A new look at the top

Hui Sono steps into her new role as interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs this fall after 10 years as the Academic Unit Head (AUH) for the Department of Finance and Business Law. She succeeds Scott Gallagher, who has retired.

Sono’s tenure at the helm of Finance/Business Law witnessed significant progress in the areas of faculty recruitment and support, with the appointments of seven new tenure-track faculty members in Finance, supplemented by a renewable-term appointment in Finance and two others in Business Law.

Seven new courses were created, as was a new concentration in Finance Technology and Analytics. In addition, the Quantitative Finance major was granted STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) designation, consistent with its focus on teaching quantitative, statistical and mathematical methods that prepare students for the rigors of the modern job market. The major itself underwent a redesign, which included adoption of the Python programming language in all Q-Fin classes.

"The goal wasn’t simply to make changes for changes' sake," she explains. "Rather, it was about what students want and need in order to be successful in their future careers."

Coinciding with the staffing and curriculum changes, the FIN/BLAW unit overseen by Sono also embarked on a program of outward-facing engagement, with the launch in 2017 of a new advisory board to promote closer ties among faculty, students and alumni.

One of its noteworthy accomplishments was the creation of an endowment for the Pay-It-Forward Scholarship, which has grown to become FIN/BLAW’s largest.

She says curriculum enrichment will continue to be a primary focus of the position she inherits from Gallagher. “It's something to which I devoted a lot of time in my job leading FIN/BLAW,” she notes, adding that she “looks forward to carrying that experience to the Associate Dean's position.”

Sono says she will continue to teach, even after she officially assumes her new, more senior duties in the Dean’s Suite. “That's very important to me,” she says. “I don't want to get too far away from the classroom.”

She says her goals for the upcoming year are to continue with the advancement of the college’s programs in student success, and to support faculty members in their research and curriculum-development endeavors.

Reviewing her nearly 20 years as a member of the College of Business faculty, the newly designated AUH for the Department of Economics says there is at least one thing of which she feels certain – that she has become a better teacher.

"I've improved in my ability to connect with students," says Nevin Cavusoglu, who also thinks she has made a mark for herself in several service-related activities – especially the  Antwerp, Belgium study abroad program she has led for the last three years. 

Prominent within the skill set Cavusoglu brings to the Economics AUH position is that of a problem-solver. "I don't seek the problems but neither do I run away from them," she says. Instead, she approaches each problem she encounters almost as a puzzle whose pieces need to be fit together.

She says she began giving thought to the possibility of seeking administrative duties when longtime Economics AUH incumbent Ehsan Ahmed stepped down in 2019. However, Cavusoglu and her husband were at the time very much occupied with the parenting of their three children. With the triplets just then entering middle school, she recognized that the moment was not ideal for her to overlay yet another set of challenges on her already-busy life as a scholar and head-of-household.

She hopes that moment has now arrived and that she can seize it to usher in an era of renewed collegiality among her department's faculty, students and staff members.

"I think the biggest contribution I could make would be to encourage our faculty to pursue whatever it is they're most passionate about," Cavusoglu says.

Of her own passion for teaching, she says, "I can remember ‘teaching’ my stuffed animals when I was very young. Later, in high school, I tutored my friends and classmates when they struggled in math."

Cavusoglu’s triplets are now of an age to enroll in college themselves. She says that raising them has taught her a lot about how to bring out the best in the students with whom she interacts at JMU – drawing on the basic insight that no two individuals are exactly alike.

After 10 years presiding over classrooms at JMU, Jeremy Ezell still regards his greatest accomplishment as that of simply “learning the ropes” – or, as he puts it, "settling into an outstanding department with great colleagues."

His apprenticeship having been served, Ezell now prepares to assume responsibility, on an interim basis, for the administration of the department of Computer Information Systems & Business Analytics while a search is conducted this coming year for a permanent AUH.

Upon arriving at JMU in 2015, Ezell's first assignment was to serve as the instructor for CIS331 (“Intermediate Application Development”). He says he believes that in the ensuing years he was successful in keeping it "very rigorous and relevant" to what students needed to learn.

In 2020, Ezell took the wheel of the CIS484 capstone course (“Information Systems Development and Implementation”) and guided it through the tempestuous period of the COVID-19 pandemic, updating the technologies employed in the class to develop information-systems solutions for actual business clients in the Harrisonburg area.

He says he accepted Dean Michael Busing's appeal last spring to serve in an interim AUH capacity in order to “help CIS/BSAN continue moving forward ... doing the great work that it does."

Ezell says it’s his standard practice as a manager to “consider all viewpoints ... and gather as many facts as I can." When a collaborative consensus has been reached, however, he believes he's capable of acting "fairly quickly."

"My view," he says, "is that if I do my job right, I'll be relatively invisible."

Ezell says he prefers that department-wide initiatives “come from the ground up” – which is to say, that they be faculty-driven. He sums up his overall approach to the job he will assume as one of “facilitating the innovative, creative and amazing work our faculty has done and will do.”

Taking up the AUH reins this fall, Ezell says it would be his goal to have “a smooth year – no potholes.” A top priority, he says, would be helping lay the groundwork for the search process that identifies his long-term replacement.

Elias Semaan arrived at JMU as an adjunct professor in 2005, and can therefore personally attest to a period of history when College of Business leaders would speak with satisfaction of the single student – or mere handful – who had secured a first-class job after graduation.

“In those days, that was all you had to showcase,” he says. It’s quite a different story today, Semaan says, with the CoB having long since cemented a reputation for placing graduates in jobs with some of Wall Street’s leading firms.

Semaan, who will serve as the interim AUH for Finance/Business Law this year following Hui Sono’s promotion to interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, clearly loves what he does, and especially the parts which involve direct interaction with students.

“When you’re able to help them succeed and land dream jobs, it really makes you feel that you’ve done some good in this world,” he says. “At that point, the job truly becomes something like a calling.”

Semaan’s appointment to the position of interim AUH for Finance/Business Law forms a natural segue from the assistant’s duties he had already been performing. He sees his role now as one of maintaining the momentum that has already been established, building on the solid foundation already laid down.

“There’s a reason the majors we offer are some of the most popular and sought-after to be found anywhere at JMU,” he says. “People hear about the strength of the curriculum and the job placements our students receive.”

Semaan’s goal is to make sure the coming year goes smoothly, and that progress continues to be made on the initiatives that have already been launched. He is outspoken, for instance, about the need to incorporate a greater amount of information technology into the Finance/Business Law curriculum -- particularly artificial intelligence.

Specifically with regard to AI, he says, “We talk about paradigm shifts, but this is a bit more than that – it’s a civilization-disrupter.”

Academics need to take the lead in conversations about AI, Semaan says, because “it’s not just another tool, another mobile phone.” He likens it to fire, or the development of the opposable thumb, in terms of its potential implications for human development.

Unless academic institutions remain in the vanguard of AI policy discussions, Semaan says, “It’s going to be hard to argue for their relevance going forward.”