UMW Biz School Gets New Dean

• From UMW Press Release

Lynne D. Richardson has been named dean of the College of Business at the University of Mary Washington. As the chief academic officer, she is the inaugural dean for the College of Business, created in 2010 to unite two distinct business programs that had served different populations of students on the Fredericksburg and Stafford campuses. She will assume the post July 25.  

Richardson will report directly to the Provost Jay Harper and will oversee matters regarding faculty, the curriculum, academic programs and academic support for the College of Business. The college has 24 full-time faculty and additional adjunct faculty.

Richardson comes to UMW from Mississippi State University where she served as the dean for the university’s College of Business for three and a half years and as a professor of marketing for four years. Prior to Mississippi State University, she was the dean of the Miller College of Business at Ball State University, where she also was a professor of marketing.

In addition, she has served as associate dean for undergraduate programs and external relations for the School of Business at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and as the director of the university’s MBA program for the university’s Graduate School of Management. She also has held positions at the Birmingham-Southern College and the University of North Alabama.

Richardson received a doctorate in marketing from the University of Alabama, a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Montevallo.

She succeeds Larry Penwell, who has been acting dean of the College of Business since July 2010.

As dean, Richardson will provide leadership and strategic direction for academic programs and curricula for programs on both the Fredericksburg and Stafford campuses.

The program on the Fredericksburg campus offers a Bachelor of Science in business administration that provides the liberal arts student with an awareness of the global marketplace through a curriculum that emphasis business fundamentals, ethics, communication and critical thinking.

The Stafford campus offers master’s degrees in business administration and management information systems and a dual degree in business administration and management information systems.