In his first four years on the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga campus, Robert Dooley avoided the business school to focus his academic studies on religion and philosophy. But four years ago – after a 28-year career in business management in both the private sector and academia – Dooley returned to his alma mater to head UTC’s College of Business.
Dooley left his job as associate dean at the business school at Oklahoma State University to come back to Chattanooga. As a native of Athens, Tennessee, a former manager at Westvaco Consumer Packaging Group in Cleveland, Tennessee, and a graduate of both UTC and UT-Knoxville, Dooley says he was eager to return to East Tennessee.
“Chattanooga is a much more vibrant and entrepreneurial city today than it was when I was an undergraduate, and at the college of business we think we can play a key role in helping develop students and businesses for an even better future in Chattanooga,” Dooley says.
The 53-year-old dean of UTC’s business college oversees a faculty of 44 professors who provide a variety of undergraduate and graduate programs for more than 2,000 students. Dooley said the school wants to prepare students for academic and professional success and to boost UTC’s engagement with the business community to help ensure the financial future of the school.
Like other colleges within UTC and other universities across the country, the business college is having to adapt to changing technologies and economics in higher education to broaden UTC’s offerings while trying to keep costs affordable for students and businesses in the region.