Erik Rolland

Dr. Erik Rolland most recently served as the 2nd President of the University of the Bahamas. As an effective academic innovator and transformational change agent, Rolland is widely known for his commitment to expanding student opportunity and social mobility, academic innovation, and promoting universities’ civic and business engagement to better serve society.
Before coming to the University of the Bahamas, Dr. Rolland spent 25 years in faculty and leadership positions within the University of California, and six years with Cal Poly Pomona – two of the world's most impactful public university systems. Among others, he has held dean positions in business, engineering, and other professional schools, and he has served as the university’s senior international officer. Erik is widely known as an institution builder, having led the development of the Heckman Center for International Entrepreneurship at the University of California, Riverside, and helped build the Ernest & Julio Gallo School of Management at the University of California at Merced, where he also led the strategic visioning for the campus. At Cal Poly Pomona, Erik led strategic transformation – most notably the revisioning of the College of Business Administration and the formation of the new College of Professional and Global Education. His prior experience also includes serving as a professor in the Accounting & MIS department of the Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University, where he also received his Ph.D.
Dr. Rolland has served as an IBM Faculty Fellow, a fellow with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, a University of California Regents’ Faculty Fellow and a Research Fellow with the Norwegian Research Council for Science and Humanities. Erik has held visiting professorial positions at universities in the USA, China, Australia, Canada, and South Korea.
Erik’s research is in the areas of information systems, economics, analytics/AI, leadership, and strategy, and he has published over 100 articles in leading academic journals. Among other things, his research has had impact on satellite service utilization, design of mobile phone networks, as well as on reverse logistic systems.