 | SAIS Reports
September - October 2007 | | Baker Hands Finance, Administration Reins to Kunka | The SAIS leadership team began the fall semester with a significant transition as Edward “Ted” Baker Jr. stepped down as senior associate dean for Finance and Administration after 14 years of distinguished service. Myron K. Kunka, a veteran U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) administrator, has assumed the position of associate dean.
Baker remains at SAIS in a parttime capacity where he is working on special projects and serving as executive director of the Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) for the 2007–08 academic year. Thomas Keaney, the institute’s longtime executive director, is acting director of the Strategic Studies Program while Professor Eliot Cohen is on leave of absence at the U.S. State Department.
“SAIS is a great school and gets better each year. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at SAIS and, in particular, working with our outstanding students, faculty and staff,” said Baker.
Throughout Baker’s tenure, he was tremendously dedicated to advancing the school’s mission and supporting the entire SAIS community. He served as chief financial officer with oversight of all financial and administrative functions, including technology, human resources, communications, facilities and the library. His legacy includes SAIS’s recent implementation of Hopkins-One, the university’s enterprise business management system; extensive renovations of the Nitze and Rome buildings; acquisition of new office space in the Bernstein-Offit Building; and a spectrum of critical technology up grades. Always a committed advocate for SAIS students, Baker was instrumental in helping expand the number of faculty positions academic programs, student fellowships and internships, and research centers at the school.
At the end of August, Kunka joined SAIS as the school’s new associate dean for Finance and Administration after completing an accom plished three-decade career at DOD. He held a range of senior financial management and business positions for DOD, most recently as associate director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) based at Ft. Belvoir, Va., where he was responsible for the Business Enterprise. Kunka directed a $2.9 billion budget portfolio and a 400- person staff.
Kunka’s DOD experience touched upon both international affairs andacademia. He participated in or led U.S. delegations to Arms Control Treaty cost talks with Russia and states of the former Soviet Union. Since DTRA’s mission includes international arms control and research and development components, he worked to build partnerships with the academic community and the government’s national laboratories.
“After a 32-year career in public service within the national defense community, I saw the position at SAIS as a unique opportunity to make a contribution in a different but equally important area of national concern—higher education. It is my hope to have a real impact at SAIS in helping to make the student experience as rich and rewarding as possible and in preparing the next generation of scholars and leaders in their various international endeavors.”
A native of Pennsylvania, Kunka has an M.A. in public administration with a focus on finance and international affairs and a B.A. in political science and economics from the University of Pittsburgh.
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