UHV professor has been part of business school’s growth
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| Massoud Metghalchi |
Big change often comes little by little. And for Massoud Metghalchi, a longtime finance professor in the University of Houston-Victoria School of Business Administration, the business school’s growth came one car trip at a time.
Metghalchi joined UHV in 1991 as one of seven or eight faculty members in the business school. With time came plans to offer online courses, but he and former dean Ron Sardessai urged the university to take things one step further. They pushed for UHV to expand class offerings into the Houston area.
“I was living in Victoria, and we would travel twice a week to teach classes in Sugar Land,” he said. “By the late 1990s, we were successful, and we offered many courses. As a result, many faculty members with the business school gradually moved there.”
Metghalchi moved to Houston in 1998.
The educator obtained his bachelor’s degree from France’s Institut National des Sciences Appliquées before moving on to Oklahoma City University, where he earned his Master of Business Administration. A doctorate in economics later followed from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater.
Metghalchi spent four years teaching at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, and then worked in consulting before joining UHV.
Throughout his 22 years at the university, he’s kept busy. He served a 10-year stint as chairman of the Accounting, Economics, Finance and Quantitative Method Department. Metghalchi received the 2008-2009 Research and Scholarly Activity Award for his work in topics such as stock markets, technical trading and world equity markets, and he has had numerous academic articles published. In 2013, he was the first faculty member to be named a Ron Sardessai Endowed Professor.
Busy or not, he still finds time for hobbies. Metghalchi said he enjoys taking to the tennis courts to play three to four times a week. The exercise offers a healthy break.
“Sitting behind a computer for 12 hours isn’t good,” he said with a laugh. “You need to get out and run a bit. Tennis helps. It makes me more productive.”
Metghalchi has enjoyed his more than two decades with UHV thus far and said it’s rewarding to know he played a role in growing the business school to what it is today with more than 40 faculty members, online courses and various degree plans.
He plans to continue on, doing much of what he does now – educating others and urging university growth.
“I love my job,” he said. “It’s challenging and interesting, and I am committed to engaging my students in critical thinking.”
The Faculty Feature is an online feature highlighting faculty members from each of the University of Houston-Victoria’s four schools. To nominate a faculty member, contact Paula Cobler, UHV director of marketing and communications, or call 361-570-4350.
The University of Houston-Victoria, located in the heart of the Coastal Bend region since 1973 in Victoria, Texas, offers courses leading to more than 80 academic programs in the schools of Arts & Sciences; Business Administration; and Education, Health Professions & Human Development. UHV provides face-to-face classes at its Victoria campus, as well as an instructional site in Katy, Texas, and online classes that students can take from anywhere. UHV supports the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Opportunities for All initiative to increase awareness about state colleges and universities and the important role they have in providing a high-quality and accessible education to an increasingly diverse student population, as well as contributing to regional and state economic development.
