Florida Warrington Names First New Dean In 30 Years

The University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business is a school on the rise. Now, for the first time in three decades, it’s also a school with new leadership.

Sabyasachi “Saby” Mitra, senior associate dean of faculty and research and Thomas R. Williams–Wells Fargo professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology Scheller College of Business, has been named dean of Florida Warrington, the college’s first new dean in 30 years. Mitra will begin his tenure August 1, joining a school whose full-time MBA program at the Hough Graduate School of Business improved in four of the six major rankings last year — in some cases dramatically.

“The Warrington College of Business has amazing faculty, staff, students, programs and alumni,” Mitra said in a school announcement. “With support from the university, the state of Florida, and committed alumni, the Warrington College is on its way to becoming one of the top business schools in the country. I am excited and honored to be part of that journey.”

FLORIDA WARRINGTON/HOUGH BY THE NUMBERS

Mitra succeeds John Kraft, who became dean at Warrington in 1990, and who had been expected to step down in 2017 but who stayed on to help the school find a replacement. During Kraft’s tenure, he grew the college’s graduate offerings at the Hough School from four to 26, increased Warrington’s endowment from $14 million to more than $227 million, and bolstered Warrington’s global presence through study abroad partnerships with more than 20 countries.

Especially recently, Kraft’s years of work have paid off, as Florida Hough’s MBA jumped six spots in the 2019-2020 Poets&Quants ranking, up to 41st, while climbing into the top 25 on the U.S. News list (from 34th) and rising in the Bloomberg Businessweek and Financial Times rankings as well. In its Global MBA ranking, FT ranked the Hough MBA 19th in the United States and first overall in the Value for Money category. However, the program’s acceptance rate has climbed from below 15% in 2017 to an estimated 24% last year.

Perhaps most impressive is the Hough School’s online MBA, which is a top-five program in the latest U.S. News ranking, landing fourth overall for the second straight year; and top 10 in the newly released FT online MBA ranking, placing sixth, same as the previous year. The Florida online MBA has about 500 current students, with an acceptance rate of 47% and an average Graduate Management Admission Test score of 579. Students have an average of 6 1/2 years work experience.

Overall, Mitra takes over a Hough School with 470 students across all graduate programs, including 95 in the full-time MBA. The undergraduate population at the Warrington College is about 5,000.

MITRA TAKES OVER A SCHOOL ON AN ‘UPWARD TRAJECTORY’

According to Florida’s news release on Mitra’s hiring, in his role as senior associate dean of faculty and research at Georgia Tech he managed all faculty, doctoral program, IT services, and administrative support staff. He also “led a collaborative and consensus-driven effort to redesign the promotion and tenure process, co-directed an effort to rationalize faculty teaching and course offerings to advance the Scheller College’s teaching and research missions, and started an effort to increase diversity in Scheller’s doctoral program.” Mitra has been with Georgia Tech for 27 years, starting as an assistant professor of information systems in 1993. He was promoted to full professor in 2012; since 2018 he has held the Thomas R. Williams – Wells Fargo Professorship, teaching MBA-level courses in information technology management.

Mitra also served as Georgia Tech’s senior associate dean of programs from 2015 to 2019, during which he was responsible for overseeing all degree and non-degree programs in the Scheller College.

“I am thrilled to have Saby Mitra joining the University of Florida,” said Joe Glover, UF provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. “Saby’s extensive background in administration and scholarly work in information technology, electronic commerce, and online search, among other things, make him the ideal person to lead the Warrington College of Business as it continues its upward trajectory and further expands its national and global presence.”

Mitra received his doctorate in business administration (management science) from the University of Iowa and his bachelor’s of technology degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India.

DON’T MISS WARWICK TOPS FT 2020 ONLINE MBA RANKING and THE FUTURE OF B-SCHOOL: AN INTERVIEW WITH FLORIDA DEAN JOHN KRAFT