Meet the Dean
"Leading the Smeal College of Business has been the highlight of my professional career. It’s been an honor to work with our exceptional students, great faculty, and staff to build Smeal’s innovative new and existing programs, all with the support of an unparalleled alumni network and friends. I’m also thankful we have been able to reach our goals of establishing centers for sustainability and ethics and social responsibility. The centers will enable Smeal to lead impactful research that we hope will transform business education across the country."
- Charles H. Whiteman
Contact Information
Smeal College of Business
The Pennsylvania State University
210 Business Building
University Park, PA 16802
Phone: 814-863-0448
Email: DeansOfficeAtSmeal@psu.edu
On the Web: https://www.smeal.psu.edu
Charles H. Whiteman
The dean of the Penn State Smeal College of Business oversees all aspects of one of the largest business schools in the nation. Smeal offers highly ranked programs to more than 6,000 students at all levels; supports the research activities of faculty members in six academic departments; is home to a network of leading research centers in business; and features an alumni network of 95,000 Smeal graduates around the world.
Whiteman, who has more than 39 years of experience in higher education and business, assumed the leadership position at Smeal in July 2012. Prior to joining Penn State, he was senior associate dean for the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa.
During a career that began as an instructor at Iowa in 1980, Whiteman advanced through the faculty ranks to become a chaired professor and served in a variety of administrative roles including chair of the Department of Economics, director of the Institute for Economic Research, and interim dean.
Whiteman holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Kansas. His academic expertise is in macroeconomics, econometrics, and economic forecasting. He has conducted research that has been supported by a number of grants from the National Science Foundation, published dozens of academic papers, written two books, and served as associate editor of several economics journals. He has also advised the state of Iowa’s Department of Management on economic issues and served as a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Banks of Kansas City, Atlanta, Cleveland, and Minneapolis.
Whiteman’s initiatives for the Smeal College include a certificate program to enable more non-business majors to learn business fundamentals, increasing quality online offerings, dramatically increasing Smeal’s Professional Graduate Programs, increasing participation by students in study abroad programs, and guiding the creation of the Center for the Business of Sustainability and the Tarriff Center for Business Ethics and Social Responsibility.