The Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, a school known for its heavy focus on teaching quantitative skills, will roll out a new curriculum next fall incorporating more training in leadership and writing. The school also has moved to teaching core subject areas before recruiters arrive on campus in an effort to better prepare first-years to secure summer internships in an increasingly competitive environment.

Robert Dammon, who became dean last May after serving for 27 years as a professor of financial economics at the school, is shepherding these changes as well as embarking upon an ambitious fundraising effort to build a bigger building to accommodate Tepper’s growing class. He told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in a recent interview that he hopes to expand the MBA program by as much as 50 percent, to 300 students, in order to take advantage of economies of scale.

Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business has named Robert M. (Bob) Dammon, an associate dean of education and professor of financial economics at the school, to serve as its ninth dean, the school announced this week. Dammon will assume his new role on May 1, 2011, succeeding Kenneth Dun, who stepped down on January 1st of this year after nine years at the post.

Dammon is regarded as a world-class academic researcher and leading expert on the implications of taxation on asset allocation and corporate finance. He also has strong direct ties to industry through consulting roles and executive education programs, having taught customized financial management programs for more than two dozen corporations in industries ranging from financial services to telecommunications and consumer packaged goods.

“We are fortunate to have Bob assume leadership of one of the world’s great business schools,” CMU Provost and EVP Mark Kamlet, who has served as interim dean since Dunn’s departure, said in a statement. “The analytical approach to solving complex business problems was invented at Carnegie Mellon’s business school and serves as an important framework for business.  Our expectation of a leader for the school’s academic and research priorities is extremely high, and Bob’s experience is unmatched,” he continued.

Kamlet went on to praise Dammon’s research and teaching abilities as well as his administrative skills. Other members of the Dean’s Search Committee, charged with finding Dunn’s replacement, called particular attention to Dammon’s clear thinking. “He instinctively understands the centrality of both education and research to our school’s mission and the tight connection between these elements,” said finance professor Chester Spatt, who chaired the search committee.

Dammon, for his part, is looking forward to working within the Carnegie Mellon community to continue the school’s innovative teaching and research. “ I am inspired by the successes of my predecessors, the school’s rich history in revolutionizing management education and its unwavering commitment to academic and research excellence,” he said. 

Dammon, who holds an MBA and Ph.D. in financial economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, joined the Tepper faculty in 1984. He became associate dean for education at the Tepper School in 2008, and he is the only three-time winner of the Tepper School’s George Leland Bach Teaching Award (1989, 1997, 2007).  

For more on Dammon’s appointment as the next dean of the Tepper School of Business, click here.

The Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) announced yesterday that Mark Kamlet, CMU provost and executive vice president, will serve as acting dean of the business school effective January 1, 2011.