President Hultin Appoints Professor Mel Horwitch New Chair of the Department of Management

The department, as home for several important and growing programs, will have a substantial strategic role within the University and is an essential element in the University's future growth and prestige. The department currently oversees such high-potential programs as:

• the BS-Business & Technology Management Program,
• the Management of Technology and the Telecommunications and Information Management Executive Masters Programs,
• the Financial Engineering, Management and Organization Behavior
  Masters Programs, and
• the new Ph.D.- Technology Management Program.

Effective, efficient, and innovative management is an essential ingredient for technological progress, corporate success, governmental effectiveness, and global growth. Therefore, it is our vision that management skills, principles, and subjects should be a vital part of the curriculum of study for almost all students enrolled in engineering or science.

Under Mel's leadership, the department will seek significant growth in enrollment and will promote research that encourages the highest academic quality and innovative scholarship. The department also will maintain currency in the rapidly evolving technological landscape. The University will support Mel as the department aims for vigorous expansion into existing and new venues in the New York City/Tri-State Region and overseas.

One of my key aspirations as President is to lead the University through a process of dialogue and growth that results in the creation of a School of Management and Technology. This School will differentiate itself from other schools of business and management by focusing on information systems, technology management, R&D management, and innovation needs in the NYC/Tri-State Region and the world at large. The School will also have a special concern for services, including Financial Engineering and financial innovation. Mel shares this aspiration for a School and believes that establishing such a School now constitutes the department's overarching strategic goal.

Mel brings important skills and experience to this leadership role. He is a highly regarded scholar and educational professional in the technology management field. He served as Department Chair at Poly in the late 1990s. Under his watch, among other things, the department modernized most of its academic programs, brought the FE Program into the department, and developed the foundation for the new BS-B&TM and the Ph.D.-TM Programs. Mel also started the Institute for Technology and Enterprise and established our Manhattan location at 55 Broad Street. After serving as Department Chair, Mel was elected an Othmer Senior Faculty Fellow and served as the founding Director of the Othmer Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies. He oversaw the introduction of the University's Honors College as part of the Institute's mission. Before coming to Polytechnic, Mel served as founding Dean of Management at Theseus Institute in France, and also was a member of the faculty at MIT's Sloan School of Management and at Harvard Business School.

Mel earned an AB from Princeton University and an MBA and Doctorate from Harvard Business School. He has published widely and conducted extensive curriculum development on innovation and high-technology strategy and technology policy.

Please join me in wishing Mel the very best as he resumes service as Chair of the Department of Management during this important time of growth and change for the University.

Jerry MacArthur Hultin, President
February 15, 2006