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One of the most important people in the educational lives of students at UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management will now be important to business students around the world.

William Pierskalla, who has been dean of the Anderson School for the last three and a half years, has been selected to join the Graduate Management Admission Council’s board of directors. He will attend his first board meeting later this month.

The council, known as the GMAC, is responsible for administering the Graduate Management Aptitude Test or GMAT to about 250,000 students around the world each year. GMAT scores are used by business schools around the world as a large part of their basis for deciding which students to admit.

Administering the GMAT with integrity is the council’s most important responsibility, Pierskalla said.

“If we don’t do that right, a lot of people will not be treated fairly. We want to make sure everybody gets fair and honest treatment,” he said.

The naming of Pierskalla and four other business school heads from around the world to the council’s board marks a change for the GMAC, whose board used to be composed primarily of business school admissions officers. The council will now have a broader focus, and will make recommendations on such issues as business school curriculum.

Pierskalla, 62, and the other board members will be responsible for allocating the council’s $30 million-to-$40 million annual budget, approving research projects and setting the price students must pay to take the GMAT.

Pierskalla’s position on the board will last initially for three years, and can be renewed.

Before joining the Anderson School, Pierskalla was deputy dean at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked for 15 years.

Prior to that, he spent eight years as a professor at Northwestern University.

Daniel Taub