Purdue University's
School of Management
Spring 2022:
Issue 23, Vol. 1

Fond Farewell - Charlene Sullivan celebrates her Krannert career

Getting to the bottom line has always been the goal for Charlene Sullivan, who throughout her 44-year career as a finance professor at Krannert has taken a common sense, applied approach to business that has proven successful both in and out of the classroom.

Sullivan, who came to Purdue with her husband in 1971 following their undergraduate years at the University of Kentucky, arrived at the Krannert School as a student before joining the faculty in 1978. She will retire at the end of the 2021-22 academic year.

Charlene Sullivan

“I had a job on campus in what was then called the educational placement office, where I learned about Krannert’s new Master of Science in Management (MSM) degree program,” she says. “Unlike the master’s program in industrial administration (MSIA), it was designed for people who didn’t necessarily have a background in engineering or science. I finished the program in about 15 months, then stayed on to get my PhD. 

“There were females who led the Management Communications Systems course, but I cannot recall having a single female faculty member in the MSM program. When I finished the MSM program, one of my finance professors suggested that I consider going for a PhD in finance. David Kidwell said that there was a great need for women with PhDs in finance and accounting.”

It was during her doctoral studies that Sullivan’s passion for academia began to bloom.

“I got the opportunity to teach and really fell in love with the students,” she says. “I figured out that everyone needed to understand the principles of finance, regardless of what they thought they were going to be when they grew up. I had a lot of enthusiasm for what I was teaching and tried to light the same fire in the students.”

In 1977, she won an award for her teaching as a graduate instructor for MGMT 310, Introduction to Financial Management. “I still get emails from students who report that surviving MGMT 310 was one of the greatest accomplishments of their academic lives and one of the most valuable, as they use those principles daily or still have the textbook,” she says.

Sullivan is the recipient of numerous teaching awards, including the Murphy Award, Purdue’s highest undergraduate teaching honor. She has twice been recognized with Krannert’s Salgo-Noren Award for teaching excellence and is a longtime member of the Teaching Academy.

Sullivan’s first faculty appointment at the School of Management was as a research associate in the Credit Research Center (CRC), which at the time was the only research center based in an academic setting that focused on consumer and mortgage credit. Her early mentor was longtime Krannert professor Robert Johnson, who served as CRC’s founding director.

“The research we were doing was unique; it was unbiased academic research that was used to craft public policy,” she says. “We testified on it before state and federal legislative bodies. We presented it to managers of financial institutions. We were called on frequently to explain our work to the media and to lawyers. The first quote I ever had in the Wall Street Journal related to a column about developments in consumer credit markets. My service on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago from 1990 to 1996 resulted from the knowledge that we had in CRC about consumer credit and its deregulation.”

Sullivan continued to take an applied approach both in her teaching and her engagement work across campus and the state, particularly through activities associated with Purdue’s Technical Assistance Program, which provides businesses in Indiana with free consulting services and Krannert graduate and undergraduate students with opportunities to address real-world business problems.

As a member of the University Senate since early in career, Sullivan has also developed a unique perspective of how Krannert fits into Purdue’s larger vision.

“Purdue is very college- and school-focused, so getting faculty involved in the governance at the University level can be challenging,” she says. “Participating in discussions about such issues as student success and retention at the Senate level gave me an understanding of the importance of merging the interests of the individual schools and colleges with those of the University as a whole.” 

As the chairperson of the senate during the presidency of Dr. Steven Beering, Sullivan had the opportunity to co-chair the committee for developing an academic strategic plan for the University. For that service, she received the Order of the Griffin in 1996.

In 2011, Sullivan was named associate dean of undergraduate programs at Krannert. During her time in this role, the school redesigned its portfolio of undergraduate majors and launched both the Larsen Leaders Academy and the Brock-Wilson Center for Women in Management. In recognition of her service, Krannert created the Dr. Charlene Sullivan Transformative Impact Award for faculty, staff, and students in 2021.

“Some of my fondest memories have been hearing from Krannert alumni who still remember taking one of my classes,” she says. “I have a sense of gratitude for having had the opportunity to impact the lives of so many students who learned to love and appreciate the magic of corporate finance.”

Written by Eric Nelson

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