Press Release for Thursday, March 29, 2018
Florida Board of Governors Confirms UNF's Sixth President David Szymanski
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Media Contact: Joanna Norris, Director
Department of Public Relations
(904) 620-2102
The Florida Board of Governors confirmed the
selection of Dr. David Szymanski as UNF’s sixth president today during its
regular BOG meeting on campus. He will begin Thursday, May 31.
Szymanski is currently the dean of the Carl H.
Lindner College of Business and professor of marketing at the University of
Cincinnati, which has a campus of more than 44,000 students. Under his
leadership as Lindner dean, enrollment in the business college has grown some
50 percent for undergraduate and nearly 200 percent for graduate students, with
first-year retention rates as high as 93 percent and six-year graduation rates
increasing 1,000 basis points to 71 percent.
During his eight years at UC, Szymanski has
also led curriculum changes for undergraduate and graduate students, revising
the MBA to be more flexible for the professional and time-constrained student.
New masters and doctoral degrees in demand by students and businesses have been
added in addition to new graduate certificate programs. Additionally, the
College launched new online courses and degree programs.
Lindner’s MBA program has gone from being
unranked to now being a Top 35 full-time and Top 25 part-time public program by
Bloomberg Businessweek. In addition, the College now has Top 25 master’s
programs in accounting, analytics, applied economics, finance, marketing and
tax as well as Top 10 undergraduate programs in accounting, marketing and
microeconomics.
With Szymanski’s guidance, Lindner is now the
most profitable college at UC, generating 81 percent of the net operating
profit on the academic side of the enterprise. He has helped raise more than
$70M, and in fiscal year 2017, the College raised more than $20M, making it the
first academic unit in the university’s history to break the $20M threshold.
Prior to joining UC, he was the director of the
Center for Retailing Studies at Texas A&M University. Szymanski has served
on a number of corporate and professional boards, including several NCAA
boards/committees and currently sits on the board of directors of Office Depot.
He earned his doctorate and MBA, both with a marketing emphasis, from the
University of Wisconsin at Madison and his bachelor’s degree in economics from
the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
Szymanski will succeed John A. Delaney, who has
served as UNF president for the last 15 years. He retires as University
president Thursday, May 31. In addition to Delaney, UNF has had four other
permanent presidents, including founding president Dr. Thomas Carpenter
(1969-1980), Dr. Curtis McCray (1982-1988), Dr. Adam Herbert (1989-1998) and
Dr. Anne Hopkins (1999-2000).
UNF, a nationally ranked university located on
an environmentally beautiful campus, offers students who are dedicated to
enriching the lives of others the opportunity to build their own futures
through a well-rounded education.
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