After more than two decades of leading the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa's Shidler College of Business, Dean Vance Roley plans to step down from the leadership position next summer.
Since 2005, Roley — also the First Hawaiian Bank Distinguished Professor of Leadership and Management — has lead the Shidler College of Business through serious growth.
Aloha State Daily recently spoke with Roley about his career, how he got to Hawai‘i, the work he's done and what'll come after he transitions from his role as dean.
Roley — who was born in California but grew up in Vancouver, Washington — studied statistics and economics as an undergrad at the University of California, Berkeley, and received a master's degree and doctorate in economics from Harvard University.
His first major was actually engineering — Roley says he was good at math and his father was an electrical engineer — and he did well in that course of study, "but I just didn't like it."
He was also a math major, briefly, but he found statistics, which he loved.
Then he took an economics course. Roley loved that, too.
"In the fifth grade, I started investing in stocks," he says, noting that his grandfather was an investor who read the Wall Street Journal every day. "I like the stock market and I was really interested in interest rates and Federal Reserve policy and all of that. The merger of statistics and economics was just a natural [fit]. I studied a field in economics that was pretty heavily statistics-based, so it was a really great fit for me."
Prior to his work in academia, Roley worked for the Federal Reserve for five years and also worked for the President's Council of Economic Advisers. That's where he first met former UH President David McClain, both of whom were senior staff economists.
Roley went on to spend more than 21 years at the University of Washington, where he was a professor of finance, associate dean and, lastly, acting dean.
His mentor at Washington had encouraged him to apply for jobs as dean, but there were only three places Roley says he was willing to go.
"I said, 'I'll stay in Seattle, any place on the California coast or Hawai‘i. Those are the only places I'm willing to move," Roley recalled. "This opportunity came up in Hawai‘i and it was at a time when the whole global economy was shifting toward Asia. ... The University of Hawai‘i, the College of Business Administration at the time here, was already really focused on international business and very Asia-focused. I thought the business school here was well-positioned just to take off, so I thought it was a great opportunity."
Roley says McClain, who was president at the time he joined the university, stayed out of the recruiting process, but "I was reassured that he was president because I had a lot of confidence in him."
The university also had a "string of very good deans here" starting in the 1970s.
"This was already a successful school and that's why I thought it had potential, but what we needed to do was to get more support for our students and faculty," Roley told ASD. "If we wanted to take it to the next level, we really needed more faculty support and student support."
Lasting impacts and legacy
One of the most notable achievements during Roley's tenure, perhaps, is the partnership with alumnus Jay Shidler — namesake of the business school — whose gifts to the college total an approximate $238 million in cash and real estate ground leases, the university noted in a recent announcement. The university says that funding has helped grow faculty endowments, increase scholarships, enhance student services and support strategic programs at the college.
Shilder, he says, "has been an absolutely fantastic partner."
During Roley's time as dean, the School of Travel Industry Management also reintegrated with the College of Business, bringing more than $1.5 million in new scholarship and six faculty endowments; the Water Dods, Jr. RISE Center — an innovation hub and dormitory managed by Shidler's Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship — opened in 2023; and there have been capital improvements made across campus, among other milestones.
When Roley took his role, there were six faculty endowments and now there are 43.
The median endowment is probably $500,000, he says, explaining that it sits in an endowment pool and 4% is paid out to the professor awarded the endowment. The rest of the return goes back into the endowment and it grows over time.
"That allows us to recruit and retain the best faculty that we can. We've recruited some really great faculty," Roley says. "I think that is a major and lasting accomplishment because they're endowments. They're not going to go away when I transition. They're going to be there forever. It's a great investment in the college and really, it's going to help ensure that the future is bright."
At the same time, the school has stepped up scholarship support for students through endowed scholarships, he says, " and now we are able to award about $1 million in scholarships each year to students."
Roley says that enrollment at Shidler is "growing — pretty significantly" in contrast to most business schools on the Mainland. The number of students recruited from the Islands have remained pretty constant, he says. Instead, growth is coming from out-of-state students, a large portion of whom hail from California.
But as far as what he hopes people remember about him, or what he hopes his legacy is, Roley takes a deep breath and pauses before he answers.
"It may seem odd, I really don't care if people remember me, frankly. I just want to be able to look in the mirror and say I've done a good job," he says. "I know those faculty endowments are going to be there forever. I know those scholarship endowments are going to be there forever. I just take comfort in that. Really, my whole focus this next year ... is just to get the place in as best possible shape I can to hand off to my successor. So if I'm gone and forgotten, that's fine by me. If I can walk down the street and nobody knows who I am, that's great."
Search for a replacement
Roley says he had originally anticipated to stay an even 20 years, but it will be 21.5 years when he leaves.
"I planned 20 years, but then [former UH President] David Lassner scooped my transition plan, so I waited another year because I thought it would hurt the dean search if we didn't have the president search resolved," he explained. "I think we needed the president in place to have a successful dean search. My whole goal is to make the transition really successful."
(ICYMI: Wendy Hensel stepped into the president role on Jan. 1).
Roley's target date for this transition is July 31, 2026, but says he's intent on not having an interim dean.
He's confident that search efforts will be successful "but for some reason its not, I will stay a reasonable amount of time until a permanent dean is found."
According to the university, a search committee to find Roley's replacement has already been formed and it's anticipated that the job will be posted in September. College of Engineering Dean Brennon Morioka will chair the search and Isaacson, Miller is the search firm.
As for advice he'd give to his successor, Roley says this:
"Our success has been through engagement with our alumni and the business community here. I would say get engaged quickly with alums and the business community. They're huge supporters of the business school."
What comes next
After his transition from dean, Roley will return to the classroom.
"I was a professor in the classroom for 20 years, doing research and teaching.That was a very nice part of my life and I think it's a nice way to kind of end my career. I'm very excited thinking about financial markets, stock market, teaching students [and] helping them with their careers. I'm really excited about getting back into that after all these years."
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Stephanie Salmons can be reached at stephanie@alohastatedaily.com.
