Patricia Grant Named Undergraduate Program Dean

Patricia Grant has been named Senior Associate Dean for the Undergraduate Program. Grant has been serving in an interim capacity for the past year.

As Senior Associate Dean, Grant will provide the leadership, vision, and strategy for the Undergraduate Program. She will oversee the entire undergraduate business unit, providing creative and effective leadership across several important dimensions, including admissions, curricular development, student advising and mentoring, career counseling, and academic standards for over 1,300 students. She will collaborate across the university and interact with parents, ​alumni, ​donors, and other external groups in support of the McDonough mission.

Grant joined the McDonough School of Business in 2010 with more than 15 years of experience in undergraduate, graduate, and executive education program administration. Over the last seven years, she has demonstrated a passion for student success and creating meaningful student experiences.

During her tenure as Interim Senior Associate Dean, Grant revamped the undergraduate advising structure in the spirit of cura personalis to bolster the advisor-student relationship. Through the Office of Professional Development, the program expanded career trek opportunities in multiple industries and geographic locations. Additionally, she laid the groundwork for an advisory group that includes Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) alumni and launched Know Before You Go, an innovative program aimed at successfully transitioning seniors into their alumni status through seminars and dynamic media. As a champion of the integration of Jesuit values into the undergraduate program, Grant also led the innovation working group focused on this goal for the entire school.

In her previous roles as Associate Dean and Senior Assistant Dean, Grant contributed to many innovations within the undergraduate curriculum, including the Entrepreneurship Fellows Program and the First Year Seminar Program. She was instrumental to the creation of two diversity and inclusion initiatives: Smart Start, a corporate partnership with PwC that equips underrepresented minority students with the tools for academic, personal, and professional success; and Business Undergraduates Invested in Leadership and Development (BUILD), an intensive academic and leadership development opportunity that integrates a diverse pool of business students into the community — academically, professionally, and socially.

Since 2003, Grant has taught a variety of courses for undergraduate and graduate students in the areas of organizational change, case studies in higher education management, research methods, and diversity and inclusion at the University of Pennsylvania, the College of New Jersey, Temple University, and Georgetown. Additionally, she has worked in the Office of Executive Education at Penn to help develop and launch six master’s and doctoral programs in partnership with the Wharton School and Graduate School of Education.

Grant has presented on diversity and inclusion, student access and success, and change management at a variety of institutions and conferences including the National Undergraduate Business Symposium (NUBS), the U.S. Department of State, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, and the Association for the Study of Higher Education. She holds an Ed.D. and M.S.Ed. from the University of Pennsylvania and an A.B. from Cornell University.