SUNY Canton’s Newest Dean Brings Leadership Strategies to the School of Business and Liberal Arts

SUNY Canton Provost Peggy A. De Cooke recently announced the college has hired a new dean for the School of Business and Liberal Arts.

“Please join me in welcoming Dr. Kenneth S. Rhee to SUNY Canton and the greater North Country community,” De Cooke said. “Dr. Rhee's unique approach to leadership combined with his extensive experience with emotional intelligence and self-directed change will benefit our students, faculty and administration.”

Rhee specializes in helping leaders emerge and develop through competency assessments, focusing on the skills needed to become more effective within their positions. Organizationally, a business can use the assessments to identify strengths and areas needing improvement or additional resources.

“Competency assessments allow individuals to figure out their strengths and help them become better suited for leadership roles,” Rhee said. “During the process of becoming a better leader they often find they become a better person.”

With over 30 years of experience, Dr. Rhee has worked with Fortune 500 companies, non-profits, and government institutions on competency assessment and development. His clients have included Coca-Cola, NASA, and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, among others. He has also provided coaching and delivered programs on emotional competency development to organizations including Toyota and Sea World Entertainment.

The new dean cited the late Steve Jobs when explaining why he opted to work at SUNY Canton. In a famous interview, Jobs said technology alone was not enough to sustain Apple, Inc., that the intersection of technology and liberal arts, coupled with humanities, will yield the best success.

“One of the reasons I decided to come here is that this school is a combination of business and liberal arts,” Rhee said. “One of the things that business could do more of is integrating the liberal arts into students’ education. Humanities and social science students can benefit from more leadership skills to help them become marketable in their future careers.”

Previously, Rhee has held numerous roles in academic administration, including dean and professor of Management at the Girard School of Business at Merrimack College, dean of the school of business and leadership at Nazareth College, and associate dean at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. He directed executive leadership programs at Northern Kentucky University and chaired the assessment program at Case Western Reserve University. Additionally, he served as an adjunct professor in Budapest, Hungary.

Rhee has presented at numerous conferences and authored several articles on emotional intelligence and self-directed change. His notable works include collaborations with Richard Boyatzis and Daniel Goleman, and he has published in various academic journals. He holds a bachelor’s in Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University, a master of science in Chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, an MBA from Boston University, and a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University.

“I look forward to collaborating with everyone to make SUNY Canton more innovative and achieve greater success in the future,” Rhee said.

The new dean is replacing Kirk K. Jones, Ph.D., who will be resuming his position as associate professor and director of assessment. Jones was appointed interim dean following Philip T. Neisser, Ph.D., who left the position to serve as officer in charge at SUNY Potsdam.