Dayle M. Smith, dean of the Clarkson University School of Business, was recently elected president of the Northeast Business Deans Association (NEBDA).

NEBDA includes business deans from all of New England and Eastern Canada, reaching as far south as New York City. Last year, Smith was vice president and program chair for the association, which plans programming and professional development activity.

“The mission of NEBDA is to promote and to enhance collegiate education in business in the Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada, including sharing best practice approaches to issues and challenges facing business educators,” says Smith, who has been dean of the Clarkson University School of Business since 2013.

She was previously a professor of management at the University of San Francisco's McLaren School of Business.

During NEBDA's 2014-15 fiscal year, Smith helped bring together more than 60 deans from the Northeastern states and Eastern Canada for an annual meeting in Boston. The program theme “Beyond Borders and Boundaries” explored opportunities for business schools to collaborate across disciplines, industries and countries. Clarkson’s business school faculty members Martin Heintzelman and Stephen Byrd served on the keynote opening panel.

Smith's visions and goals as president include strengthening and expanding NEBDA activity through outreach to Eastern Canadian schools and further recruiting in the Northeastern United States; developing partnership opportunities for member schools; expanding continuing education programming for business school administrators; providing opportunities at the annual conference for more engagement with corporate leaders; and additional networking for NEBDA deans at the AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) Deans Conference and International Annual Meeting; and working closely with colleagues at more than 50 schools and colleges in the NEBDA region to address challenges and opportunities in management education.

“In regard to working across the border, I was invited to attend the Federation of Canadian Business Deans Meeting held in Quebec City in mid-October to speak to the deans of Eastern Canada about growing NEBDA to represent AACSB-accredited schools in Canada and strengthen this regional association,” she says.