Two top Wharton officials plan to resign positions

Vice Dean Bruce Allen and Deputy Dean Janice Bellace will step down. With just three months left until Dean Thomas Gerrity steps down as head of the Wharton School, business school officials announced yesterday another changing of the administrative guard. Deputy Dean Janice Bellace -- who served for five years in that capacity and four years as vice dean and director of Wharton's undergraduate division -- announced that she will step down as Wharton's chief academic officer to return to teaching and research, effective June 30. And in another announcement, Wharton Vice Dean and Graduate Division Director Bruce Allen formally announced yesterday that he would step down June 30 as head of the MBA program, where he served for four years, also to teach both undergraduates and graduates in his position as a Public Policy and Management professor. "You don't want to get stale at a job," Bellace said. "It was time to renew myself and for someone else to take over." And on his own resignation, Allen noted, "I always envisioned that I would serve as vice dean and then return to be a faculty member full time. I enjoyed what I was doing but I now look forward to getting back to teaching and research." The dual resignations make both Bellace and Allen viable candidates for Gerrity's position as Wharton dean. Allen said he would not actively seek out the deanship and Bellace refused to comment on the issue. Bellace will be replaced by current Operations and Information Management Department Chairperson Patrick Harker, a renowned scholar of the service sector and noted faculty leader who was named a White House Fellow by President George Bush in 1991. "Patrick Harker is an outstanding and deeply respected faculty leader," Gerrity said. "He has particular strengths in technology and entrepreneurship and experience? that are particularly critical if Wharton is to lead the way in technological innovation." During his 15 years on the Penn faculty, Harker has served on numerous committees, including the current group charged to select Wharton's next dean. He previously served as chairperson of the Systems Department in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and recently established a new MBA major in technological innovation. And like Bellace, he is an alumnus of both the Penn undergraduate and graduate programs. Harker said that he will use his familiarity with Penn and his technical background in his new position. "Penn is a unique place in terms of the linkages between schools," he said. "And technology is going to be the strategic thrust of the program." Gerrity, Bellace and Harker are now working together to select a new vice dean for the graduate division -- a search which Gerrity said he expects to be wrapped up within a few weeks. According to Gerrity, both Bellace and Allen had thought about stepping down from their positions last year. "We had conversations along the way about how long they stayed on," Gerrity said, noting that he asked both faculty members to remain in their positions until the school had finished its capital campaign for the new Huntsman Hall business education complex. "The dean knew he would be out on the road raising money and he wanted to make sure things were taken care of [on campus]," said Allen. Now, with plans for Huntsman Hall completed and the building fundraising plan underway, Bellace and Allen said they were ready to move on. But Gerrity and other officials say their replacements will certainly have big shoes to fill. Under Bellace's leadership, Wharton developed a new undergraduate curriculum with a global focus and foreign language requirement, established new ties with business schools around the world and helped strengthen the departments across the school by retaining key faculty and hiring rising scholars. And during Allen's tenure, the MBA curriculum was integrated across business disciplines and the graduate program's administrative model of "co-production" -- which incorporates both students and faculty in the academic decision-making process -- was initiated. "The Wharton School owes a great deal of gratitude to both Janice and Bruce," Gerrity said. Gerrity announced his own resignation last October, effective this summer. A replacement has not yet been named.