Albert W. Niemi

Bio

Dr. Niemi holds the O’Neil Chair in Global Markets and Freedom.  His areas of expertise are economic growth, economic forecasting, and American business history.  Dr. Niemi graduated cum laude from Stonehill College with an AB degree in economics.  He earned the PhD and MA degrees in economics from the University of Connecticut.  Before coming to SMU as Dean, Dr. Niemi served as dean of the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia from 1982-1996.

Dr. Niemi is an active teacher and scholar.  He has taught more than 15,000 students and consistently has been recognized for distinguished teaching.  Dr. Niemi has written six books and more than 200 articles for leading academic journals and business periodicals.

Upon arriving at the Cox School of Business as Dean, Dr. Niemi increased the school’s national and international visibility.  Cox’s BBA, MBA, Professional MBA, and Executive MBA programs are ranked among the best in the world by Business Week, Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, Financial Times, and The Economist.  Dr. Niemi is an effective fund-raiser, who during his tenure as Dean increased the Cox school’s endowment from $68 million to more than $225 million.  New endowment funds created ten new endowed faculty positions, seven new endowed centers and institutes, and more than 100 new endowed scholarships.  In addition, he raised $22 million to support the construction of the James M. Collins Executive Education Center.

Dr. Niemi is active in the business community and speaks to numerous civic and business groups across the nation.  He served as economics editor and wrote a monthly column for Georgia Trend magazine from 1985 to 1996.  In 1992, he was named the best regular feature writer in the nation by the Association of Area Business Publications.  He serves on the Associated Press’ Board of Economists and is a member of the George W. Bush Presidential Center’s Economic Growth Advisory Board.

Dr. Niemi is involved in the community and serves on the executive committee and board of directors of the World Affairs Council of Dallas, the International Advisory Council of the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce, the Advisory Council of The Catholic Foundation, and the President’s Council of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts.

Dr. Niemi has worked extensively in business school and university accreditation.  He has chaired or served as a member on accreditation review teams to more than twenty universities including Boston College, Dartmouth, Emory, Washington University, DePaul, Vanderbilt, Claremont, William and Mary, North Carolina, South Carolina, Wake Forest, Florida, Texas, Colorado, Syracuse, Monterrey Tech (Mexico), INCAE (Costa Rica), University of Monterrey (Mexico), and the Autonomous Technological University of Mexico and IESA (Venezuela).  He recently completed terms on the board of governors of the American Association of University Administrators and Beta Gamma Sigma.

Dr. Niemi and his wife Maria have two grown children, Albert III and Edward Charles.

Teaching