Honorary degree citation - Bruce Mallen
By: Clarence Bayne, December 2004
Mr. Chancellor, I have the honour to present to you Dr. Bruce Mallen, leading academic, economist, successful entrepreneur, generous mentor and donor.
A long-ago president of Yale University, A. Bartlett Giametti, once said: "Teachers believe they have a gift for giving: it drives them with the same irrepressible drive that drives others to create a work of art or a market or a building." That was before Bruce Mallen was born, so Giametti can be forgiven for not knowing that the irrepressible drive could be present in one man to do all of those things.
As Dean of Florida Atlantic University's College of Business, he emphasizes the need to offer his 6,400 students a rich tapestry of cross-disciplinary learning and life experience, drawing on the amazing diversity of his own past, and his vast network of international contacts. Dr. Mallen's academic experience is rooted here at Concordia: he received his higher education from our predecessor institution, Sir George Williams (his two bachelor degrees, one in Commerce, one in Philosophy), as well as graduate degrees from Columbia University, the University of Michigan and New York University. I am proud to say that he taught here at Sir George as a young part-time Lecturer then as an Associate Professor and founding Chairman of the Department of Marketing in the mid-1960s, and soon achieved, prior to age 30, the rank of full Professor and received tenure. He was a popular young professor, dedicated and energetic, authoring more than 75 publications and several books in his time with us. Some were considered definitive works in their field at the time. In the late 1960s he was the founding Director of the MBA program. In the early 1970s, while still a very young man, Bruce Mallen served as Interim Dean of our Faculty of Commerce and Administration, and played a key role in establishing our joint Ph.D. program. He was co-founder and ViceChair (Academic) of the Faculty's Consultative Committee.
Dr. Mallen went to FAU in Florida from Southern California, where his stellar career spanned many worlds: he has been a business economist, a commercial real estate developer, a motion picture producer, a financial and marketing consultant and an engaged community volunteer, advancing the common good.
As a developer, he built the $95-million (equivalent to $200 million in current Canadian dollars) Sony Pictures Plaza in Culver City.
As a producer, his credits include Doin' Time, La Traversée du Pacifique, Paradise, The High Country and Heartaches. (The latter had 11 Genie nominations.)
As a philanthropist, he and his wife have funded an annual Prize for Published Scholarly Contributions to Motion Picture Industry Studies. The Mallen Prize was first presented during the 1999 Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival to Dr. Johoshua Eliashberg, who is the Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing and Professor of Operations and Information Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1990, Dr. Mallen received the New York University Stern School of Business Alumni Achievement Award for Distinction in the Entertainment Industry. In 2000, he was recognized as the 2000 International Businessman of the Year by the Boca Chamber of Commerce. He continues to contribute to the community by serving as a director and volunteer of organizations such as InternetCoast, the DeSantis Center for Motion Picture Industry Studies and the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.
As the French playwright and author Jean Giraudoux once said, "There are no elements so diverse that they cannot be joined in the heart of a man." Dr. Bruce Mallen embodies this saying, for the greater enlightenment of his students, and to the benefit of all those whose lives he has touched.
Mr. Chancellor, on behalf of Senate and the Board of Governors, it is my privilege and an honour to present to you Bruce Mallen, so that you may confer upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.
