Dean Manohar Singh

Welcome to Southern’s School of Graduate and Professional Studies.

Graduate school is a microcosm of dynamic and complex, yet harmonious, interactions between scholars, teachers, students, and staff colleagues; all work in unison to enable, empower, serve, and lead with the goal of making tomorrow’s world better than today’s.

Our mission is to serve humanity by enabling you to learn about the issues that matter to you and to the world around us, gain meaningful knowledge and diverse perspectives, develop an ability to make decisions towards the betterment of humankind, and take advantage of opportunities to lead a life of fulfillment, with self-esteem.

We commit to providing you with an academic and professional environment that nurtures creativity, entrepreneurship, compassion, and a desire to learn and serve. We are intentional in keeping a sharp focus on affordability, accessibility, inclusivity, and community engagement as defining characteristics of the education we offer. We celebrate diversity and aspire to be a model institution of higher education, where people from all walks of life feel welcome, respected, valued, and empowered to make a meaningful impact. We are proud to be able to prepare some of the best school teachers, health professionals, entrepreneurs, social workers, and scholars in becoming pioneers in their respective fields. However, over and above the focus on preparing you for success in your professional career, our true dedication lies in creating a positive and encouraging environment for every student to thrive and grow in a holistic manner.

We offer an education that encapsulates the latest developments in field specific knowledge and provides current social, economic, and political perspectives, in order to enable our students to craft solutions to the complex challenges that face our global community. We train our students in rigorous analytical problem solving techniques that combine the development of critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, and interpersonal communication skills.

While our faculty expertise matches that of any world class institution, our passion surpasses all. Our professional staff has an extraordinary dedication and commitment to promoting student success. Our alumni, as successful professionals and thought leaders, make us proud and keep us motivated and inspired to continue to be our best, and to make our best even better each day.

Our students are very conscientious learners with an unfaltering focus on making meaningful community contributions, undertaking intricate scientific discoveries, and creating captivating art. As one of the largest graduate programs within the state of Connecticut, we offer 56 Master’s programs, 4 Professional Doctoral programs, and 31 Post-Graduate programs spanning across many academic fields. With state of the art facilities, renowned faculty, dedicated staff colleagues, and our body of diverse, driven, hard-working, and brilliant students, the School of Graduate and Professional Studies offers a multitude of opportunities for individuals to realize their aspirations and shape the future.

We invite you to explore our graduate and professional programs and welcome an opportunity to support you in taking the next step towards advancing your education and professional careers.

With warm regards,
Manohar

Manohar Singh, Ph.D.
Dean
singhm6@southernct.edu
(203) 392-5234

On March 1, 2019, Dr. Manohar Singh joined Southern as the Dean of the School of Graduate and Professional Studies. Dean Singh brings to Southern a proven track record in enhancing academic opportunities for students with diverse backgrounds, launching new and innovative programs, fundraising and community outreach, practicing sound fiscal management, collaboratively managing interdisciplinary programs to build enrollments and improve graduation and retention rates, and developing and assessing the curriculum. He comes to Southern from Humboldt State University, the northern most campus of the California State University system, where he served as the Dean of the College of Professional Studies. As Dean of the multidisciplinary College of Professional Studies, Singh led two schools –School of Business and School of Education– and six departments, namely Leadership Studies, Economics, Social Work, Child Development, Psychology, and Kinesiology and Recreation Administration. Prior to Humboldt State, Singh served as the Division Head of the Division of Social Sciences and Business at Penn State – Abington. Previously, Dr. Singh has also served as the Interim Chair of the Department of Finance at Long Island University in New York. His non-academic professional career includes serving as a senior executive with the Government of India as a member of the Indian Civil Services. His academic experience includes serving on the faculties of the University of New Hampshire, Long Island University, the University of Nevada – Reno, Willamette University, and the University of New South Wales – Sydney, Australia.

Dr. Singh enjoys engaging in multidisciplinary scholarly research. With research interests ranging from finance, macroeconomics, and management strategy to corporate social responsibility and gender equity in corporate America, Dr. Singh has published over 40 manuscripts appearing in the leading peer-reviewed journals in finance, marketing, and economics. Several of his published manuscripts have been ranked multiple times by Elsevier Science Publishing to be among the top 25 papers. He is recipient of the College of Business Researcher of the Year Award presented by the University of Nevada – Reno. One of his co-authored papers has also been awarded the Academy of Finance Distinguished Paper award. Outside of the university institutions, Dr. Singh is actively engaged in the academic community by delivering keynote addresses, presenting and discussing papers, and chairing academic sessions at national and international conferences. He also serves on the editorial boards of two academic journals, namely, the Review of Financial Economics and the Afro-Asian Journal of Finance and Accounting.

As a teacher, Dr. Singh has designed and delivered a wide variety of graduate, honors, and undergraduate traditional and case-based courses in all major areas of finance, management strategy, and applied economics. Having designed study abroad courses and having taught abroad in India, Australia, and Singapore, Dr. Singh imparts a global perspective to students’ learning experience. Dr. Singh has been honored with the Teaching Excellence Award at the Penn State Great Valley School of Graduate Professional Studies.

Dr. Singh received a bachelor’s degree in Economics (Honors) from Punjab University – India, and a master’s degree in Economics from the University of Waterloo – Ontario, Canada, before completing a doctorate in Finance at Southern Illinois University – Carbondale. Dr. Singh enjoys playing golf and spending time with his wife of 26 years, their son and daughter, and their Goldendoodle named Cooper.