Toasting Ann Harrison’s lasting impact
In July, Ann Harrison stepped down from her duties as dean to continue her economics
research, join the Council of Foreign Relations, and rejoin her family in New York. She’ll continue to be a half-time tenured faculty member.
Since becoming dean in January 2019, Harrison has elevated and advanced Haas across the board, especially in three areas she identified as priorities: sustainability, inclusion, and innovation. She hired Haas’ first chief sustainability officer and first chief DEI officer. The new Entrepreneurship Hub, located near Haas and opening this fall, will serve as a testament to her commitment to enhance entrepreneurship and innovation at Haas and campuswide.
She led the school through the pandemic, quickly investing in state-of-the-art virtual classrooms to make remote learning the best experience it could possibly be—something no other top business school nationwide did in its degree programs. This led to the popular Flex cohort in the Evening and Weekend MBA Program.
Poets&Quants, when naming her Dean of the Year in 2023, called her tenure an “unimaginable and nearly breathtaking record of achievement.”
Harrison also stepped up fundraising, bringing in donations that will transform the lives of Haas students now and in the future. Not to mention her own generosity. She named Chou Hall’s Jose P. Madrigal Classroom in honor of her husband’s late father and she and her husband, Vicente, are being honored as Builders of Berkeley this fall. “Being Dean of the Year is a cool honor,” she told a gathering of donors in the spring, “but this moment will mean even more to my family and me.”
Here are some Haas voices on the ways Harrison’s top priorities have changed their lives.