Two faculty members named inaugural endowed professors at RIT’s Saunders College of Business

Chun-Keung “Stan” Hoi and Sean Hansen have each earned high honors during their tenures as professors in the Saunders College of Business. With a combined 41 years of service, enriching the lives of their students and advancing research, it seems fitting that they were named inaugural recipients of professorships named after two people who have also propelled the college forward.

Hoi, a professor in the department of finance and accounting for 27 years, is the inaugural Daniel D. Tessoni Endowed Professor in Accounting. Hansen, the department chair of management information systems, marketing and analytics was named the inaugural E. Phillip Saunders Endowed Professor. Both were recognized for their exceptional contributions to teaching and research in an installation ceremony at the Susan N. Holiday Center in Lowenthal Hall Sept. 26.

“Saunders College of Business is committed to excellence in education, research, and innovation,” said Dean Jacqueline Mozrall. “The endowed professorships are critical to our mission. These professorships enable us to support our distinguished faculty, who are leaders in their field, and provide them with the resources they need to continue their groundbreaking work.”

Established in 2015, the Daniel D. Tessoni Professorship in Accounting honors Tessoni, who served at the college from 1974 until his retirement in 2022. Hoi, who spent 25 years working alongside Tessoni, expressed his gratitude, calling the longtime professor his “occasional partner in crime” in accounting research.

“We know that this professorship was created in honor of Dan,” Hoi said. “But what you don’t know is that this was started by a group of students and colleagues who have each benefited from Dan’s teaching, his drive, his wisdom, and his words. On behalf of the Saunders College of Business, and the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

Hoi has earned many awards during his tenure, including the Eisenhart Award for Outstanding Teaching and the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring. Hoi’s work has been published in leading academic journals in both accounting and finance, including The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Finance, and Journal of Financial Economics. The professorship will help fund research in the realm of empirical corporate finance and accounting, learning how social and institutional environments surrounding these firms affect their policies and practices.

“I hope this professorship will allow us to expand, if only incrementally, the research boundaries in both accounting and finance,” Hoi said. “To borrow a phrase from a popular TV show, with this professorship I hope we can boldly go where no one has gone before.”

The E. Phillip Saunders Endowed Professorship, named after the college’s namesake, was established in 2018 by the longtime benefactor as an investment in a faculty member’s professional growth and development.

“I want to offer my profound thanks to Mr. Saunders, not only for this endowment, but also for the tremendous service and role that he’s played in the life of the college that so proudly bears his name,” Hansen said. “His record of philanthropic giving and support for not only higher education, but our entire community, is truly inspiring.”

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Carlos Ortiz/RIT

Sean Hansen spoke of the importance of research as a tool to teach students critical thinking skills, and thanked his family for their sacrifices as he pursued a career in higher education. Hansen and fellow faculty member Chun-Keung “Stan” Hoi earned Saunders College of Business endowed professorships in an installation ceremony Sept. 26.

Hansen has been a faculty member at RIT for 14 years, teaching everything from undergraduate courses to PhD courses. He did this while also publishing at a high level; Hansen’s research has been published in numerous MIS journals including Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, and The Information Society. Hansen earned the Richard and Virginia Eisenhart Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is also the recipient of the Zutes Faculty Fellowship, the Saunders College Faculty Scholarship Grant, and the Norman A. Miles Award for Academic Excellence in Teaching.

Academia was a second career for Hansen, who spent his early years providing management and technology consulting services to companies across the industrial spectrum. After earning an MBA from Case Western Reserve University, he pursued a PhD at the same institution, thanks to the crucial support from his family.

“I came home and said to my wife, Susie, I’m thinking of getting my Ph.D.,” Hansen said. “And she was within her rights to say no­­—we had two kids at that point, and she could have said that it wasn’t part of the plan. She told me to go for it, and we will figure it out. Everything that I have accomplished since, as an academic, as a researcher, and as a teacher is due to her.”

The professorship will help further Hansen’s research interests, which include software design and development, health IT, IT strategy, and the application of cognitive theory to information systems. He emphasized the importance of research in shaping the institution’s reputation, while also enhancing his teaching.

“Research is the piece of what we do that is often opaque to the outside world,” Hansen said. “Scientific inquiry matters for society. It matters for our students, and it enables us to impart, or rather, nurture within our students, different ways of thinking and solving problems, working through complex challenges. As we deal in a rapidly evolving world, the ability to deal with that complexity and to make sense of the world is as crucial as it’s ever been.”