Deans

David Shields, B.A., M.B.A., Ph.D., CPA
Dean, Eugene W. Stetson
School of Business and Economics

Prior to being named dean of the Mercer Business School in July 2009, David Shields, served as dean of the Haworth College of Business and professor of accounting at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

An award-winning teacher and active scholar, Dr. Shields previously served as associate dean for graduate and professional programs at the University of Houston.  He also has served as associate dean and MBA director at Louisiana State University and professor of accounting at Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management. Dr. Shields has served on the accounting faculties at the University of Houston, Texas A&M University, the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Administration at Rice University, the University of Michigan and the University of Florida. He began his career as a staff accountant for Coopers & Lybrand.

Dr. Shields has a successful track record in fund-raising, having secured more than $6 million in gifts and pledges to Western Michigan over the past two years, as well as more than $600,000 in government grants. Western Michigan’s Haworth College of Business enrolls more than 4,500 undergraduate students and 400 graduate students, and has an operating budget of $18 million.

He also has experience establishing new academic programs at the institutions where he has served, including the Center for Sustainable Business, the Global Business Center and the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Western Michigan, and the Global Energy MBA, a Texas Medical Center MBA and the Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Houston. At LSU, he doubled the full-time MBA enrollment while increasing credentials of entering students. More>