Organizational leadership isn’t just a scholarly discipline for Filiz Tabak. It’s also a specialty she has successfully practiced over the past 28 years in the College of Business & Economics at Towson University – as a faculty member, graduate program director, department chair and, most recently, acting associate dean.
Now Tabak brings that expertise to the University of Mary Washington, where she’ll become dean of the College of Business (COB) starting July 10.
She already has a plan for her first few months on campus – to learn the strengths, experiences and passions of the faculty she’ll lead and the UMW students she’ll help educate. At the same time, she plans to connect with the COB Advisory Board, the deans of UMW’s College of Arts and Sciences and College of Education, and others in the campus community, “to see what we can accomplish together.”
A primary job of any dean is to understand the culture of the institution, she said – though she already has a pretty good idea of Mary Washington’s. When she learned earlier this year that UMW was seeking a permanent COB dean, a website search led her to UMW’s ASPIRE statement of values.
Those principles – accountability; scholarship; personal and institutional integrity; inclusive excellence; respect and civility; and engagement – resonated deeply, not just as individual items but in combination with one another. “When you as an academic are perfectly aligned with the values of a school, that’s really priceless,” Tabak said.
Visits to the UMW campus and meetings with students, staff, faculty, administrators and President Troy D. Paino confirmed that impression. When the offer came, she said, accepting “was not a difficult decision at all. I knew I would belong right away, and I knew it was a good fit.”
Nurturing an inclusive culture, Tabak said, is not just about demographic diversity, but also about inclusive pedagogy and inclusive scholarship that create a space where students and faculty can grow together. She especially appreciates UMW’s approach to preparing students for life after Mary Washington, emphasizing digital knowledge, people skills and undergraduate research. Those elements contribute to students’ full development, she said, so they’ll leave ready to make contributions wherever they go.
That mirrors Tabak’s own path from first-generation college student to seasoned academic. As a child, Tabak absorbed her parents’ belief that nothing was more valuable and important than a quality education. She earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering and a master’s degree in marine physics and chemistry. As she began a career with the multinational corporation Henkel, she earned an MBA from Bogazici University and discovered a passion for understanding organizational behavior.
A connection at Oklahoma State University (OSU) urged her to consider their College of Business Administration for her Ph.D., and that’s how she moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Her time at OSU was transformational, where she discovered that her multidisciplinary background gave her a distinct advantage in her research and dissertation on strategic decision-making, applying behavioral decision-making concepts from cognitive psychology.
Doctorate achieved, she became an assistant professor at Towson University in Maryland. She progressed through the ranks to full professor, teaching a range of business disciplines, taking on leadership roles and publishing prolifically in peer-reviewed journals. Tabak loved the supportive culture at Towson and considered it “a great place of balance, where I was able to do teaching, scholarship and service to the students and to the community,” she said.
In her four years as Department of Management chair, she became a mentor to other department chairs, which she found immensely fulfilling. The experience led to her appointment as acting associate dean and opened her mindset to exploring a deanship of her own – and that, in turn, led her to UMW.
She will succeed COB Interim Dean Ken Machande ’94, whom Provost Tim O’Donnell praised for leading the COB’s AACSB accreditation effort, striking partnership agreements to the benefit of students with community colleges and four-year institutions in Virginia, and growing enrollment.
Tabak and her husband will move to the area as almost-empty-nesters – their two sons are in college, in Indiana and Pennsylvania. Tabak is excited to live within easy distance of campus and the downtown restaurant, arts, history and shopping scenes.
As ready as Tabak is to embrace UMW and its home city, Mary Washington is eager to welcome her.
“I am excited about Dr. Tabak joining our leadership team,” O’Donnell said. “She believes in our mission, is enthusiastic about our future, understands the important work that lies ahead and brings a range of knowledge, experience and a competitive drive that will benefit both the College and the larger University.”
