Dean of Michael Neidorff School of Business Announces Retirement

Bob Scherer, Ph.D., dean of the Michael Neidorff School of Business, has announced his retirement from Trinity University. He plans to retire in May 2025, at the end of his eighth year at Trinity as the dean of the Neidorff School of Business (NSB). 

As dean of the NSB, Scherer’s leadership has been transformative, and he has fostered a model of business education that embraces the liberal arts. He guided the Neidorff School of Business through two successful AACSB reaffirmations, built an engaged advisory board, and grew and strengthened the School’s faculty and curricula. Scherer also helped to make possible the gift from alumnus Michael K. Neidorff ’65 and the Neidorff Family Trust that will sustain the School’s incredible faculty, students, and programs for generations to come. 

“Dean Scherer has built a truly remarkable team of faculty and staff and has led the Neidorff School of Business in becoming a place where high standards for innovative teaching and research are woven throughout a welcoming and supportive community,” says Megan Mustain, Ph.D., Trinity University provost. “I join many in deep appreciation for all he’s done to ensure that Trinity graduates are prepared and highly sought-after leaders.”

Throughout his 30-year career in higher education, Scherer has served as a professor of management and as an academic administrator in both private liberal arts universities and comprehensive public universities.  In addition to serving as a dean of NSB, Scherer has taught courses on human resource management consultation and strategic management, served as a Mellon Institute Mentor, and guided many independent studies.

Scherer’s portfolio includes more than 200 intellectual contributions, and his journal articles have appeared in Academy of Management Executive, Journal of World Business, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of Business Ethics, Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of International Management, International Business Review, and Journal of Management Education among others. He has served on a number of editorial boards of academic journals over the years, including more than ten years as an executive editor for the Journal of Social Psychology.  

Over the years, Bob has received more than $6 million dollars in federal, local, and state grant funding for a variety of academic and outreach programming, including funding for interdisciplinary collaborative programs with liberal arts faculty colleagues to develop undergraduate and graduate programs. He served as part of the teams or individually in raising funds to name three additional business schools (Raj Soin College of Business, Wright State University; Monte Ahuja College of Business, Cleveland State University; Satish and Yazmin Gupta College of Business, University of Dallas).

Throughout his career, Scherer has also been a prevalent figure in international business education. In addition to receiving three Fulbright scholarships for his work in Chile, he has helped develop undergraduate, master, and doctoral degree programs in global business in the U.S. and abroad and directed graduate business programs in Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. He spent two summers in Spain delivering workshops for Trinity students in the Trinity Madrid Summer Program.

Scherer has served as a volunteer for AACSB International in a variety of assignments in the U.S., Europe, North and South America, and the Asia-Pacific and Gulf regions. He also facilitated the new deans seminar for AACSB. His book, A Field Guide to Internationalizing Business Education was published in two editions.

Scherer’s professional outreach activities have included service on fifteen nonprofit boards and consultation to over fifty public, private, and nonprofit institutions on organizational development and strategic management.

Scherer is a recipient of the John Otis Lifetime Achievement Award from the North American Small Business International Trade Educators and the President’s E-Award from the U.S. Department of Commerce. 

"My only regret is that I was not able to be a part of the Trinity University community earlier in my career. A wonderful place to study, learn, and develop one's personal and professional lives,” Scherer says. 

Trinity will conduct a national search to identify the University’s next dean of the Neidorff School of Business for Summer 2025.