Wachter Named Dean of Business and Accountancy

Renée M. Wachter

Renée M. Wachter has been selected for appointment as the dean of the Business and Accountancy Division at Truman State University. She begins her duties July 1, 2006.

Wachter comes to Truman from Montana State University where she serves as associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Business and founding director of The Bracken Center for Excellence in Undergraduate Business Education. She currently plays many prominent roles, including leading an initiative to expand opportunities for internships and business professionalization for students, promoting the enhancement of faculty development initiatives which facilitate excellence in pedagogy, and encouraging the provision of resources for the maintenance of a contemporary curriculum. She provides oversight and administration for academic programs, paying specific attention to continuous improvement in teaching, learning and scholarship. Wachter also coordinates activities as the college works toward reaffirmation in 2007 of its basic accreditation with AACSB-International and initial separate accreditation of the accountancy program.

Wachter earned a Bachelor of Science in Business from the University of Kansas. She majored in marketing and took concentration work in mathematics. She went on to earn a doctorate in business from Indiana University with major emphasis in management information systems and additional studies in marketing and statistics. While at Indiana University, she was the director of the Groupware Computer Lab: Collaborative Work Laboratory, Planning and Policy Studies Program, in which she facilitated sessions in strategic planning, conflict resolution and brainstorming with profit and non-profit organizations and served as the liaison to business entities.

Subsequently, Wachter served as a faculty member and director of the Information Systems Option in the undergraduate business and Master of Business Administration programs at Ball State University. She taught management courses in the traditional classroom setting as well as a satellite-based distance-learning format. She exercised leadership in the Department of Management by working toward reaffirming the accreditation of the College of Business from AACSB-International.

Wachter received an appointment to the position of associate dean of the School of Business and director of the Office of Graduate Business Programs at the University of Indianapolis where she functioned in several lead capacities at the school and university levels. Under her aegis, curricula for several master’s degree programs underwent restructuring and achieved accreditation under the Baldridge Quality Standard. She also organized the institution of specialized certificate programs for business professionals, custom on-site Master of Business Administration programs for major corporations, a college credit course in finance and international business for gifted high school students, and served as the acting dean for a semester during a sabbatical leave of the dean.
 
Wachter has published in a number of refereed domestic and international scholarly journals and proceedings concerned with computer-mediated communication, learning and knowledge management. She is active in issues of educational assessment, schooled in Baldridge Award Self-Assessment Training for Education with the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and in the Academic Quality Improvement Project (AQIP) of The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association.