Dean College Announces New Deans for School of the Arts and Sanders School of Business

Dean College is pleased to announce the appointment of Bill Ingram, Ph.D., as the new dean for the Dean Sanders ’47 School of Business and Patsy Collins Bandes as the new dean for the School of the Arts.

Bill Ingram joins Dean from the University of North Texas Dallas, where he was on the faculty since 2016, most recently serving as the assistant dean for the School of Business. He brings 10 years of experience teaching business and hospitality operations at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as over 10 years of professional experience in hotel and restaurant management with Walt Disney World Resort, Loews Hostels and Sky Hotels and Resorts. Ingram holds a Ph.D. in hospitality management from the University of Central Florida and an MBA from the University of North Texas. He is also an alumnus of Texas Tech University, where he earned both a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in restaurant, hotel and institutional management.

As dean of the Sanders School of Business, Ingram will oversee programs in Athletic Coaching and Recreation Management, Business Management, Communications, Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice and Homeland Security, Marketing, Sport Management and Sports Broadcasting. He is tasked with building the baccalaureate culture and raising the bar for the College’s business programs to stay current with the ever-changing industry.

“My biggest focus is aligning our business programs with what the industry wants and needs, especially in areas of cross concentration, whether that be data analysis, accounting, artificial intelligence or business ethics,” Ingram explained. “I’m also here to create business partnerships locally, maximize the relationships we already have, like with Kraft Sports + Entertainment, and think globally so that our students have opportunities that lead to careers.”

Ingram is also heavily focused on building experiential learning into every area of the Sanders School of Business.

“I want our faculty to be as innovative as possible,” he said. “I want to be able to walk through downtown Franklin and see our students out there working, getting hands-on experience and getting outside of the traditional classroom. The courses they are taking should look very similar to the jobs they’ll be doing once they graduate, so they are prepared for a seamless transition to their careers or graduate work.”

Meanwhile, Patsy Collins Bandes comes to Dean after 18 years with the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. She first joined the Conservatory as the production stage manager in 2004, joined the theatre and dance faculty in 2006, and served as chair of the Conservatory's Theater Division from 2018 to 2022. As an arts administrator and academic leader with a diverse background in the management of theatre production, Collins Bandes has directed, produced and stage-managed productions for a number of companies, including the Boston Conservatory, North Shore Music Theatre, National Theatre Conservatory, Lizard Head Theatre Company, Intermezzo Chamber Opera, Prometheus Dance, Boston Children’s Chorus and Denver Center Theatre Company, which received a 1998 Tony Award for Excellence in Regional Theatre during her tenure. She holds a B.A. in theatre with an emphasis in directing from the University of Northern Colorado and a Master of Liberal Arts with a concentration in dramatic arts from Harvard University Extension School.

Collins Bandes will oversee the entire School of the Arts at Dean, which includes Bachelor of Arts degree programs in Arts and Entertainment Management, Performance, Production and Design, and Theatre Studies, as well as new Bachelor of Fine Arts degree programs in Acting and Musical Theatre. She aims to build on the school’s foundation of holistic education while increasing the visibility of Dean’s arts programs both locally and nationally, as well as building industry-leading inclusive and diverse curriculum and practices.

“In the first semester, my focus really is getting to know the students and the culture and learning what everybody feels like they love and what they feel could change,” Collins Bandes explained. “Another priority is how we can make our performances, our season and our curriculum culturally aware and as diverse and inclusive as possible and actively engage in anti-racist theatre work. Over the course of the year, we’ll be looking at what is working really well and how we can bring some change into our curriculum and productions.”

To accomplish this, Collins Bandes is taking a holistic approach – not only training students to be artists, but to be citizen artists.

“Every student is a unique human being that has something to offer the world,” she said. “I truly believe that the goal of art is to change the world. By training students to be citizen artists, they can each go out and do so. My responsibility as an arts educator and an arts leader is to help students be a better version of who they are, not strip them down and make them into cookie cutter artists. And what’s great about Dean is that the idea of training the whole student and using a holistic approach is already built into The Dean Difference. It is perfect synergy with my own personal philosophy of how we teach theatre and the arts.”