be done.”
Li agreed and mentioned some strengths of Guirguis’ that will be a benefit to the position.
“I think what he’s already proposed as interim dean has been great, and I think that success will continue as the official dean, because he’s very goal oriented,” Li said. “He’s very driven in seeing actual results, and I don’t see how that type of mentality would lead to any downfalls or shortcomings.”
Guirguis plans on treating this new position as simply a succession of his time as interim dean, with no real changes made apart from office location. However, serving as interim dean has given him some enlightenment that he previously didn’t have.
“Your role as dean is different from your role as a faculty member, so if you come in with a faculty mindset and try to do your job as dean, it can create some issues,” Guirguis said. “I think you need to still have the faculty mentality, but you have to keep in mind that there is an administrative part of your job that might influence how your decisions would be perceived– this would be one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from the priceless experience [of serving as interim dean]. Maybe the long term goals haven’t changed, but how you achieve them and how you have approached them has become more sophisticated and more effective as we go through the process of learning from it and adjusting to it.”
Guirguis is dedicated to creating a great learning environment for students and ensuring faculty productivity and efficiency. With this in mind, he hopes to hear from students and make sure he’s on the right track to reach these goals.
“I am so eager to hear the students’ voices, what they recommend, their feedback, their suggestions,” Guirguis said. “We are here for you guys, we’re not teaching for the sake of teaching and listening to ourselves for hours and hours. You are the final product of what we are trying to achieve– and I’m saying this as an educator, as an academician, as an administrator, as everyone who’s working at this institution.”
Amongst students, there already seems to be high hopes for what Guirguis can achieve with this role as full-time dean.
“Dr. G is definitely somebody who’s always giving his 110 percent,” Li said. “That type of person who’s so involved and so committed is perfectly fit for the dean role, and I think he’ll be a great permanent addition to the business school.”