Dean of the Harrison College of Business and Computing dies

Alberto Dávila, dean of Southeast Missouri State University's Harrison College of Business and Computing, died just before the 2025 spring semester.

Dávila began his time at SEMO in 2018, where, under his supervision at Harrison College of Business and Computing, 98% of graduates obtained employment or extended their education six months after graduation.

Before working at SEMO, Dávila was dean of graduate studies, research and administration at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley for three years and chairman of the Department of Economics and Finance at University of Texas-Pan American for 19 years, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Additionally, Dávila co-founded American Society for Hispanic Economists (ASHE), where he served as president, secretary and treasurer. In 2021, he was awarded the ASHE Service Award for his contributions to the organization.

According to a profile from American Economics Association's Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession, Dávila was a “social scientist at heart”, and he was drawn into economics because he wanted to fully understand “why people do what they do”.

The organization stated that as a child growing up in Texas and Mexico, Dávila was always around economics, he also found that everyone around him with a high-paying job had an economics degree.

In an email informing students of Dávila’s death, SEMO president Carlos Vargas wrote that Dávila was a valuable member of the SEMO community and a very respectable economist.