Haub School of Business Dean Joseph A. DiAngelo, BS ’70, EdD, Announces He is Stepping Down as Dean

Dean Joseph A. DiAngelo Jr., BS ’70, EdD, is stepping down as dean after more than 27 years at the helm of Saint Joseph’s Erivan K. Haub School of Business. Upon his retirement, DiAngelo will be named dean emeritus of the Haub School and in the fall of 2028, he will return to the classroom as a professor of management. There, he will continue to teach and mentor the next generation of Hawks. DiAngelo will also continue important work with the office of advancement and alumni relations to build relationships with alumni, donors and corporate partners, and to drive philanthropic support for the business school.

DiAngelo has led a storied career in academia, one that has ranged from the high school classroom, to the chair of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business’s (AACSB) Board of Directors, to the dean of one of the most respected business schools in the country.

“For nearly three decades, Joe DiAngelo has been a defining force at Saint Joseph’s University and a visionary steward of the Erivan K. Haub School of Business,” says University President Cheryl A. McConnell, PhD. “As dean, Joe built the Haub School of Business into a premier, AACSB-accredited, nationally ranked school grounded in ethics and purpose. He is a model of servant leadership, vision and integrity, and his legacy will endure long after his retirement.”

During his decades-long tenure, the Haub School doubled its enrollment and earned national recognition for its industry-focused academic programs. His influence has extended well beyond campus, from leadership roles within AACSB to making the Haub School an early signatory of the UN’s Principles for Responsible Management Education.

But the path to the dean’s office started long before his time on Hawk Hill. At a young age, DiAngelo’s grandmother placed an incredible emphasis on education. “You’re going to college,” she told him. “You’re going to get an education because they can never take that away from you.”

More than three decades of serving as a dean of a business school later, it’s safe to say that DiAngelo fulfilled the potential his grandmother saw in him.

‘You’re Going to College’

DiAngelo grew up stocking the shelves of his father and uncle’s Italian grocery store in the Haddington section of West Philadelphia. A first-generation college student, he credits his parents and grandmother with imparting the importance of education to him. 

His family saw the path that education paved to a better life. Familial connection, fostering community relationships — these aspects of DiAngelo’s upbringing in an Italian immigrant household meshed seamlessly with his newfound respect for learning. He soon experienced firsthand the impact education can have on a student.

In 1962, the same year that DiAngelo started high school at the now-shuttered Saint Thomas More Catholic Boys' High School in West Philadelphia, his father’s grocery store closed its doors. His dad took a job with a supermarket chain called Food Fair as the manager of the grocery section. There, his dad trained students — some of whom had just graduated from Saint Joseph’s Academy of Food Marketing — on how to run retail and grocery stores.

A food marketing scholarship from Food Fair paved the way for DiAngelo to attend Saint Joseph’s as an undergraduate, and when he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1970, he returned immediately to Saint Thomas More to teach.

Family. Education. The same themes crop up again and again in DiAngelo’s story. Emboldened by success and burgeoned by his deep connection to his roots, DiAngelo sought to broaden his impact. This led him to Widener University, where he obtained his MBA in 1975, before he moved on to Temple University, where he obtained his doctorate in 1986.

In 1987, he became the dean of Widener University’s School of Business Administration, but that was only the beginning. 

The Growth of Haub

After serving as the dean of Widener University’s business school for 13 years, DiAngelo was appointed as the dean of Saint Joseph’s Erivan K. Haub School of Business in 2000 by then-SJU president Nicholas S. Rashford, S.J. DiAngelo had been a faculty member at SJU in the 1970s before moving on to Widener. 

By 2000, a former fellow faculty member from DiAngelo’s time at SJU, Daniel J. Curran, PhD, had become provost. A phone call from Curran convinced DiAngelo that the time was right to return to SJU. “It’s time to come home,” DiAngelo recalls Curran saying. 

DiAngelo was hired with a simple mandate, grow the business school. His mark on the Erivan K. Haub School of Business was recognized immediately by University leadership.

“Joe DiAngelo stands as a singular giant in Jesuit business education,” says former University President Timothy R. Lannon, S.J. “His leadership shaped the Haub School of Business into a nationally recognized institution.”

Under DiAngelo’s leadership, enrollment in the Haub School doubled at its height, growing from 1,300 to more than 2,600 undergraduate students, and from 600 to 1,200 graduate students.

Until just this year, that made Haub the largest Jesuit business school in the country. 

In part, the increase in enrollment was attributed to 12 new undergraduate programs and 7 new graduate programs, which began under DiAngelo’s tenure. He also placed specific importance on quality and reputation. 

“His vision for Haub transformed and raised Saint Joseph’s academic profile,” says John Smithson, BS ’68, MBA ’82, former chair of the University’s Board of Trustees and interim SJU president from 2011-2012. “Haub has since garnered countless awards for innovation and excellence.”

