President Alan R. Miciak
Alan Miciak became the 26th president of John Carroll University on June 1, 2021.
Prior to this appointment, Miciak led the John M. and Mary Jo Boler College of Business at John Carroll University as Dean since July 2015. Under Miciak’s leadership, the Boler College of Business developed new programs and facilities across its schools and departments, and secured three significant naming gifts as part of its successful $25 million Inspired Lives capital campaign.
Named Gifts
Miciak launched the Inspired Lives campaign in May 2018 with a $10 million gift from the Boler family that created the Boler College of Business. The Boler College combines business program innovation, advances in socially responsible management, and instills Ignatian values to create a distinct brand of business education.
A gift from Susan C. ’84 and William P. Donnelly ’83 established the Donnelly School of Leadership and Social Innovation. The Donnelly School of Leadership and Social Innovation leverages new and established centers of excellence and faculty expertise in leadership, ethics, entrepreneurship, and social innovation.
A gift from Christine M. ’86 and Richard J. Kramer ’86 established the Kramer School of Accountancy and Information Sciences. The Kramer School of Accountancy and Information Sciences strengthens John Carroll’s reputation as a leader and innovator in accounting education, with new emphasis on information sciences and data analytics.
Under Miciak’s leadership, the Boler College of Business — working closely with faculty, university stakeholders, and the Board of Trustees — launched of the Boler Strategic Plan entitled Boldly Inspired in May 2016. As part of the University Strategic Planning Committee, he contributed to authoring the University Strategic Plan 2015-2020 entitled Promise and Prominence.
Bloomberg Businessweek Rankings
With an intensive effort on student success and enhanced engagement with regional employers, Miciak drove curricular and co-curricular innovations that gained national recognition. Bloomberg BusinessWeek 2016-17 Business School Rankings ranked Boler 30th overall.
Bloomberg Businessweek’s 2016 “Best Undergraduate Business Schools” Employer Survey (recruiters at 600 companies) ranked the Boler College of Business #1 in the nation for how well it prepared students for careers.
JCU College of Arts and Sciences
Miciak emphasized expanded collaboration with John Carroll’s College of Arts and Sciences. Initiatives included interdisciplinary Entrepreneurship collaborations in STEM and Social Innovation, the Leadership minor, and the expansion of 5th year pathways to the MBA program.
Under Miciak’s leadership, the Boler College of Business maintained its accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International. AACSB Accreditation is the hallmark of excellence in business education. Additionally, Boler retained dual AACSB accreditation in business and accounting, a distinction earned by only 5 percent of institutions in the United States.
Education
After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Kent State University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Toledo, Miciak earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Marketing and International Business from Kent State University.
Early Career
President Miciak began his academic career as Assistant Professor Marketing at the University of Calgary (July 1993–July 2002). He led a program staff including 20 faculty and five professional staff and oversaw all aspects of program management as Director of the Haskayne-Alberta Executive MBA Program (1999-2002), including curriculum design and delivery, marketing and promotion, and student service delivery. A joint initiative between the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta, both AACSB accredited schools, the Haskayne-Alberta Executive MBA Program achieved enrollment growth of 25 percent over the three-year term and groundwork was laid for the inclusion of the EMBA program in the Financial Times rankings.
Sobey School of Business
Miciak then went on to serve as Dean of the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He and his leadership team led 2500 undergraduate students, 200 graduate students, a full-time faculty of 75 professors, and an administrative support staff of eight in the design and delivery of undergraduate and graduate degree programs with a total budget of $20+ million.
Under Miciak’s leadership, the Sobey School of Business gained initial AACSB accreditation and established three externally funded ($4.5 million-plus) chairs: the David Sobey Chair in Business Leadership, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce “CIBC Chair in Entrepreneurship,” and the Canada Research Chair in Human Resource Management. He established the Centre for Leadership Excellence and the Centre for Work and Spirituality. The school also launched new graduate programs including an International Master of Finance Program and the MBA-CMA in partnership with the Certified Management Accounting professional society.
Duquesne University
In his next role, Miciak served as Chief Academic and Administrative Officer of the A.J. Palumbo School of Business Administration and the John F. Donahue Graduate School of Business at Duquesne University. Miciak led 1400 undergraduate students, 400 graduate students, a full-time faculty of 65 professors, and an administrative support staff of 20 in the delivery of innovative undergraduate and graduate degree programs with a total budget of $40+ million.
Miciak expanded collaboration with Duquesne University’s professional schools. Initiatives included Arts Entrepreneurship with the School of Music, a Health Care Supply Chain Management major with the School of Pharmacy, a Certificate in Business with the College of Liberal Arts, a Health Management Systems major with Health Science, Business Technology with the School of Education, and enhanced joint MBA degrees with Nursing, Environmental Science, and Law. Under Miciak's leadership, the school also increased international enrollments through recruiting and development of academic partnerships in China, France, Germany, Japan, and India.
He doubled the number of major gift (greater than 25K) pledges for 2005 to 2009 from the prior five-year period. Major gift revenue increased by 80 percent during the period. Annual fund donors increased by 81 percent and Annual Fund dollars increased by 137 percent during his tenure. Duquesne was invited to be among the first 100 signers of the Principles of Responsible Management Education and to attend the inaugural meeting at U.N. headquarters in New York City. Duquesne ranked with elite business schools for emphasis on ethics education — along with Georgetown and Notre Dame — in a survey by the Academy of Management Learning and Education.
Aspen Institute Ranking
President Miciak's experience teaching and travelling in the natural environments of the Canadian Rockies and Nova Scotia informed his early interest in sustainable business development and the need to balance energy use and natural resource extraction with environmentally sustainable economic practices.
He applied those insights to the creation of the Donahue Sustainable MBA program, ranked in the global top 20 MBA programs by The Aspen Institute’s Beyond Gray Pinstripes (2007-2012) for its emphasis on social and environmental issues. For his efforts to advance ethics education and introduce an MBA-Sustainability program, Treasury and Risk Magazine recognized Miciak as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Finance (Governance) for 2008.
Miciak assisted Duquesne's global Spiritan service operations in Ghana and Tanzania, advising faculty and administrators from peer institutions and working with academic publishers (McGraw Hill and Pearson,) to provide $600,000 in textbooks to establish libraries at schools administered by the Holy Ghost Fathers and other private and public institutions.
Personal
President Miciak was born and raised in Northeast Ohio. His grandfather was a Polish immigrant, part of the immigration of Poles to the Cleveland area that began in the late 1860s and early 1870s with the growth of a Polish community working in the quarries of Berea. In 1873, St. Stanislaus, the first Polish parish was established in Cleveland and by 1920 Cleveland had the seventh largest population of Polish ancestry in the United States with an estimated 50,000 people. Miciak’s father and mother married in England after WWII and lived the rest of their lives in the Cleveland area.
He and his wife Ann have been married 35 years. They have a daughter, Emma.
