After a thorough national search, President Kenneth Evans has named Dan W. French as the next dean of Lamar University’s College of Business. French, who has nearly 40 years of teaching, research and service, is returning to his alma mater as a seasoned academic leader with a passion for collaboration and growth.

French will succeed Enrique “Henry” Venta, who has served Lamar University as dean of the college since July 2002.

A native of Beaumont and a 1973 graduate of Lamar University, French earned his doctorate from Louisiana Tech University and currently serves as the director of the Master of Science in Finance Program at the University of Missouri - Columbia while teaching at the undergraduate, graduate and doctorate levels. He will begin his role as dean of the College of Business on July 1, 2018.

Before his current post at the University of Missouri, French taught at such institutions as New Mexico State University, Texas Christian University and Texas A&M. He is an active researcher, with interests in investment valuation, options markets, corporate governance and market micro-structure. His articles have been published in the Journal of Financial Research, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial Services Research, Financial Review among others and he has authored five textbooks.

At Lamar, French majored in economics, but also minored in Spanish and speaks the language fluently. “I’ve used my Spanish quite a bit,” French said of his academic work and extensive experience in Latin America. He has taught seminars and courses in Ecuador, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Chile and Venezuela and developed a study-abroad program with a university in Spain.

He is of the lineage of the historic pioneer family of John Jay French, a tanner and merchant who settled in the area in the early 1840s. The restored 1845 John Jay French House, the oldest house in Beaumont, serves today as a window into the life of the times.

He attended French High School (also named for the pioneering family) before attending Lamar during a period of significant changes. During his time at Lamar, the university moved from being Lamar State College of Technology to Lamar University, and he worked for First Security National Bank, one of two large downtown banks. John Gray, who had earlier served as president of Lamar, had recently retired as the bank’s president, and another LU alumnus, Elvis Mason, was filling that role. President Frank Thomas was at Lamar’s helm but would soon step down and Gray would begin his second tenure as LU president.

As for his alma mater, French has kept up with “the news and what’s going on over the years.”

“I received a really great education here,” French said. “Lamar University gave me the foundation for going to graduate school to become an academic and to ultimately progress through levels of leadership at a number of universities and institutes in Texas, New Mexico and Missouri.”

“The educational environment and economic environment is always changing and educational institutions need to be able to change to fulfill their missions within those environments,” he said.

“We need to be on watch – keep our finger in the wind,” he said. “Although we already have a major position in the online space, we need to look at what the trends are and continue to deliver what else we can deliver in that space along with our outstanding traditional classroom programs.”

French also sees a need for the college to continually look for new “specialties that we might be able to offer to our students to position them to take advantages of opportunities in the professional employment market.”

Whatever those areas may be, the college will “need to be able to leverage the expertise that we already have that might be applicable in those areas so we can move into them rapidly and deliver new opportunities to our students.”

He plans to see that the college continues “to build on existing relationships and seek new relationships with business and government organizations, both from a potential employment standpoint for our students, and to offer educational opportunities that meet needs.”

French is a strong proponent of a faculty engaged in service beyond the university. “I’ve been involved with advisory boards … and will continue to do that as I look for opportunities to increase those in the College of Business. I support and encourage faculty to be members of boards, business organizations, and community organizations. Participation in these enhance the education that faculty can deliver, and that benefits students and faculty alike.”

French sees a potential “synergy” in working at a university headed by a president who also has an academic background in business. “Dr. Evans and I speak the same language,” he said. Both leaders view the College of Business as “a very important part of the Lamar team that can be leveraged with engineering, arts and sciences and the other colleges to really benefit the university and the region.”

Collaboration among faculty and the colleges is key to realizing full potential, French said. 

As soon as he can, he looks forward to meeting “as diverse a group as possible in the community,” and to becoming involved with civic and business organizations. He also hopes to invite many business leaders into the classroom to share their experiences and to “help make the classroom come alive for students with examples, guidance, and advice from professionals.”

“I’m really excited to come back to Lamar,” he said. “I want to give back to Lamar for what Lamar gave me a number of years ago. As time has passed, my love for the institution has grown, and more and more, I have realized how the foundation that I gained as a Lamar Cardinal has been a foundation of benefit for my entire life.”