FIU names real estate expert as its business school dean

With South Florida the “epicenter” of the nationwide housing crisis, Florida Worldwide University not long ago employed a real estate expert to lead its enterprise college.

William Hardin, 61, turned dean of the FIU School of Company in early June, just after a year as interim dean. His predecessor, Joanne Li, remaining to become chancellor of the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

“I’m feeling rather great. I by now have a good come to feel for what the career is, but becoming appointed the lasting dean makes it a very little little bit more serious,” stated Hardin, who was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, and spent about half of his existence in Atlanta before shifting to Florida.

Hardin claimed FIU Company will consider to satisfy mounting demand from customers for courses in areas like knowledge analytics and cybersecurity — and logistics and source chain management, which absolutely everyone understands now because of the pandemic, he stated.

Related: FIU launches national search for its new president, Mark Rosenberg’s long term successor

However, the main problem for FIU Company, Hardin mentioned, stays figuring out how to have interaction college students in a post-pandemic earth.

“Technology improved how folks, primarily youthful people today, look at the planet. Men and women received made use of to all sorts of alternatives for how to meet up with — or not meet up with — people today. But we want to get individuals again to participating a single-on-a person in man or woman, mainly because I assume in person is how we finest produce relationships,” he reported.

Hardin has labored at FIU for about 16 yrs. He 1st joined in 2006 as a finance and real estate professor, as very well as the director of its true estate applications.

He held many roles because, which includes director of FIU’s Jerome Bain Genuine Estate Institute, which provides programs and conferences in the business, and founding director of the Hollo University of Authentic Estate. In 2018, he became the affiliate dean of the Chapman Graduate University of Small business.

Related: ‘The globe has missing an icon’: Beloved FIU professor, dean dies. There from early days

All through his vocation, he has authored or co-authored at the very least 70 papers on subject areas like foreclosures and corporate governance.

In 2018, he been given the Ricardo Medal from the American Real Estate Culture — its optimum scholarship honor — for his printed investigate.

FIU President Kenneth Jessell touted Hardin’s working experience.

“Dean Hardin’s scholarly function and nationally acknowledged knowledge in serious estate would make him a specifically essential and relevant business leader in South Florida at this time,” Jessell explained.

Before transitioning to FIU, Hardin taught at Mississippi Point out College for 8 decades, Morehouse Higher education for 3 years and Georgia Point out College for two years. In advance of delving into academia, Hardin invested about seven many years at NationsBank in Charlotte, now Bank of The us.

He graduated from the College of North Carolina-Chapel Hill with a bachelor’s in economics. He has a master’s in international organization from the University of South Carolina and a master’s in real estate from Ga State College. He holds a doctorate in company administration from Ga Point out College.

Three matters you may not know about Hardin

An Olympic medal

He lived in Rio de Janeiro for a calendar year in the 1980s, for the reason that his master’s software in global company at the University of South Carolina required it. He speaks Portuguese.

That language skill allowed him to volunteer as an envoy for the Portugal Olympics staff in the course of the 1996 Summer Olympic Game titles in Atlanta.

“Everyone who does the Olympics gets a participation medal, all of the athletes. That calendar year evidently they had some leftover, I guess, so as an envoy, I obtained one particular,” Hardin said. “That was a superior time for me.”

He loves Miami

“I like staying in a spot where by range is winner. It genuinely is a international metropolis,” Hardin mentioned. “I think which is enjoyable it is beautiful. And it is the long term. The upcoming is individuals from everywhere you go coming collectively to advance humanity.”

“I’ve been to a ton of places and chat to a great deal of deans in various areas, and in Florida and Miami, we definitely reward from our willingness to be inclusive and our cultural awareness.”

A partner, father

He fulfilled his wife when they both worked in the very same global division of a financial institution they’ve been married for 35 many years. They have a daughter she attends the Emory College College of Law in Atlanta.

This tale was originally released July 15, 2022 7:05 PM.