February 5, 2004
New head of UWT business school named
Shahrokh M. Saudagaran, professor and head of the School of Accounting at Oklahoma State University, has been selected as the new head of the Milgard School of Business at UW Tacoma.
Pending formal confirmation by the UW Board of Regents, Saudagaran will become head of the Milgard School of Business on July 1. He will replace Patricia Fandt, the founding director of the business school, who is retiring at the end of June.
“I am thrilled that our Milgard funding has helped us attract such a distinguished leader to replace our wonderful founding director,” said UWT Chancellor Vicky Carwein.
In June of 2003, a $15 million gift to UWT from Gary E. Milgard, the Gary E. Milgard Family Foundation and James A. Milgard was announced. In honor of the gift, UWT’s Business Administration program was named the Milgard School of Business.
Saudagaran has been an associate professor of accounting at Santa Clara University and a lecturer at Iranzamin Business College in Tehran, Iran. Currently, he is head of the School of Accounting at Oklahoma State University. That school enrolls about 300 undergraduate accounting majors, and 150 master’s and doctoral students. In addition, Saudagaran has been a management consultant with Ernst & Whinney (now Ernst & Young) in Tehran; a research associate with the Iran Center for Management Studies; the controller for Van Leeuwen Buizenhandel BV in the United Arab Emirates; and has a decade of experience providing consultation and executive training for organizations in Asia, Europe and the United States.
Saudagaran, who earned his doctorate in accounting from the UW, has broad expertise in international accounting.
“He has an impressive refereed publication record in the top accounting, finance and international business journals,” said Jack Nelson, UWT vice chancellor for academic affairs.
Saudagaran is author of an international accounting textbook now in its second edition and editor of a forthcoming handbook on Asian accounting. He is in demand for international accounting conference presentations and keynote addresses around the world.
“Dr. Saudagaran is thoroughly at home in the academic world and in the business world,” Nelson
said. Saudagaran is also secretary general of the Asian Academic Accounting Association, past president of the American Accounting Association’s International Accounting Section and a member of the National Research Advisory Council of Financial Executives International.
Fandt, who joined the campus in 1994, made the Business Administration program one of UWT’s best, Nelson said. She has been the moving force in recruiting and hiring a talented faculty, developing two degree programs and achieving accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. She has garnered strong support from the South Sound business community.
The Milgard School of Business now serves nearly 400 undergraduate students and more than 50 graduate students. The program offers eight areas of concentration, from accounting to international business, and, with the Milgard funding, will be initiating a Center for Corporate Leadership and Social Responsibility and a Center for Information-Based Management, as well as a $3 million endowed scholarship program.
