Brooke Envick
Bio
Brooke R. Envick, Ph.D., serves as Dean of the College of Business and Technology at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Following a national search, she was selected to lead the college and officially transitioned into the role on July 1, 2025, succeeding Dean Tim Jares.
A Loper alumna and third-generation UNK faculty member, Dean Envick joined the faculty in fall 2017, continuing a proud family legacy at the university. Her grandfather, Maynard Envick, retired from Industrial Arts in 1976, and her father, Don Envick, founder of the Industrial Distribution program, retired in 2009. Dean Envick earned both her Bachelor of Science in Management and Master of Business Administration from UNK before completing her doctorate in Organizational Behavior at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She spent nearly 20 years teaching at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, before returning to her alma mater.
Prior to her appointment as dean, Envick served as Associate Dean of Faculty and Strategic Initiatives and as a professor in the Department of Management. In these roles, she led college-wide efforts in curriculum development, faculty engagement, accreditation alignment, and strategic innovation, while maintaining a strong commitment to student-centered and experiential learning.
As dean, Envick provides strategic leadership across academic programs, workforce development, and industry engagement. She is the architect of the Grow the Good Life initiative, a comprehensive workforce development and talent-pipeline strategy designed to strengthen alignment among education, employers, and regional communities. Through this work, she collaborates closely with K–12 partners, college faculty and staff, industry leaders, and alumni, to advance experiential learning, career readiness, and the strategic development of Nebraska’s next generation of business, technology, and industry leaders.
Dean Envick is also deeply committed to building a strong, values-driven organizational culture. She launched the Above & Beyond initiative to intentionally recognize faculty and staff who exemplify the college’s core values of growth, respect, excellence, authenticity, and transformation, reinforcing a culture of shared purpose, accountability, and appreciation.
In addition, Envick is currently leading the development of the Constellis Collective Intelligence System (CCIS), a human-centered sense-making platform designed to help academic and organizational leaders better understand and navigate complex, multi-stakeholder systems. This work integrates leadership judgment, human insight, and structured analysis to support more informed decision-making in workforce development, institutional strategy, and cross-sector collaboration.
A nationally recognized educator, Dean Envick is known for her active, experiential teaching style that emphasizes creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Her research focuses on entrepreneurship and small business management and complements her classroom instruction. She is a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, and her scholarship has appeared in journals including the Global Journal of Entrepreneurship, Journal of the Academy of Business and Education, Global Journal of Pedagogy, and the International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal.
Her scholarship has earned multiple Distinguished Research Awards from the Institute for Global Business Research and the Academy of Entrepreneurship, and her work was featured in UNK’s New Frontiers magazine in 2022. She has also received numerous teaching honors, including the College of Business and Technology Outstanding Teaching Award, the Outstanding Educator Award for Innovative and Creative Teaching from the Academy of Educational Leadership, and the Leland Holdt/Security Mutual Life Distinguished Faculty Award, the highest faculty honor at UNK.
Dean Envick is actively engaged with AACSB International through accreditation and leadership development efforts, contributing to continuous improvement initiatives and advancing best practices in business education.
Through her leadership, Dean Envick is focused on strengthening academic excellence, cultivating a high-performance culture, and positioning the College of Business and Technology as a regional and national leader in education, workforce development, and applied innovation.
Education
Ph.D., Organizational Behavior, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
M.B.A., University of Nebraska - Kearney
B.S., Management, University of Nebraska - Kearney
