Dr. Steven M. Elias selected to lead FLC School of Business Administration
| Dr. Steven Elias |
The Fort Lewis College (FLC) Office of Academic Affairs is pleased to announce the selection of Dr. Steven M. Elias as the new dean of the FLC School of Business Administration. Dr. Elias takes over for Interim Dean Dr. Paul McGurr and will officially begin his tenure this summer.
“I want to thank personally the search committee for their hard work over the last several months,” says FLC Provost Dr. Barbara Morris. “We all agree that Dr. Elias will be a great asset to Fort Lewis College and the School of Business Administration as we engage in strategic planning and envision our future.”
Dr. Elias comes from New Mexico State University (NMSU) where he is the Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Professor in the College of Business. He also served as the NMSU director of the Woodrow Wilson MBA Fellowship in Education Leadership program, interim associate dean for Research, and head of the Management Department. Dr. Elias is co-director of the School Turnaround Development Program, an interdisciplinary initiative between the NMSU Colleges of Business and Education.
“From a professional standpoint, Fort Lewis College has excellent leadership, and the School of Business Administration has outstanding faculty members, students, and staff,” says Dr. Elias. “It is hard not to be excited about the opportunity to join such a great campus community located in such a beautiful city.
“On a personal note, my wife and I met while we were both graduate students in Colorado, and she is originally from Colorado, so moving to Durango is a sort of homecoming for us. Ultimately, I am excited about this opportunity given how important I feel it is to promote close relationships, which fits very well with the fact that fostering relationships happens to be one of the hallmarks of a Fort Lewis College education.”
Among his past honors are the NMSU Teaching Academy Fellow and the NMSU Research Discovery Award. He was named a Bill Daniels Fellow in Ethics in 2010 and is a lifetime member of Beta Gamma Sigma, the international honor society for collegiate schools of business.
At NMSU, he helped raise millions of dollars for the university in order to develop and run programs meant to expose those in public education to business principles that can be used in the daily operations of schools and school districts.
He holds a doctorate in applied social psychology from Colorado State University, along with a master’s degree in applied psychology from Auburn University Montgomery and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of South Florida.
The Fort Lewis College School of Business Administration became the first public liberal arts college with undergraduate-only business programs to be accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International in 1974. Today over 600 students are enrolled in SOBA’s programs.
For more information on the FLC School of Business Administration, visit www.fortlewis.edu/business-school.