From left to right: Elena Khapalova, Grant Rozeboom, Lucy Arendt and Todd Sarnstrom

New Schneider School Hires Build on Reputation Rooted in Excellence

Four new hires in the business and economics disciplines promise to bring diverse perspectives to course offerings at St. Norbert College and its Donald J. Schneider School of Business & Economics.

As the Schneider School heads into its second academic year, its dean, Kevin Quinn, continues to grow a program that is already building upon the college’s established reputation for business education. New hiring opportunities bring the chance to expand course offerings while enabling the faculty to recruit more scholars who share the institution’s core values.

“We are very excited about our new colleagues,” says Quinn. “They represent a significant degree of new expertise and allow us to make an already-solid undergraduate and graduate business curriculum even better. We are especially proud of the fact that two of the four additions are women, who will be important role models. All four already have outstanding teaching and research records.”

Quinn credits the $7 million gift from Pat Schneider, wife of the late Schneider National CEO Donald Schneider ’57, with providing the impetus for creating the new school and expanding business education at St. Norbert.

“Without her generosity, we would not have been able offer an MBA program nor would we have been able to add so much to our undergraduate programs,” he says.

Four new faces, four new fields of research
Lucy Arendt (Business Administration/Management) is a local product whose scholarship focuses on individual, organizational and community decision-making relative to natural hazards and resilience.

“I’m looking forward to sharing my passion for, and expertise in, decision-making, strategic and creative thinking, and leadership with my students, colleagues, and the business community,” Arendt says. “I believe that both the Schneider School and SNC are well-positioned to serve as the community’s hub for business intelligence.”

Arendt majored in business administration and Spanish at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. She also earned her M.S. in administrative science from UWGB before earning her Ph.D. from UW-Milwaukee.

Elena Khapalova (Business Administration/Supply Chain Management) specializes in the supply-chain management end of the business continuum. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., Khapalova earned her MBA and Ph.D. from Washington State University.

Her research interests include time series analysis, with a focus on change-point analysis, quality control, simulation and queuing theory. She most recently taught undergraduate courses in business statistics and operations management at Washington State and at the University of Michigan-Flint.

Grant Rozeboom (Business Administration/Business Ethics) focuses his research on how the idea of respect for persons is borne out in important social practices. Rozeboom, who weaves both historical thought and contemporary issues into his work, says he’s excited to help students figure out how their moral commitments can really guide their professional lives in the sorts of situations that they’re likely to encounter in the business world: “The Schneider School, and St. Norbert College more generally, seems like a great place to do this, given its commitment to developing ethical business leaders – in part by connecting students with members of the local business community.”

Rozeboom majored in philosophy at the University of Northern Iowa and received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Stanford University. He has taught courses in ethics and philosophy at Stanford and at the University of San Francisco.

Todd Sarnstrom II (Economics) is returning to his home state as a visiting instructor at St. Norbert for the 2016-17 academic year. A graduate teaching assistant at Western Michigan University, where he will earn his doctorate in applied economics this year, Sarnstrom grew up in western Wisconsin and completed his undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.

“The students are what excite me most about coming to St. Norbert,” Sarnstrom says. “The interactions I had with them during my interview process showed me how passionate and serious they are about learning. I’m very much looking forward to the impressions we will leave on each other as I grow as an educator.”

Sarnstrom’s research focuses on determinants of foreign direct investment. He is especially interested in how financial constraints met by firms – such as collateral availability – affect their investment decisions.

“Being fresh out of grad school, what I’m looking forward to contributing most is attracting more students to the field of economics,” he says. “If I can sway perhaps just one of my students to consider majoring/minoring in economics, that would put a smile on my face. A professor did the exact same for me.”


Sept. 6, 2016