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Brian Burton, associate vice president for Academic Affairs and a professor of Management at Western Washington University, plans to retire on Aug. 31, 2022.

“By late next summer I will have had the honor of working with Dr. Brian Burton for 14 years, the last nine of those in the Provost’s Office. In his role as associate vice president for Academic Affairs, Dr. Burton has been instrumental in seeing the university through myriad initiatives and projects. From co-chairing the Strategic Planning Committee to his critical participation in the university’s response to the pandemic, he has served the university with dignity and thoughtfulness,” said Western Provost Brent Carbajal.

“I could write pages about the personal and professional debt of gratitude I owe Dr. Burton; I can’t imagine having done my job without him having done his with such skill and wisdom. I’ll simply assert here that when future scholars research the history of Western they will observe that Dr. Brian Burton’s positive impact on the institution has been varied, unique, important, and most certainly undeniable,” Carbajal said.

Burton has been at Western since 1995, after a one-year visiting professor appointment at Indiana University, and served as MBA program director, associate dean, and dean of the College of Business and Economics prior to his appointment as associate vice president.

“I have had the great privilege of working at Western for 26 years. Western is an outstanding university, but it’s a better place to work because of the people here who are dedicated to both the students who learn here and their fellow employees,” Burton said. “There are far too many people who I’ve worked with and for to name, but I appreciate everyone and look forward to our next year together. I do have to mention specifically the person without whom I likely would not still be at Western, and that is Brent Carbajal, and my appreciation for the personal and professional relationship we have.”

Burton earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism (1981), MBA in management (1985), and doctorate in strategic management and philosophy (1994), all from Indiana University. He has experience in newspaper, magazine, and radio, and ran his own video production company. Burton has published papers in major philosophical and empirical journals in the social issues in management field, including Business Ethics Quarterly, Journal of Business Ethics, Business & Society, Teaching Business Ethics, Journal of Management Inquiry, and International Journal of Organizational Analysis, and has presented papers at the Academy of Management, International Association for Business and Society, International Federation of Scholarly Associations of Management, Society for Business Ethics, Midwest Academy of Management, and Western Academy of Management conferences. He has also published cases and pedagogical papers in the Case Research Journal, Journal of Cases on Information and Technology, and Journal of

Management Education, presented at the North American Case Research Association and AACSB Teaching Business Ethics conferences, and received recognition for his methods of integrating ethics into the business curriculum.

Burton is married with two sons; an avid historian, he has published two books on the Civil War: “Extraordinary Circumstances,” a selection of the History Book Club, and “The Peninsula and Seven Days: A Battlefield Guide.”