Dr. Donde Plowman is the James, Jr. and Susan at Stuart Endowed Dean of the UNL College of Business and Professor of Management. With her arrival at CBA in the summer of 2010, also came the news at the UNL would join the Big Ten Conference. She had one year to prepare the college to be competitive with the elite business schools of the Big Ten.

Dean Plowman went to work with UNL administration and the NU Foundation and quickly initiated improvements that have positioned CBA for success. Major initiatives include:

• Hiring new faculty in all departments to better serve students and increase the enrollment capacity to meet UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman’s five-year plan.
• Adding a new MBA Director to give the program its own strategic vision to help maximize the on-campus and distance program’s ability to serve students.
• Creating a new Supply Chain Management major that provides a much needed career track that will make our business students extremely valued in the work force.
• Creating a new business minor for non-business majors to emphasize the importance of a business education for any UNL student who may one day work in a business setting.
• Creating the Career Services at CBA office -- and hiring two career coaches -- which will help business students, who need jobs, and help Nebraska businesses who want to hire competent graduates.
• Initiating a new professional enhancement curriculum for graduates of CBA. These 1-hour courses will require students to prepare for the job market and engage in career planning.
• Planning and moving toward a new CBA building, which is now in the master plan stage at UNL. The new facility will be essential in creating competitiveness with other Big Ten business schools and building an environment for creative faculty, students and staff to succeed in making Nebraska the place to be for business education!



Prior to assuming the position of dean, Dean Plowman was Department Head of the Department of Management at the University of Tennessee where she was responsible for starting the PhD in Organizations and Strategy. She began her academic career at the University of Texas at San Antonio where she advanced to the rank of Professor and also served as Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research.

Her publications have appeared in Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Leadership Quarterly, Decision Sciences and many other journals. In 2008, she was awarded one of the most highly coveted awards in her field – the Academy of Management Journal Best Paper Award for her paper, “Radical Change Accidentally: The Emergence and Amplification of Small Change.”

Her research on mindfulness was featured last week in the Wall Street Journal in April 2012 and her publications have appeared in Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Leadership Quarterly, Decision Sciences and many other journals. In 2008, she was awarded one of the most highly coveted awards in her field – the Academy of Management Journal Best Paper Award for her paper, "Radical Change Accidentally: The Emergence and Amplification of Small Change."