Owen School names two new assistant deans

William G. Christie, dean of Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management, has selected two assistant deans to lead the Executive MBA program and the Career Management Center.

Stephen F. Johansson, who has more than 25 years of experience in career placement and counseling, has been named assistant dean for career services and corporate relations. He replaces Elizabeth Clarke, who served as interim director of career services at the Owen School last year.

Martin D. Rapisarda, a 13-year veteran in the field of executive master's of business administration programs, has been named assistant dean of the Executive MBA program. Rapisarda comes to Vanderbilt from the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as director of alumni relations. He replaces Thomas B. Hambury, who has accepted a position at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management.

"We are delighted that Martin will be joining Owen at Vanderbilt," Christie said. "His experience, leadership and vision will further enhance Owen's stature and highly regarded reputation in the Executive MBA arena.

"Steve is also a highly regarded professional who brings a wealth of experience to our career management center," Christie said. "I am confident that he will be a driving force behind our effort to increase our external visibility and corporate awareness. Our current and future students can rest assured that the Career Management Center is in great hands."

Johansson came to Vanderbilt from WebClothes.com, an online retailer of children's clothing where he served as director of marketing and new business development.

Prior to joining WebClothes.com, Johansson was the director of career services at Cornell University's Johnson School of Management from 1991-1999. Under his leadership, the placement office received an "A" rating from the students and was listed among the top five MBA placement offices in the country. In a 1998 Business Week rating of graduate schools of management, the Johnson School advanced from 18th place nationally to 8th, the largest jump in the history of the survey.

Johansson increased the number of companies recruiting on campus from 85 to 200, a 135 percent increase. He computerized the placement office to include recruiting and workshop calendars, company information, job descriptions, links to corporate Web pages and contact databases. In his first year, he improved the Business Week student ranking of the office from a "D" to a "B."

Before that, he was a co-founder of the New York Recruiting Consortium, managing a career planning and placement office serving 2,000 liberal arts students and supervising a staff of 10.

Johansson began his career at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, where he advanced from an admissions counselor to director of the office of career counseling during a 12-year stay.

Johansson earned a B.A. at Bates College in 1968 and added a Master of Education degree with a concentration in management at Harvard in 1981.

Before going to the University of Pennsylvania in 1998, Rapisarda served as director of the Executive Master's programs at Purdue University's Krannert Graduate School of Management. He started as the assistant director of the program in 1985, was promoted to associate director in 1988 and was named director in 1993.

Under Rapisarda's direction, Krannert was rated as one of the top 10 EMBA programs in the nation by Business Week magazine in 1991, 1993 and 1997 (the magazine publishes its rankings every two years). Rapisarda helped design four distinct Executive Master's programs, and student enrollment jumped from 85 in 1986 to 250 in 1996. He also designed, managed and implemented two-week international seminars, held twice annually, in such locations as Paris, Budapest, Hong Kong, Singapore, Guangzhou and Shanghai.

Rapisarda served as chairman of the board of trustees of the EMBA Council from 1994-1996. As a site evaluator and consultant for the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, he led site-visit accreditation teams to seven campuses from 1992-1998.

At the University of Pennsylvania, Rapisarda directed university-wide alumni relations efforts, providing programs and services for almost 240,000 alumni. He created a series of three on-line courses for alumni in the fall of 1999 and redesigned the alumni Web site, which averages 14,000 visits per month. He directed a staff of 29 people.

Rapisarda graduated cum laude from Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales in 1974. He earned a Master of Arts in English at Purdue in 1978 and added a Ph.D. in English and Philosophy in 1982.