Dean and Professor Receive Endowed Faculty Roles

Sport Management Chair and Professor Janet Fink has received an endowed professorship, and Dean Anne Massey has been honored with an endowed chair.

Janet Fink, professor and chair of Isenberg’s Mark H. McCormack Department of Sport Management, is the new Douglas and Diana Berthiaume Endowed Professor. Fink has chaired McCormack since 2015. She joined Isenberg in 2012 and earned full professor status a year later. She is a widely published researcher in the fields of consumer behavior in sports, marketing of female athletes and other women in sports, and diversity issues in sports. She teaches courses in sport and consumer marketing and sports law.

Fink’s research articles have appeared in Sport Management Review, Sport Marketing Quarterly, Journal of Sport Management, and many other refereed publications. Her wide-ranging research has shed light on images and product endorsements of elite female athletes, sexist behavior in sports, and many other concerns.

In 2015, UMass Amherst honored Fink with a prestigious Faculty Convocation Award. During the same year, the North American Society of Sport Management presented her with its most prestigious honor, the Earl F. Zeigler Award. 

Before joining Isenberg, Fink was a professor and associate professor at the University of Connecticut from 2007 to 2012. Before that, she was an associate and assistant professor for eight years at Ohio State University and for two years at the University of Texas Austin. Fink’s PhD in Sport Management is from Ohio State. Her MS degree in Higher Education and Student Affairs and her BA are also from Ohio State.

The professorship is one of two faculty positions endowed by Douglas ‘71 and Diana Berthiaume. The Berthiaumes’ 2014 $10 million dollar gift energized entrepreneurship on the UMass Amherst campus through the creation of the Isenberg-based Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship.

Isenberg’s Dean, Anne P. Massey, has been appointed to the Thomas O’Brien Chair. Massey, who became the school’s dean in August, is internationally renowned for her teaching and research in information systems. She joined Isenberg from the University of Wisconsin’s School of Business, where she was a professor and Ruth L. Nelson Chair of Business. While there, she catalyzed development of a new MS degree in Design + Innovation, involving the schools of business, human ecology, and engineering.

Massey’s identification with cross-disciplinary programs began at the University of Indiana’s Kelley School of Business. During her 22 years at Kelley, she excelled as co-chair of the Intelligent Systems Engineering Program and led an initiative to implement an interdisciplinary engineering degree for undergraduates. Also at Indiana, Massey—who is Isenberg’s first female dean—was co-founder of the Center of Excellence for Women in Technology, an interdisciplinary initiative that promotes the advancement of women in technology. And she was executive director for the Information Management Affiliates, an industry-university cooperative involving more than 20 businesses and nonprofits. 

Massey’s primary research focuses on innovation processes and strategies and the role of technology as an enabler of collaborative work. Her research has garnered federal, foundation, and industry funding, and her articles have appeared in leading academic journals. Massey earned her bachelor’s degree in management, master’s degree in industrial engineering, and doctorate in decision sciences and engineering systems from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The Thomas O’Brien Chair honors Isenberg’s Dean Emeritus, who led the school from 1987 until 2006.