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Career Transitions in the School of Business and Economics

A transition for associate deans in the School of Business and Economics.

Mari Buche has been appointed associate dean of the School of Business and Economics (SBE), effective July 1, 2018.

Buche, associate professor of management information systems and affiliate associate professor of data science, has been at Michigan Tech for 15 years. During those years, she has won SBE’s Teacher of the Year award three times (‘05, ’12 and ’14) and has served on numerous University-wide committees including University Senate.

Buche fills the position vacated by Professor of Economics Tom Merz, who served as SBE’s associate dean for three terms under four deans. Merz will return to the SBE faculty. During his nine-year tenure as associate dean, Merz twice helped the SBE retain accreditation through the AACSB. Buche, who will usher the SBE's re-accreditation next year, says she is "looking forward" to the process. 

Merz says Buche’s appointment is “well deserved” and knows the SBE will be in good hands. While Merz says he learned a lot in his nine years in administration, the most important lesson he learned is also his chief piece of advice to Buche: “You don’t have to know all the answers, what you have to know are the phone numbers of the people who have those answers. There are people on this campus who will do anything for you if you just ask them. But you have to know who to contact.” 

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigan’s flagship technological university offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.

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