UW-Green Bay’s Prof. Vallari Chandna, honored as Young Professional of the Year | Press-Times
At the Greater Green Bay Chamber’s annual Future 15 and Current Young Professionals awards ceremony, Professor Vallari Chandna, a professor of management at the Austin E. Cofrin School of Business was selected as the Young Professional of the Year! Congratulations!
Chandna received her law degree in India in 2007, her MBA in organizational behavior and human resources in 2011 and her Ph.D in organizational theory in 2015 from the University of North Texas.
In an article in the Press-Times, Chandna had this to say:
“I came to UW-Green Bay as my first job right after [getting] my Ph.D in 2015, and I’ve been here since then,” said Chandna. “I’ve been promoted twice already, so I’ve gone from assistant professor to associate professor, and then associate to full. I love learning new things, and I feel very excited about learning new things, and I want to impart that excitement to others… I’m very excited about the Phoenix Leadership program that I helped start up last year. It’s essentially a professionalism and leadership training program for any UWGB student to apply to. It runs for an entire semester and teaches students about how to be better managers, how to be better leaders, more ethical leaders. I’m very passionate about sort of helping train the next generation of leaders… not just for the workforce, but to be ethical leaders, to be champions of sustainability, to be out there, to be responsible and strong leaders.
“As a woman of color, I do feel that I should be helping when I can because there were other people of color who sort of paved the path for me to have less struggles and less barriers than I would have 50 years ago. Having a lot of the barriers removed for me makes me appreciate all the work that people did before me, and I hope to be that kind of person to help pave a path for those after me.”
On top of teaching at the UW-Green Bay campus, Chandna serves on the advisory board for BIPOC R.I.S.E., a program at UW-Green Bay dedicated to providing Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and multicultural (BIPOC) students with resources for academic and professional support; the Institute of Women’s Leadership, an on-campus organization whose mission is to help women advance both professionally and personally at various stages in their career by providing education and networking opportunities; and on the Bias Incident Response Team, an organization on campus that handles reports centering on hate crime-related incidents.
Chandna also played a key role in the launch of the Phoenix Leadership program, a program at UW-Green Bay that teaches skills in professionalism and leadership.
“I am deeply honored to receive the Young Professional Award this year… As a university professor my primary goal has been to shape college students as future leaders, and I am passionate about helping them achieve their fullest potential while providing guidance, inspiration and support. So it’s truly rewarding to see them grow and succeed in their careers. Teaching and mentoring has been my passion for many years, and I am really privileged to have the opportunity to be the positive impact on the lives of our learners at UW-Green Bay. It is wonderful to know that I play some part in inspiring and guiding our learners to their goals and helping them achieve their fullest potential. Engaging with our local communities is something that’s very important to me and also a big part of our mission values at the Cofrin School of Business, and UW-Green Bay as a whole. My focus as a business professor is always around helping and supporting local professionals and local businesses in some way,” said Chandna after receiving her award.
