An Unusual PCSB Fall Semester

Kicking off the fall semester and reopening the Ryan Center for Business Studies is always a period of excitement — and hard work. There are new programs, new faculty, and new students. This fall, kicking off the semester took that to a whole new level. For instance, normally the PCSB doesn’t: 

• Remove 275 seats from Ryan Center classrooms to meet social-distancing guidelines. 
• Compile over 140 business class seating charts for contact-tracing purposes. 
• Post more than 125 signs in the Ryan Center about COVID-19 policies, student services availability, and Zoom drop-in hours. 
• Distribute dozens of copies of How to Teach Effectively with Zoom to PCSB faculty. 
• Hold practice teaching sessions in classrooms with half the students participating remotely. 

Even with herculean campus-wide efforts, we do not know if this will be enough to keep the campus open for the semester during a pandemic. Even in unusual times, it is one of our greatest joys to meet new students, faculty, and staff on campus every fall. This year we welcomed to the PCSB 371 first-year students, or 37% of the Class of 2024, and 112 MBA students, one of our largest fall MBA cohorts ever.  

We are pleased to introduce the following distinguished individuals to our Friar family: 

• Dr. Jessica Buchanan, assistant professor of accountancy, who holds a Ph.D. in accounting from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She studies judgment and decision-making in auditors. 
• Dr. Abigail Corrington, assistant professor of management, who holds a Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology from Rice University. She specializes in issues of diversity, inclusion, gender, discrimination, and leadership.
• Thomas More Garrett, O.P., associate vice president and associate general counsel for Providence College, will join the Department of Management as a practitioner faculty. He earned his J.D. from The Pennsylvania State University School of Law.
• Dr. Ranier Robinson, assistant professor of accountancy, who has a Ph.D. in accounting from the University of Alabama. His research specialty is financial reporting quality. 
• Andy Donahue ’10, ’12G as PCSB’s assistant director for student engagement & academic advising. 

In addition, we are very happy to recognize Rev. Kenneth R. Sicard, O.P ’78, ’82G as PC’s new president, and Dr. Sean F. Reid as PC’s new provost.