Tiger Talk with Jacqueline Mozrall

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A. Sue Weisler

Jacqueline Mozrall is dean of Saunders College of Business.

Jacqueline Mozrall ’87 (industrial engineering) was appointed dean of Saunders College of Business in April. She had been serving as interim dean of the business college since July 2014. Mozrall had held several key leadership roles at RIT, including senior associate dean of Kate Gleason College of Engineering. Here are her thoughts on selecting RIT as an undergraduate, her career in industrial engineering and the future of Saunders College.

I was on the college search and I looked at a few different schools. I was really looking for industrial engineering. We came to RIT and I just loved it. It just felt right.

Industrial engineering has management principles integrated throughout the engineering curriculum—that’s one of the things that attracted me to that degree field. It is fairly common to find faculty with industrial engineering backgrounds in schools of business.

I went to graduate school, North Carolina State University, for my master’s and came back up to Western New York for my Ph.D. at University at Buffalo. Although I am not originally from Western New York, it now feels like home, since I have been here for so long.

When I was at RIT I was very satisfied with my experience as a student. I felt like I formed good relationships with the faculty, so I always kept in touch with them.

I was an opportunity hire at RIT. They didn’t really have a full-time position, but they were able to figure out a way to hire me as a visiting assistant professor. I was then transitioned over to a tenure-track position within a few months.

I had only been at RIT for five years and I became a department head. You never know when things line up and when opportunities arise. I was department head for 10 years under (Dean) Harvey (Palmer) and that was fun.

It was a period of great growth for the industrial engineering department. We were a very small program and we did a lot to grow the program, develop labs, develop corporate relationships and grow the faculty. Then when Dick Reeve (former associate dean) retired, Harvey asked me to become associate dean.

It’s funny because people started talking to me about becoming the next dean of engineering. I’m like, ‘No way. I do not want that job. I’m very happy.’ Then this happened.

I knew there were a lot of good faculty in the Saunders College. I always thought there was potential to grow the college of business and really begin to align it with the RIT brand in terms of strengthening corporate relationships and ensuring that our curriculum was responsive to corporate and industry needs.

One of the things we are looking at is really leveraging the RIT brand and embracing that brand within Saunders. There is a real opportunity for growth in programs that reside at the intersection of business and technology.

Our largest undergraduate program right now is management information systems. The students are realizing when they talk to employers that they need to have strong information systems skills. We added a course in information systems to the core curriculum. We want to make sure our students are equipped to analyze and manipulate data to help them make better decisions as business professionals. Data analytics is being integrated into our MIS, marketing and MBA programs. We are preparing our students to lead and manage within increasingly technology-intensive organizations.

Companies can’t get enough supply chain people, so we just launched an undergraduate minor in supply chain management and it has engineering, management and information systems courses. We have also added tracks in our graduate programs.

The growth I have seen at RIT is astounding. I think we have transitioned from a regional college to a national university. It’s pretty neat to have been able to witness this growth and development over the last 30 years. I am very proud of what RIT has become.

About Mozrall

Mozrall received her Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering from RIT in 1987. She received a master’s degree in industrial engineering from North Carolina State University in 1989 and a Ph.D. in industrial engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1994.

She holds a place in RIT’s Athletics Hall of Fame for an outstanding career in soccer. She played in every contest at every position except goalie.

The North Greenbush, N.Y., native now lives in the Rochester suburb of Pittsford with her husband and three children.

About Saunders College

Saunders College of Business is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International, enrolls more than 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students, and works in partnership with RIT’s entrepreneurial Venture Creations incubator and the Albert J. Simone Center for Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship to integrate business education with RIT’s world-leading technical and creative programs. In addition to traditional and executive MBA programs, graduate degree programs are available in accounting, computational finance, finance, management, and entrepreneurship and innovation ventures.

The Saunders Challenge

A fundraising effort called The Saunders Challenge is helping to keep the college at the leading edge of business education. To learn more, go to saunders.rit.edu/challenge.