President, John Carroll University
Alan Miciak became the 26th president of John Carroll University on June 1, 2021. Prior to this appointment, Miciak led the John M. and Mary Jo Boler College of Business at John Carroll University as Dean, beginning in July 2015. Under Miciak’s leadership, the Boler College of Business developed new programs and facilities across its schools and departments, and secured three significant naming gifts as part of its successful $25 million Inspired Lives capital campaign.
With an intensive effort on student success and enhanced engagement with regional employers, Miciak drove curricular and co-curricular innovations that gained national recognition. Bloomberg BusinessWeek 2016-17 Business School Rankings ranked Boler 30th overall.
Miciak also emphasized expanded collaboration with John Carroll’s College of Arts and Sciences. Initiatives included interdisciplinary Entrepreneurship collaborations in STEM and Social Innovation, the Leadership minor, and the expansion of 5th year pathways to the MBA program.
Under Miciak’s leadership, the Boler College of Business maintained its accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International. AACSB Accreditation is the hallmark of excellence in business education. Additionally, Boler retained dual AACSB accreditation in business and accounting, a distinction earned by only 5 percent of institutions in the United States.
Miciak began his academic career as Assistant Professor Marketing at the University of Calgary (July 1993–July 2002). He led a program staff including 20 faculty and five professional staff and oversaw all aspects of program management as Director of the Haskayne-Alberta Executive MBA Program (1999-2002), including curriculum design and delivery, marketing and promotion, and student service delivery. A joint initiative between the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta, both AACSB accredited schools, the Haskayne-Alberta Executive MBA Program achieved enrollment growth of 25 percent over the three-year term and groundwork was laid for the inclusion of the EMBA program in the Financial Times rankings.
Miciak then went on to serve as Dean of the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Under his leadership, the Sobey School of Business gained initial AACSB accreditation and established three externally funded ($4.5 million-plus) chairs: the David Sobey Chair in Business Leadership, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce “CIBC Chair in Entrepreneurship,” and the Canada Research Chair in Human Resource Management. He established the Centre for Leadership Excellence and the Centre for Work and Spirituality. The school also launched new graduate programs, including an International Master of Finance Program and the MBA-CMA in partnership with the Certified Management Accounting professional society.
In his next role, Miciak served as Chief Academic and Administrative Officer of the A.J. Palumbo School of Business Administration and the John F. Donahue Graduate School of Business at Duquesne University. There, Miciak expanded collaboration with Duquesne’s professional schools, and led several initiatives including Arts Entrepreneurship with the School of Music, a Health Care Supply Chain Management major with the School of Pharmacy, a Certificate in Business with the College of Liberal Arts, a Health Management Systems major with Health Science, Business Technology with the School of Education, and enhanced joint MBA degrees with Nursing, Environmental Science, and Law. Under Miciak’s leadership, the school also increased international enrollments through recruiting and development of academic partnerships in China, France, Germany, Japan, and India.
Miciak’s experience teaching and travelling in the natural environments of the Canadian Rockies and Nova Scotia informed his early interest in sustainable business development and the need to balance energy use and natural resource extraction with environmentally sustainable economic practices. He applied those insights to the creation of the Donahue Sustainable MBA program, ranked in the global top 20 MBA programs by The Aspen Institute’s Beyond Gray Pinstripes (2007-2012) for its emphasis on social and environmental issues. For his efforts to advance ethics education and introduce an MBA-Sustainability program, Treasury and Risk Magazine recognized Miciak as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Finance (Governance) for 2008.
Miciak assisted Duquesne’s global Spiritan service operations in Ghana and Tanzania, advising faculty and administrators from peer institutions and working with academic publishers (McGraw Hill and Pearson) to provide $600,000 in textbooks to establish libraries at schools administered by the Holy Ghost Fathers and other private and public institutions.
Miciak was born and raised in Northeast Ohio. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Kent State University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Toledo, Miciak earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Marketing and International Business from Kent State University.
He and his wife Ann have been married 35 years. They have a daughter, Emma.