Recognizing Excellence
Four business school faculty members received this year’s Leavey Impact Awards recognizing their extraordinary contributions to the mission of the business school and Santa Clara University.
These three awards celebrate faculty contributions that best illustrate the School’s highest ideals and aspirations, and reflect a shared commitment to its strategic priorities of:
- Increasing the quality, prominence, and influence of business scholarship,
- Building a rich academic foundation and transformative learning experiences for students, and,
- Creating strong partnerships with the business community and business school alumni.
“I am impressed and proud of the accomplishments of our colleagues and the meaningful impact they are having on the lives of our students and our community of scholars,” said Caryn Beck-Dudley, dean of the Leavey School of Business, at yesterday’s annual reception honoring them.
The Leavey Impact Award for Teaching and Learning was presented to Associate Professor Michael Kevane and Professor Bill Sundstrom of the economics department.
This award recognizes pedagogical enhancements or developments during the most recent five academic years that have had a significant impact on the business school’s learning community. The pair’s most recent accomplishment is the significant improvement in teaching of econometrics to economics majors. Over the past five years, Michael and Bill have piloted new electives, taught in-house OMIS courses and fundamentally changed the curriculum for students interested in econometrics, keeping the student learning experience cutting edge.
The Leavey Impact Award for Research was presented to Associate Professor Siqi Li of the accounting department for her outstanding record of publishing.
This award recognizes scholarship that has had a significant impact on people, ideas or organizations. Since 2011, Professor Li has published nine papers, most of which are in the most prestigious academic journals, with her paper on international financial reporting standards and foreign mutual fund ownership being recognized as one of the most cited Journal of Accounting and Economics papers since 2011.
The Leavey Impact Award for Service was presented to Associate Professor Gangshu Cai of the Operations Management and Information Systems department.
This award recognizes service contributions during the most recent five academic years that have had a significant impact on our school, students, profession or community. Professor Cai has served the Leavey School of Business as chair of the Graduate Programs Committee (GPC) since 2014 and has worked tirelessly to bring on board two new MS programs and a number of new courses.
In addition to the GPC role, Professor Cai has also served on the LSB Rank and Tenure committee as well as providing other valuable service that includes:
- The Business School Tenure and Promotion Committee
- Co-chair of the Business School Teaching Evaluation Task Force
- A stint on the Master’s of Science in Finance Admissions Committee, and
- The OMIS Midtenure Evaluation Committee
Congratulations to these outstanding faculty members for their hard work and dedication to the Leavey School of Business.
Read about previous years' Impact Award winners by clicking on the links below.