Julie H. Sullivan,
Executive Vice President and Provost of the University of San Diego (and former tax professor) has been named President of the University of St. Thomas. She is the first woman and the first lay person to serve as president of the University of St. Thomas in its 128-year history.
Sullivan thought about majors in actuarial science or pharmacy before
she settled on accounting, and she still remembers her father’s words:
“I don’t care what your major is in; you just better have a job when you
finish.”She planned to work as a public accountant, and after a six-month
internship with what then was Ernst and Whinney, she concluded that she
preferred tax accounting over auditing. She needed a master’s degree to
work directly in tax accounting, so she continued her studies at
Florida. …Sullivan began her academic career in 1983 at the University of
Oklahoma, and four years later moved to the University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, to be a visiting professor for one year. She was
hired as a tenure-track faculty member at the end of that year. During her 16 years at North Carolina, Sullivan became an Ernst and
Young Distinguished Professor and served as co-director of the Center
for Innovation and Learning, director of the Center for International
Business Education and Research, associate dean of the master’s of
accounting program and senior associate dean of the Kenan-Flagler
Business School. She was interim dean of Kenan-Flagler in 2003, leading a $180 million
capital campaign, when she moved to California and became a full
professor in the Rady School of Management at the University of
California-San Diego.Dr. Sullivan is an internationally known scholar and educator in
accounting and taxation. Her research and teaching focuses on issues
related to accounting and financial reporting to shareholders and global
tax planning. From 1998 to 2006, she served as a Research Associate of
the National Bureau of Economic Research, the leading nonprofit economic
research organization in the United States.
(Hat Tip: Tom Figgatt.)
