Jim Murdock is an experienced higher education administrator, with substantial financial acumen gained over 40 years of diversified management positions in central administration and academic units. Murdock began his higher education management career at the regional campus of the University of Michigan-Flint and subsequently served as the Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Dean for Finance and Planning for the Ross School of Business for 23 years, retiring in 2010. Since he retired from the Ross Business School he has continued to work in higher education. He recently completed a two-year assignment with the Registry of Peabody, Massachusetts as the Interim Vice President for Finance and Administration of Marygrove College in Detroit, Michigan. In that role, he was the chief financial and administrative officer for the campus supervising finance, business operations, budget, human resources, facilities management and public safety, and information technology. He has also served in interim assignments as the Vice Chancellor for Fiscal Affairs and Administration at the University of Indiana-South Bend and at Antioch College as Interim CFO/Controller.
Murdock is a collaborative financial manager who was a key participant in the design and transition of the UM budget system from a traditional incremental model to a responsibility-centered management process in the early 90s. He also chaired a university-wide Human Relations task force that initiated a restructuring of the UM staff classification and compensation system. He led the start-up operations of the William Davidson Institute, an independent 501c-3 organization focused on actionable business and public policy initiatives in emerging market economies.
Earlier in his career, Murdock participated in a consulting project with the Phelps-Stokes Foundation that visited several of the historically black colleges to perform a management inventory for institutional assessment and administration improvement projects. His knowledge of federal student financial aid programs led to consulting engagements leading to the growth and development of the campuses of InterAmerican University of Puerto Rico.
Murdock received his BA in economics from Muskingum University and his MBA in accounting from the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania. He completed all of the doctoral coursework at the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan. He has taught introduction to accounting courses for several institutions, and has a reputation for making complex financial matters understandable by non-financial colleagues.
Throughout his career he has been a member of the Society for College and University Planning. He has served multiple terms as a Board Member and Treasurer for the SCUP organization, and was the 2004 recipient of SCUP’s Distinguished Service Award.
Jim and his wife Lori live in Brighton, Michigan and are the proud parents of five college graduates. They report that all five learned the words of the Victors before attending kindergarten. Six grandchildren now complete the families!