Alan G. Merten, the Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean of Cornell's S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management, has been named president of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. He will take office July 1. Merten, who also holds an appointment as professor of information systems, has served as dean of the Johnson School since 1989.

"All of us at Cornell congratulate Alan Merten on his selection as president of George Mason University, and we wish him and his wife, Sally, every good fortune in this next step in an excellent career," said Cornell University President Hunter Rawlings. "His leadership and guidance have enabled the Johnson School to strengthen further its reputation as one of the nation's premier institutions of business education. He has been a fine dean, and I have every confidence that he will be an excellent president. I look forward to working with him at the national level."

Cornell Provost Don M. Randel added his congratulations to Merten's announcement: "As dean and professor, Alan Merten has provided faculty, staff and students with an environment that encourages and supports excellence in all areas. He has provided distinguished leadership not only to the Johnson School but also to many universitywide endeavors, including strategic planning. His unyielding support to Cornell will be greatly missed."

"I will be forever grateful for the friends I made at Cornell and for the support that so many people gave to Sally and me," said Merten, who will become the fifth president of George Mason University. "We look back upon this period of our lives with the belief that we were able to benefit from as well as contribute to an incredible institution."

Under Merten's leadership, the Johnson School has been successful in raising funds to create endowed professorships to attract the best and brightest faculty. In addition, the school, with support from friends and alumni, completed a successful capital campaign that will ensure the school's move to a world-class facility.

During his tenure, Merten has strived to augment the presence of the business world in the classroom by increasing the number of corporate executives interacting with students and faculty. The dean also has encouraged a broader conception of MBA education as improving students' skill base in writing, public speaking, computer and team-building skills.

Throughout his deanship, Merten has subscribed to a theme of diversity within business education, encouraging students, administrators, professors and corporate executives to conceive and inculcate diversity as inclusive of gender, cultural, national and racial differences. Merten's other service to Cornell includes membership on the Strategic Planning Task Force, the Budget Planning Task Force and the Quality Improvement Program Council. He served as chair of the Information Technology Review Team and the Entrepreneurism and Personal Enterprise Program.

Merten's service to higher education extends beyond the Cornell campus. He is co-founder and member of the Minority Ph.D. Project and has served in a variety of roles for the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business, including as chair of the 1996 annual meeting and as a member of the Accreditation Study Task Force.

Before coming to the Johnson School, Merten was dean of the College of Business Administration at the University of Florida and associate dean for executive education and computing services for the University of Michigan. Merten earned a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Wisconsin in 1970 and an M.S. from Stanford University in 1964. He received his undergraduate degree in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin in 1963.

Merten has held academic appointments in both engineering and business. His publications and research interests have been in the areas of information systems design, data management and organizational policies for information technology. He serves on corporate boards and technology advisory panels and has been a consultant on information systems strategy. George Mason University is Virginia's second-largest university, with an enrollment of 24,000.