Emeritus – Management

Peter F. Sorensen, Jr., Ph.D., is professor in the doctoral program. He was instrumental in developing one of the first master’s-level programs in O.D. in 1967, and one of the first Ph.D. programs in O.D. in 1996. He has authored more than 300 articles, papers and books, including a number of best paper selections. His work has appeared in the Academy of Management Journal, Group and Organization Studies, Leadership and Organization Development Journal, Journal of Management Studies, and Organization and Administrative Sciences, among others. In 1996, he was guest editor of a double issue of the OD Practitioner on Appreciative Inquiry. He was the invited guest editor for the first New Millennium issues for both the OD Journal and the OD Practitioner. Sorensen’s recent publications are “Appreciative Inquiry” (with Cooperrider et al, 2005), “Managers Learning in Action” (with Coghlan, et al, 2004), “Perspectives on Organization Behavior and Global and International OD” with Cooperrider, Head, Mathys and Preston. He has worked with more than 100 organizations including the U.S. Food and Drug Agency, U.S. Steel, DuPage County Health Department, Commonwealth Edison, and CNA.

Sorensen, a Naperville resident, has authored more than 300 articles, papers and books, including a number of best paper selections. He has consulted with more than 100 organizations including the U.S. Food and Drug Agency, U.S. Steel, the DuPage County Health Department, Commonwealth Edison, Abbott Laboratories and CNA Insurance.

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“Over the decades, Peter has taught more than 10,000 master’s level and doctoral students,” said Donald Taylor, Ph.D., provost and assistant vice president of Academic Affairs at Benedictine. “He is truly an inspirational leader.”

He has been chair of the Organization Development and Change Division of the Academy of Management, and served on the editorial boards for the OD Journal, the OD Practitioner, CCASTD’s Training Today, and is a board member of the Revue Sciences de Gestion (French), and the Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies. He was an invited, distinguished scholar to the first Academy of Management Conference on Global Change. In 1993, he received the “Outstanding OD Consultant of the Year Award” from the OD Institute. He earned a Ph.D. in Management from the Stuart School of Management, Illinois Institute of Technology.

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Peter Sorensen, Ph.D., who established one of the most distinguished doctoral programs in Organization Development in the world named co-recipients of the Judith Ann Whinfrey Distinguished Faculty Award for Leadership by Benedictine University.

Whinfrey was a member of the Board of Directors of Hewitt Associates, chair of the Board of Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, a board member of S&C Electric Company of Chicago
and a trustee of Benedictine University until her passing in 2010.