{"id":60369,"date":"2019-10-07T15:20:06","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T19:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=60369"},"modified":"2025-10-20T09:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T13:30:07","slug":"dana-brown-sprott-school-dean","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/dana-brown-sprott-school-dean\/","title":{"rendered":"New Business Dean Aims for Social Impact, Breaking Barriers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n New Business Dean Aims for Social Impact, Breaking Barriers\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Dana Brown<\/a>, the new dean of Carleton University\u2019s Sprott School of Business<\/a>, did not follow a traditional trajectory from the United States and United Kingdom to her first job in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her most recent academic positions in the UK may have been dean of the Faculty of Business and Law at De Montfort University<\/a> and director of the MBA program at the University of Oxford\u2019s Sa\u00efd Business School<\/a>, and she may have been one of the first few dozen employees at Amazon in Seattle in the mid-1990s, tasked with creating a new inventory system for the fledgling Internet giant. But her graduate school experience \u2014 a master\u2019s degree in Russian and Eastern European Studies at Oxford followed by a PhD in Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology \u2014 aren\u2019t the typical launch pad for the head of a business school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dana Brown, Dean of the Sprott School of Business<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Which helps explain why Brown, who began her five-year term at Carleton on July 1, has bold views about how people produce, buy and sell products. And why she believes that a new approach to business education will help students and graduates make constructive contributions to our rapidly changing world.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cFor most of their history, business schools have perpetuated the idea that profit comes from some form of exploitation \u2014 of people, the environment, lax regulations and so forth,\u201d says Brown, who also spent three years working at the EMLyon Business School in Lyon, France.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cThis is no longer acceptable in the world today and it is not what this generation wants to learn. Business must serve the needs of people and communities and create a positive impact. By developing services and products that address real needs, businesses will profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis may sound a bit radical, but the foundation for my ideas comes from a long history of working at business schools and seeing what we can achieve,\u201d she adds, explaining that conversations about a transformation of business practices began to accelerate in 2008 during the onset of the global financial crisis<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat people really want out of their lives is to make a difference. If we can harness that power, we can help people make a difference. I think that Sprott is already on that road, integrating responsible business practices into the curriculum, and I believe that our faculty, students and community partners can be pioneers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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A Life-Altering Decision<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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For Brown, choosing to come to Carleton was a major life-altering decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She uprooted her family \u2014 husband, three daughters, two cats, one dog \u2014 for a trans-Atlantic move from Leicester to Ottawa, an unfamiliar city in an unfamiliar country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there are enough commonalities between Canada, the UK (where she had worked for nearly 15 years) and the U.S. (where she was born and raised and attended Rutgers University as an undergraduate) that Brown felt comfortable with \u2014 and excited by \u2014 the challenge of adjusting to a new academic landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an educational context that I know very well,\u201d she says, \u201cand I was looking for an opportunity to bring to fruition some of the ideas that I have. I was looking for a place where these ideas were already resonating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Carleton wants to be a disruptor and have a broad social impact, says Brown, noting that the university\u2019s strong sense of community \u2014 as evidenced by the warm welcome she has received over the past months \u2014 provides the footing an institution needs to be a force for change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, some of the pressing issues influencing higher education in the UK, such as a recalibration of the relationship with governments around funding, a shift in how knowledge is generated and shared amid the rise in new communication technologies, and questions about how university values mesh with societal goals, are also at play in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThere is a need for change, and I think that Carleton is a place where we can do it because we have the will and the skill,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cUniversities have a vital role to play in addressing the big societal challenges that we face in the world today. Addressing these challenges requires new ideas and the ability to bring together technical, cultural and social insights to problem-solving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is what universities do well, and business schools have an important role to play within universities to accelerate their role as agents of social change. We bring insights into how to turn ideas into sustainable ventures, how to lead and manage change, and ways of connecting to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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It Takes Vision to Make a Change in the World<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Brown was born in New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, and raised by a single mother, a telecommunications worker and artist, and her grandparents. Her British father, an engineer, came into the picture in her late teens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She worked starting at around age 10, babysitting, raking leaves, shovelling snow, delivering papers and moving into a sales and management role at a new retail venture by high school. Going to college was always her goal, although it was not an experience that she knew much about. With encouragement from her employers and good scores in math, she chose engineering as a major at Rutgers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Brown also loved trying to understand people and their motivations. It was 1989 \u2014 the Berlin Wall was coming down, Mikhail Gorbachev was on the TV news every night talking about glasnost<\/em> \u2014 and she got swept up in the excitement, switching her major to political science and spending a year abroad in Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That propelled her to Oxford for her master\u2019s degree on a Rhodes Scholarship, an experience that provided international perspective and a heightened sense of empathy, both important qualities in the face of contemporary political trends that she finds troubling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before beginning her PhD, Brown directed a digital learning centre at Rutgers and worked for a pair of American companies, including Amazon, which had just 30 employees when she was there. Her job was to source books from suppliers for online customers, a sales business that boomed from about 10 books per month to 10,000 books in just a handful of weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the time, nobody believed that anybody would buy anything<\/em> on the Internet,\u201d says Brown, who travelled throughout the U.S. to look at different supply chain systems.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThe lesson I took from Amazon is that it takes vision to make a change in the world, and that the most exciting time to join any organization is during a period of change or growth.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

