Media Relations
News Releases
For Release Upon Receipt - June 11, 2010
Contact:
Tom Testa, 617/353-2240, ttesta@bu.edu
CHRISTOPHER MULLER NAMED NEW DEAN OF BU'S SCHOOL OF HOSPITALITY ADMINISTRATION
(Boston) – Christopher Muller, a seasoned entrepreneur, fourth-generation restaurateur and decorated educator, today was named dean of Boston University’s School of Hospitality Administration (SHA) announced BU President Dr. Robert A. Brown.
“Chris will bring to the School of Hospitality Administration enormous professional and creative energy,” said Brown. “He will advance the quality of the school's undergraduate program, preparing our students for careers in industry, while supporting the quality of their broader education."
Muller will succeed Dean James Stamas in August when he assumes the helm of SHA, which each year prepares some 400 students – in the classroom and in the field – for management positions in hotels, food service, travel and tourism, and entertainment. As new dean, Muller will bring to the program a decidedly holistic approach – a mix of educational, entrepreneurial and philosophical.
“I do harbor a favoritism toward entrepreneurial activity,” said Muller. “I firmly believe that until someone opens a business nothing else happens. A good portion of hospitality education is creating a desire to own. When someone puts their name on the side of a building or takes that risk to establish themselves by adding value to the community, by taking resources from one place and putting them in another, that’s a really positive thing.”
In 1999, Muller helped found the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management, which serves 3,100 students. Before that, he taught at the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University. He won Hospitality Teacher of the Year five times while at Cornell, and was Rosen’s Teacher of the Year in 2001.
Among his many entrepreneurial ventures, Muller founded Za Bistro!, a full-service neighborhood café in Maitland, Fla. He also ran a popular blog, Starters, for the trade publication, Restaurant & Institutions Magazine. Each year, he moderates the European Food Service Summit, Europe’s leading conference for international restaurant, supply, and food service executives, a forum he helped launch ten years ago.
Muller earned a B.A. in political science from Hobart College in 1974 and a master’s, in 1985, and a Ph.D., in 1992, in hospitality management, both from Cornell University.
Founded in 1839, Boston University is an internationally private research university with more than 30,000 students participating in undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs. BU consists of 17 colleges and schools along with a number of multi-disciplinary centers and institutes which are central to the school's research and teaching mission.
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