SFU Business names Leyland Pitt to Dennis F. Culver EMBA Alumni Professorship

Leyland Pitt, Professor of Marketing in the Faculty of Business Administration at Simon Fraser University, has been appointed as the Dennis F. Culver EMBA Alumni Professor. Dennis Culver, who passed away on February 7, 2010, graduated from the first class of Executive MBAs at SFU, where he forged an enduring relationship with the institution. The EMBA alumni endowment – a fund Culver helped establish – created the EMBA professorship for which he is named.

“Leyland Pitt is richly deserving of this honour,” said Daniel Shapiro, Dean of SFU Business. “He is a great scholar and a great teacher, and has been associated with the EMBA program for many years.”

Pitt is a prolific researcher whose work has been published by leading academic journals, including The Journal of Advertising Research, The Journal of Advertising, Information Systems Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Sloan Management Review and MIS Quarterly. In 2000, he was the recipient of the American Marketing Association’s Tamer Cavusgil Award for best article in the Journal of International Marketing.

He has won many awards for teaching excellence, including the Dean’s Teaching Honour Roll at SFU Business; MBA Teacher of the Year at Copenhagen Business School; and Best Professor of Program, Joint Executive MBA, University of Vienna and University of Minnesota. This past May, he received the 2010 Pearson Prentice Hall Solomon-Marshall-Stuart Award for Innovative Excellence in Marketing Education, given annually by the American Marketing Association.

The Executive MBA program at SFU Business – the first of its kind in Canada – was established by Simon Fraser University for working professionals in 1968. Since then, more than 1500 executives have risen to leadership positions across a range of sectors in organizations locally, nationally and internationally.

About Dennis Culver, 1923 – 2010

Over the decades, Dennis Culver was a trailblazing graduate business student at Simon Fraser University; a committed and engaged alumnus; and a good friend to SFU Business. Born in Okanagan Falls, British Columbia, and raised in Victoria and Vancouver, he created his chartered accountancy practice, Culver & Co., in 1954, and went on to serve as president to both the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of BC – receiving a lifetime achievement award from the latter.

Passionate about the value of higher education, Dennis graduated from the first class of Executive MBAs at Simon Fraser University. “Since that memorable beginning in 1968,” he wrote, “I have been proud to be associated with Simon Fraser University over many decades in a number of different capacities, and have had the joy of watching three of my children receive their own degrees from this remarkable university.”

Over the years, Culver was a consistent supporter of the school. He was instrumental in the success of the EMBA Alumni Association, and he chaired the committee overseeing the EMBA alumni endowment – a fund he helped establish.

The endowment is used to this day for scholarships for EMBA students. It is also used for what is now known as the Dennis F. Culver EMBA Alumni Professorship. In recognition of his contributions to the university, SFU also conferred upon him an honorary law degree.

As the first recipient of the Dennis Culver EMBA Alumni Chair, SFU Business Dean Daniel Shapiro has particularly fond memories of Dennis Culver. “Dennis was a gentleman in the truest sense of the word,” he said. “I have always tried to live up to his standards of excellence and commitment, and I am proud that his name will always be associated with SFU Business.”