BOWLING GREEN, O. -- Dr. Jane V. Wheeler has accepted a two-year appointment to direct the master of organization development program at Bowling Green State University.

The first university to award a degree in the field, Bowling Green offers an 18-month executive MOD program as well as a program for full-time students through its College of Business Administration. Accredited by AACSB-International, the Association to Advance College Schools of Business, the program is widely known for pioneering the concept of empirically based change and sponsoring a "best practices" conference that attracts participants of national stature each spring.

For the past two years, Wheeler has headed Bowling Green's Institute for Organizational Effectiveness, which provides expertise in managing and improving organizational performance to business firms, governmental agencies and not-for-profit organizations.

The new MOD director spent more than a decade working in the telecommunications industry before moving into higher education. The first woman to lead Bowling Green's MOD program, she replaces Dr. Steven Cady, who is on leave.

Wheeler joined the University's management faculty as an assistant professor in 1999, the same year she finished her doctorate in organizational behavior at Case Western Reserve University. The Mount Holyoke College graduate has an MBA from Boston University and a certificate of special studies in administration and management from Harvard University.

In addition to holding a series of management positions with AT&T and later, with NYNEX Corp. in Boston, she has done consulting for such clients as Key Bank, Alcoa Forged Products, Catholic Health Care, Merrill Lynch and the Cleveland Children's Museum. And, she has experience as an executive coach.

"What brought me to Bowling Green is how the (MOD) program integrates theory and practice," says the new director. "We're working hard to bring students out into the field to apply what they're learning.

Juried articles about her research findings have appeared in the Academy of Management Journal, the Journal of Management Education and Sloan Management Review, one of the field's leading journals.

(Posted August 10, 2004)