Heath Hutcheson, Campus Carrier staff writer
Joyce Heames, the dean at the Campbell School of Business, will be stepping down from her position this year and will begin a similar position at Middle Tennessee State University on July 1.
“I’ve been at Berry for seven years and it has been a wonderful, blessed seven years,” Heames said. “I’ve had the wonderful privilege of working with the faculty here in the Campbell school of business and we have done a lot of wonderful things together, but the opportunity to go to MTSU came out of the blue. It was not something I was necessarily looking for.”
The new position is going to prove to come with a very different atmosphere than the one here at Berry, but Heames does not see the shift as too daunting because it’s still something familiar to her.
“Moving back into a big state school system is challenging,” Heames said. “I will be the dean at the Jennings Jones school of business. Here the student population is around 2,200 and MTSU’s is about 20,000. Here, the business school is around 500 and there it’s over 4,000, so it’s going to be totally different. Although, there were a lot of overlaps between my academic history and there, so I could identify with a lot of the students there. I also have family up in that area and that just added to the dynamics of wanting to make the change.”
Heames said that she looks forward to this new chapter, but is grateful for all the things she has been able to do during her time at Berry.
“The last seven years I’ve gotten to be here and be with some of my grandchildren who have actually gone through the Campbell School of Business and other programs on campus have just been phenomenal,” Heames said.
Heames’ last official day at Berry will be June 30. She explained in detail the process by which her replacement will eventually be chosen.
“I do not know who will take my place yet. [College President Stephen Briggs] and [Provost David Slade] will appoint an interim dean for one year. They will then do a national search,” Heames said. “They will start that process over the summer, and then in the fall they will start interviewing over Zoom. During the spring of 2024, they will have campus visits and then make an announcement. Somewhere around the end of March or April they will announce who will be coming in as the new dean for the fall of 2024.”
Heames believes she is leaving the Campbell School of Business in a good place, and talked about all the additions that have been made to the program during her time as dean.
“The faculty and staff in the Campbell School of Business have done so much these past 7 years, and I just see it continuing to grow,” Heames said. “A couple things coming down the pipe that we’ve already put into place are a financial planning class that is in the books for spring of 2024, and they’re revamping the accounting program. We also put in an entrepreneurship minor a couple years ago that now has fifty students in it. We strategically kept it a minor so that no matter what someone is majoring in, they can add that on and still make it work.”
Heames feels confident about the future of the Campbell School of Business and hopes for the best in its development.
“My leaving is no indication that anything is wrong in the school of business, quite the opposite. I think we have done some great things,” Heames said. “Berry will always hold a special place in my heart, but there comes a time when a new chapter needs to be opened I guess, and that’s where I find myself.”