She also realized that real-world business experience is important for academics who teach or conduct research in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBusiness is a practice, an attitude, a set of behaviours,\u201d says Brown, who has always been torn between working in academia and the private sector, noting that a dean\u2019s job \u2014 with its focus on leadership, management and finances \u2014 is an amalgam of the two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important for faculty and students have first-hand experiences in business, and it\u2019s important to break down barriers between academic institutions and the communities they serve,\u201d she says. \u201cTo have this role, universities have to change their organizational practices. We can no longer be isolated from communities; we must be integral to them. This means taking a more proactive approach to collaboration in research and teaching, and opening our doors to co-create.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Bringing Sprott’s Teaching, Research and Collaboration Spaces Together<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Sprott\u2019s future home, the Nicol Building<\/a>, will help connect Carleton\u2019s business school to local, national and international communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because it will be centrally located steps from the O-Train stop and at the tunnel junction linking the university\u2019s academic campus, residences and Athletics, the 115,000-square-foot, six-storey building will serve as a new gateway to Carleton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the building is completed next year, all of Sprott\u2019s teaching, research and collaboration spaces will be together under one roof for the first time, fostering the type of serendipitous encounters between colleagues and students that can spark creative ideas. And though blueprints for the exterior and many features (such as a signature three-storey atrium) are final, Brown will be able to help shape the interior to create a welcoming and dynamic environment.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThe Nicol Building provides an opportunity to strengthen our connections to others in the university and to the community, and to open our doors to the world,\u201d she says, explaining that in her travels to business schools around the globe, anachronistic architecture (i.e., stark and austere spaces designed for men who wear dark suits) tends to prevail.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cWith lighter colours and open spaces for networking and collaboration, we aim to make the building look and feel like a 21st<\/sup> century business school should.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That attitude extends to how Brown views inclusiveness more broadly, and how business and business schools have traditionally excluded diverse people and voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo understand diverse groups of people and their needs, we need to be open to a wide spectrum of voices and to seek out local engagement,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd not just token diversity \u2014 I mean ensuring that everyone<\/em> has a say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA key component of purposeful business is inclusiveness and breaking down barriers between communities,\u201d continues Brown. \u201cBusinesses need to harness inclusive economies by widening the accessibility and affordability of key products and services. Greater, more equal participation in the economy should be the type of growth we seek to achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo foster ideas along these lines, we must be an inclusive community ourselves. This means not only fostering diversity but also looking at new ways to ensure that everyone has a voice and is engaged.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown\u2019s thoughts about inclusiveness have been informed by her work in India, where she sits on the governing council of New Delhi\u2019s Vedica Scholars Programme for Women<\/a>, which helps women from a wide range of backgrounds develop business leadership skills. She also works with a Thailand non-profit called Warm Heart Worldwide<\/a>, founded by a political science professor at Rutgers and focused on local economic development in the hills of the Phrao district through education, sustainable farming and microeconomic enterprises that help people stay and work in their communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this part of Thailand, huge swathes of land were given away to large corporations, which means that young people typically have had to leave to look for jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat kind of system is that and who is it for?\u201d asks Brown.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThis is a perfect example of what went wrong with globalization \u2014 and this project is an example of what we can do to change things.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Even though it\u2019s thousands of kilometres away from Carleton, it also embodies the shift that\u2019s underway at Sprott, and how a new approach to business education can make a meaningful and tangible difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe status quo is hard to change,\u201d says Brown, \u201cbut that doesn\u2019t mean we need to be afraid of change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dana Brown, the new dean of Carleton University\u2019s Sprott School of Business, did not follow a traditional trajectory from the United States and United Kingdom to her first job in Canada. Her most recent academic positions in the UK may have been dean of the Faculty of Business and Law at De Montfort University and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":60374,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[28,1931],"cu_story_tag":[1922],"class_list":["post-60369","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-community-partnerships","cu_story_type-social-innovation","cu_story_tag-sprott-school-of-business"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/60369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/60369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97701,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/60369\/revisions\/97701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=60369"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=60369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}