Orfalea College of Business Dean Dave Christy is leaving San Luis Obispo for New York City, but he’s not nervous about the big change — after all, he’ll be moving up in academia as he becomes the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Baruch College.
“It’s exciting on two different levels,” Christy said. “The idea of moving to New York, while scary, is very exciting, and then it will be a whole new level of responsibility for me. I’ll be vice president really of the whole university, and I’m looking forward to that.”
In his new position, Christy will be “the No. 2 person to the president,” he said.
But with more than 30 years in higher education, Christy said he feels prepared for the new responsibilities.
Christy has led Cal Poly’s Orfalea College of Business for the past nine years. During his tenure, he focused on promoting interdisciplinary support and building an effective organization, he said.
Christy was also involved in the establishment of the San Luis Obispo HotHouse, an entrepreneurial startup collaboration between Cal Poly and San Luis Obispo.
“I’m convinced that getting people together for things they’re passionate about is the best way to promote interdisciplinary and intercommunity collaboration,” he said. “When we put this together, we didn’t say this is for the Orfalea College of Business, we said this is for Cal Poly.”
Christy also emphasized connecting the college with the community.
“Having the HotHouse downtown, for example, has changed the nature of how people see Cal Poly,” he said. “A group of people have really stepped up and said that they want to be partners in this, and they want the HotHouse to be not just a Cal Poly thing, but a community thing.”
During Christy’s time as dean, the college has consistently been ranked in Bloomberg Businessweek’s annual list of the nation’s best undergraduate business schools, peaking this year at No. 64.
“It’s not so much ‘Look at this one project or accomplishment,’ though,” he said. “For example, I could say ‘Oh, we’ve been ranked by Forbes as a top business program,’ but the fact of the matter is that we achieved that by building an effective organization. I’m proud to say we’re more focused and effective than we were nine years ago.”
Moving forward, Christy will serve as the provost and senior vice president of student affairs at Baruch College. More than 78 percent of Baruch College’s students are enrolled in the Zicklin School of Business, the largest collegiate business school in the nation.
Christy will oversee all of the colleges and “really everything in the university that has to do with academics,” he said.
Christy leaves Cal Poly this summer, but he plans to bring lessons learned with him.
“I think Cal Poly’s ‘Learn By Doing’ philosophy is really something worth protecting,” Christy said. “That’s what makes Cal Poly what it is, and that’s one thing I’ll take with me.”
Aryn Sanderson contributed to this staff report.