A Message from Dean Deborah Crown

To the Crummer Community:

As we face these unprecedented and trying times, I want to extend my thoughts and best wishes to each of you and your families. As every day brings new challenges, President Grant Cornwell and I are encouraged and motivated by the dedication of our students, faculty, staff, alumni, board members, and partners.

As Dean, I am proud each and every day that I have the opportunity to work with the President’s team to lead this remarkable Crummer community in our steadfast commitment to student learning and success.

Your health and safety is our top priority and at the heart of every decision we make. It is paramount for us to do our part to help reduce the transmission of COVID-19, even if that means leveraging new ways to deliver our engaging, personalized education that has been the hallmark of a Crummer education.

At Crummer we are leaders and innovators, so I am confident, as we continue forging ahead in our virtual, synchronous learning environment, that our students and clientele are still experiencing engaging, collaborative, and highly personalized business educations.

Our faculty members continue taking personal phone calls/web conferencing sessions, our staff members continue working tirelessly to ensure the educational experience at the School continues, and I will continue to make sure that every decision we make is one that fulfills our mission of unwavering dedication to developing global, innovative and responsible business and community leaders.

In fact, as the entire nation embarks on this unprecedented utilization of comprehensive virtual learning, at Crummer we have embraced this challenge as an opportunity to innovate. Our close-knit family has always been on the cutting-edge of new strategies for collaboration and communication, and we are now actively pursuing opportunities to bring the value of our Crummer student, alumni, and business partner networks together in meaningful ways, optimizing technological tools.

We are moving forward with some unique virtual experiences aimed at fostering alumni and community engagement, networking, and stewardship. For example, last week, we hosted the first virtual staging of our annual Venture Plan Competition. A flagship event for our school, it is the Orlando region’s largest business plan pitch competition. Our distinguished judges worked with the finalists in a virtual Q&A session, and we opened up the competition to the community to watch the pitches and vote online for their favorite. Hundreds casted their votes in our first ever Crummer Community Choice Award. We look forward to announcing many other similar virtual experiences very soon. A special thanks goes out to Dr. Pete McAlindon, Lisa Reineck, Becky Baker and Crummer’s Marketing team for making this possible.

We are also working in concert with Rollins administration to ensure our students are able to continue their educations in these challenging times. Our Provost and Vice President for Student Affairs recently announced an emergency fund to help students across the College—including Crummer students—who are affected by the pandemic and its impacts.

As we all work together to meet one of the greatest challenges of our times, I again want to thank all of you for your commitment to each other and to ensuring Crummer is able to continue fostering and strengthening our community and the excellent educational experiences for which we are known.

All my best,
Deborah Crown, Ph.D.
Dean of the Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College