College of Business dean to retire

David Graf had every intention of retiring to a place “up North” after he stepped down as dean of the NIU College of Business this spring. But in a career filled with interesting twists, one more twist presented itself – and he couldn’t resist.

So, instead of heading for Wisconsin at the end of May when he leaves NIU, Graf and his wife, Diane, will head to the Middle East, where he will be dean of the College of Business and Economics at United Arab Emirates University.

“I guess that underneath it all we were looking for a little adventure,” says Graf, 63, who will leave his dean’s post May 31 after 12 years in the job and 28 years total at NIU.

The United Arab Emirates is a long way from where Graf started his career in academe as a high school instructor teaching business education in Michigan and Minnesota, which he did for eight years before deciding to move to the next level. He enrolled at the University of North Dakota, where he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees before accepting a teaching position at Montclair State College in New Jersey.

He arrived at NIU in 1976, recruited to teach in the business education and administrative services program in the NIU College of Business, ultimately becoming chair of the department in 1982. In 1986, he oversaw the merger of that program into the Department of Management, and then moved to the Operations Management and Information Systems Department, where he served as chair until 1992, leading the department through a period of expansion.

In 1992, he stepped into the role of associate dean, where he served for a year before being named acting dean in 1993 and, ultimately, dean in 1994.

FULL STORY