U.S. News & World Report has repeatedly ranked Haub's undergraduate business programs among the best in the nation, with specialty programs in accounting, analytics, insurance, management and marketing each earning top-25 rankings over the years. At the graduate level, Haub's online specialty MBA programs in business analytics, finance and marketing, along with its EMBA and MS in accounting, have also each earned top-25 national rankings in past editions of U.S. News & World Report.  

DiAngelo and his team saw the integral role data and data analytics would play across all business disciplines well before the rise of AI made those skills invaluable. 

With the success and impact that DiAngelo had at SJU, it’s no surprise that his skills were widely sought after. Business schools across the country, and even across the globe, could benefit from his unique perspective on education. And they did. 

DiAngelo, ever the collegial partner, found a way to share his expertise even wider.

From Hawk Hill to China 

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), describes itself as the global standard-setting body for business education. Its mission is to strengthen the world’s business schools through accreditation, thought leadership and transformative learning. Though DiAngelo’s work with AACSB began slightly before his time on Hawk Hill — he first joined in 1996 — the bulk of his accomplishments with the Association coincided with his time at Haub. 

Through the AACSB, DiAngelo has served as a consultant and chair of peer review teams for more than 100 schools worldwide. In this role, he provided guidance to business schools across an incredibly diverse institutional and regional spectrum. 

“Joe DiAngelo’s impact on business education is extraordinary,” says Stephanie Bryant, PhD, the executive vice president of AACSB International. ”Through decades of service to our accreditation, standards and peer review work, Joe helped shape AACSB into the truly global organization it is today.” 

DiAngelo provided guidance to more than 50 schools pursuing initial accreditation or reaccreditation. He counseled these schools on standards interpretation, Continuous Improvement Review and Self-Evaluation Report preparation, and strategies for addressing accreditation challenges.

DiAngelo’s commitment and leadership made him an integral contributor to AACSB’s Board of Directors, most notably including an appointment as chair from 2012-2013. The organization — which includes deans from the best business schools in the world — credits DiAngelo with influencing the strategic direction and governance of the AACSB at the highest level.

Beyond AACSB governance, his expertise was sought by the Council for Higher Education, where he testified in support of AACSB’s role in accreditation. This knowledge was gained from his leadership on more than 50 accreditation visits, during most of which he served as the peer review team chair. This work took DiAngelo around the world, visiting schools in Europe, Africa, South America, China and Australia.

For these immense contributions, DiAngelo was awarded AACSB’s inaugural Global Impact Award in April 2026.

“But his greatest legacy may be the people he has influenced along the way,” adds Bryant. “I am fortunate to be one of them. Joe’s friendship, counsel, generosity and example have made me a better leader and a better person. I know countless others around the world would say the same.”

A Legacy of Family and Education

At an inflection point like this, the natural reaction is to look backward and reflect. To ask the big questions about “legacy” and “impact.” 

For DiAngelo, that legacy is a propensity for looking forward. Always innovating, always adapting, and always from a starting position of how best can the University serve its students. 

“His greatest contribution,” says Smithson, “has been to have enriched the lives of our students with successful careers in the Jesuit tradition of serving others.”

Mark Casale, BS ’86, a former trustee and current member of the Haub Board of Visitors agrees. “During my eight years as a trustee, I saw him go above and beyond for many students, including my two daughters,” he says. “Joe is a gem of a person and lives the Jesuit ideal of caring for the whole student.”

The evidence for this is in the creation of the Dean’s Leadership Program, a program available to students throughout the University that exposes them to leadership in the Ignatian tradition; it’s in the initiation of the Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, which assists disabled veterans in launching new business ventures; and it’s in the Arrupe Center for Business Ethics, which infuses ethics throughout the entire business curriculum for both undergraduate and graduate students, while providing fellowships to faculty to support research in business ethics across all business disciplines.

The most telling example of DiAngelo’s guiding educational ethos and his lasting impact on SJU, though, comes in the form of his response when asked what accomplishments he is most proud of. The answer is more than the aforementioned accolades, more than the fact that he currently holds the title of “longest serving business dean in the country.” 

No, one of DiAngelo’s proudest achievements is the success of his former students. 

“I’ve gotten calls from students who I taught years ago,” he says. They just wanted to stay in touch. One even wanted to let DiAngelo know that he was retiring. An entire career later, this student still thought of his former professor. 

“They’ve had great careers. Successful. Great families. Kids who have come here and gone on to do great things,” he says. “And, ultimately, that’s what’s important.”

That is DiAngelo. Someone with a passion for education and the impact it can have on someone’s life, someone who has a deep appreciation for their roots while always keeping an eye toward the future. No wonder, then, that though he is stepping down from the deanship of the transformed Haub School of Business, DiAngelo’s journey is leading him right back into the classroom to teach. 

Right back to where it all began.

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