Chicago Business Executive Named UIC Business School Dean

August 7, 1998
Contact: Jeffron Boynes; (312) 413-8702; [email protected]

CHICAGO BUSINESS EXECUTIVE NAMED UIC BUSINESS SCHOOL DEAN

Anthony J. Rucci, 47, a Chicago business executive for nearly 20 years, was appointed as dean of the College of Business Administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Rucci will join UIC in late September, subject to his appointment's approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees at its Sept. 3 meeting.

"We are very fortunate to have Tony Rucci as dean," said UIC Chancellor David Broski. "His combined intellectual and corporate experience will have a big impact on UIC."

"There are few people who can successfully link the scholarly and business worlds," said UIC Provost Elizabeth Hoffman, who announced Rucci's appointment. "Tony is one of those individuals and we are very fortunate to have him." Robert Forney, president and CEO of the Chicago Stock Exchange and a member of Rucci's selection committee, said, "I couldn't be happier with the selection. Rucci offers a unique combination - he understands people issues and he understands business needs. He will be able to relate to the Chicago business community and UIC faculty with a substantial advantage over his counterparts in other schools." Rucci has been executive vice president of human resources for Fidelity Investments in Boston. Prior to that, he was senior corporate officer with both Baxter International and Sears Roebuck and Co. in Chicago. Beginning in 1993, he was executive vice president of administration for Sears with responsibility for organizational transformation, ethics, human resources, legal, strategic sourcing, aviation and facilities management and Sears University. In 1993, Rucci was one of five executives hand-picked by CEO Arthur Martinez to serve on the company's executive committee and assist in the revitalization of Sears.

"I'm thrilled by this appointment," Rucci said. "Returning to academia is the culmination of a 20-year ambition. I now want to take what I've learned in business and help better prepare students in business school to become effective managers and leaders of companies."

At Baxter International, where he worked beginning in 1979, Rucci was senior vice president of human resources from 1986 to 1992. He ended his tenure in 1993 as senior vice president for corporate strategy, business development and investor and media relations. From 1995 to 1997, Rucci served as chairman of the board for Sears de Mexico, a publicly traded, majority-owned subsidiary of Sears. In addition, he served on the boards of directors for the Western Auto and Sears Canada subsidiaries of Sears.

As dean, Rucci intends to apply his 20-plus years of administrative and strategic planning experience to help maintain the UIC College of Business Administration as one of the nation's leading urban public business schools. The college has already been acknowledged as having one of the 25 best entrepreneurship programs in the U.S.

"I hope to clearly define what we stand for as a business program here at UIC," he said. "Working with our outstanding faculty, we will continue to take a very proactive approach to building relationships with the Chicago business community. We will also continue to aggressively pursue internships and cooperative programs, to make sure our students are in touch with real-life contemporary business issues. By doing so, we at UIC hope to help produce the innovative, principled business leaders needed for the future."

Rucci graduated from Bowling Green State University with a B.S. in psychology in 1972. He later returned to Bowling Green to earn master's and doctoral degrees in its nationally ranked program in industrial/organizational psychology. During his academic training, he was elected to Omicron Delta Kappa, a national leadership honorary society, and Sigma Xi, a national science research honorary society. He received a graduate faculty commendation for academic and leadership excellence while in the doctoral program. Rucci has served as both a graduate and undergraduate instructor at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Texas-Dallas and Bowling Green State University. He has published in numerous books and journals, including articles in the Harvard Business Review, the Human Resource Management Journal and the Psychological Bulletin. He has also served on the editorial boards of three professional journals.

Rucci has been a member of the UIC Chancellor's Executive Advisory Board since 1991 and has served as a member of the White House Fellows Chicago Region Selection Panel in 1988 and 1989.

Rucci has been a member of the UIC Chancellor's Executive Advisory Board since 1991 and has served as a member of the White House Fellows Chicago Region Selection Panel in 1988 and 1989. In 1995, he was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources, and in 1997 received the "Pro Award" Executive of the Year from the Association of Corporate and Professional Recruiters.

Rucci has three children who live and work in the Chicago area, Kelly, Heather and Joshua. He and his wife Tara have two daughters, Jordan and Sage. The College of Business Administration at UIC has a comprehensive business education curriculum with more than 2,500 undergraduates and more than 600 MBA and doctoral candidates. It offers undergraduate majors in economics, accounting, finance, information and decision sciences, management and marketing, in addition to the graduate programs. UIC is one of only 88 Carnegie Foundation Research I Universities in the U.S.

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