Westminster College is pleased to announce Orn B. Bodvarsson, Ph.D., as the new dean for the Bill & Vieve Gore School of Business. Bodvarsson comes to Westminster from California State University, Sacramento as the former special assistant to the provost and vice president for academic affairs.
Bodvarsson brings over six years of decanal experience to the college, including three years as the dean of CSUS’s College of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies, as well as three years as founding dean of the School of Public Affairs at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota.
“We welcome Örn’s visionary leadership and academic expertise to our Bill & Vieve Gore School of Business,” said Stephen Morgan, Westminster College president. “His experience as both an economist and seasoned administrator will be a valuable asset as he works to secure our AACSB accreditation, strengthen our local and international collaborations and provide strategic vison to the school and programs.”
As the BVGSB’s new dean, Bodvarsson will be responsible for providing leadership that focuses on building and sustaining nine undergraduate and four graduate programs for the school. Last year, approximately 28 percent of the undergraduate degrees and 42 percent of graduate degrees conferred by Westminster were business degrees.
“This is a very exciting leadership opportunity at an excellent smaller, comprehensive private institution,” Bodvarsson said. “I’m very impressed with Westminster’s strong commitments to offer programming that integrates business with the liberal arts, promotes distinctive approaches to engaged learning, offers high-quality service learning opportunities to students, promotes civic engagement and intercultural competence and gives back to the Salt Lake City community.”
Over the course of his career, Bodvarsson has led CSUS’s second largest college, comprising 10 degree-granting departments, four non-departmental autonomous degree-granting programs, six active research and practice centers, to name a few. He has overseen a $15-17 million annual budget, which included personnel, student support services, curriculum and program development, fundraising, facilitation of state/national accreditation activities, etc. He has also facilitated the creation of a five-year strategic plan for the College of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies and developed a downtown School of Public Affairs, leading a two-year campus and community-wide effort to launch the school.
Bodvarsson has a Ph.D. in economics with an emphasis on labor economics and applied microeconomics from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. He also has a B.S. in economics with Honors and an M.S. in agricultural and resource economics from Oregon State University.
