When Sally Schultz ’74 (Anthropology) first transferred to SUNY New Paltz, she could not have foreseen the instrumental role she would eventually play in helping mold the School of Business into its current form.
But after earning advanced degrees in accounting from SUNY Albany (M.S.) and Penn State University (Ph.D.), Schultz was a natural fit to return to the College to support its new accounting program.
“When I returned to New Paltz as a junior faculty member, the Department of Business was just emerging as separate entity calved-off from the Department of Economics,” she said. “I was one of the first business faculty members to take up residence in van den Berg Hall.”
Schultz soon became a vital figure within the School of Business as a whole. She was frequently involved in planning and launching new course curricula and undergraduate and graduate programs of study; played a key role in the School’s pursuit of Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation; and, more recently, served a term as interim associate dean.
“I am proud to have been a part of the faculty generation that ‘built’ the SUNY New Paltz School of Business,” Schultz said. “In this team effort, the relationships I developed with many wonderful colleagues have been an important part of my working life. I now eagerly look forward to seeing them lead the School into the future.”
Schultz’s commitment to the success of the School of Business found its purest expression through her work with the many students who passed through her classes.
“Teaching and mentoring is certainly the most rewarding part of being a faculty member,” she said. “The relatively small size of the New Paltz campus was important in helping to foster close student-faculty relationships. I have been very proud to see my students go onto successful careers in CPA firms and corporations, as well as to assume positions in finance and administration on our own campus.”
Schultz will continue to participate in accounting conferences following her retirement from New Paltz, and she looks forward to spending more time on the scholarship she has pursued with fellow School of Business faculty member Joan Hollister, studying archival accounting records to document business activities in Ulster County during the period from 1720-1850.
“With the new freedom that retirement will bring,” she said, “I am looking forward returning to this scholarship, potentially with the goal of tying together the stories of the various individuals and businesses that we have already written about for an audience with more general historical interests.”
